Banking

  Bloomberg Nigeria plans to delay new capital rules for banks as regulators in Africa’s biggest economy follow fellow oil producer Kazakhstan in trying to boost lending and avoid a recession. The Central Bank of Nigeria in 2014 ordered the country’s lenders it considered too big to fail to boost minimum capital adequacy ratios to 16 percent from 15 percent ...

  Bloomberg Two decades ago Europe’s asset-backed securities (ABS) market was in its infancy. It has not aged gracefully. On a panel at the annual gathering of securitisation bankers in Barcelona, the industry’s old guard reminisced about how things were when they met for the very first time in Cork, Ireland in 1996. Securitisation, a technique for transforming groups of ...

  Bloomberg Two centuries after its creation, Norway’s central bank finds itself without any guide in history to help it tackle the challenges ahead. It has largely been forced to follow its bigger peers down a rabbit hole of ever lower interest rates to counter a ‘long-term’ global trend of slower growth, a global savings glut and weakening productivity, according ...

  Bloomberg The Federal Reserve’s liftoff from near-zero interest rates in December sparked angst over how quickly the central bank would start whittling down its US$2.5 trillion hoard of Treasuries. It turns out that investors in the world’s biggest bond market had little cause for concern. The weaker-than-forecast labour report for May wiped out bets that policy makers would follow ...

  Bloomberg India’s state-run banks will need more capital than promised by the government to boost credit growth as they grapple with bad loans of more than 4.7 trillion rupees (US$70 billion), the head of the nation’s largest lender said. “If you really want credit to speed up and infrastructure financing to take center stage then more capital is required ...

  Bloomberg Croatia’s central bank plans to raise its 2016 growth forecast next month, Governor Boris Vujcic said, acknowledging a faster-than-expected economic expansion that has helped temper the risks of a political crisis threatening to bring down the government. The central bank expects no review to the newest EU member state’s budget this year and fiscal consolidation will continue, said ...

  Bloomberg PPC Ltd is in the final stages of negotiating a 2 billion rand (SU$132 million) bridging guarantee facility, seeking to shore up its balance sheet after a credit-rating cut and warnings of a possible liquidity squeeze. South Africa’s biggest listed cement maker is also working on a plan to raise 3 billion rand to 4 billion rand and ...

  Bloomberg Banks took 2.46 billion pounds (US$3.5 billion) in the first of three extra liquidity operations the Bank of England is holding this month to shore up funding as the UK considers its future in the European Union. Governor Mark Carney is offering the cash — in exchange for collateral — as a precaution to help ensure the smooth ...

  Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. has joined USA rivals including Bank of America Corp and USA Bancorp in letting customers transfer money between the lenders in real time, challenging ventures including PayPal Holdings Inc’s Venmo. JPMorgan, whose Chase QuickPay product handled US$20 billion in peer-to-peer transfers last year, began offering the service after customers requested it, said Barry Sommers, ...

  Bloomberg If Thomas Jordan finds himself in the midst of a foreign-exchange tsunami this month, it won’t be of his own making. In January 2015, the Swiss National Bank shook markets when it gave up its cap on the franc. Now central bankers the world over are casting a nervous eye toward London amid fear the UK’s departure from ...