Banking

  BLOOMBERG Commerzbank AG fell as much as 9.4 percent in Frankfurt, the most in almost three months, after market turmoil and a squeeze to margins hurt sales and halved first-quarter profit. Net income fell to 163 million euros ($188 million) from 338 million euros a year earlier, the Frankfurt-based company said in a statement on Tuesday. Analysts expected profit ...

  Sydney / AFP ANZ Bank’s interim net profit slumped 22 percent on Tuesday on the back of impairment and restructuring charges, but the result was welcomed by the market as the lender repositions for a challenging future. The Australia and New Zealand Banking (ANZ) Group’s result for the six months to March 31 came in at Aus$2.73 billion (US$2.0 ...

  Bloomberg UBS Group AG said first-quarter profit dropped 64 percent, missing analyst estimates, as market turbulence eroded earnings at the wealth-management and securities units. The shares plunged. Net income declined to 707 million Swiss francs ($741 million) from 1.98 billion francs a year earlier, the Zurich-based bank said on Tuesday. That fell short of the 735 million-franc average estimate ...

  Sydney / AFP Australian banking heavyweight Westpac posted a three percent rise in interim net profit on Monday as it battles regulatory changes and rising bad loans, disappointing investors who savaged the share price. Westpac’s Aus$3.70 billion (US$2.81 billion) result in the six months to March 31 kicked off a week of half-yearly reporting from the nation’s top lenders, ...

  DOHA / Reuters Qatar National Bank (QNB), the Middle East’s largest lender by assets, said it had taken immediate steps to ensure customers would not suffer any financial loss after a security breach last week exposed personal data of thousands of clients. “We are taking every measure to protect the privacy of our customers and have engaged an external third ...

  Bloomberg Hackers are likely to get away with about $70 million of Bangladesh’s foreign reserves after a brazen cyber-attack against the South Asian nation, according to Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith. The Philippines — where most of the funds ended up — will probably recover as much as $10 million of the $81 million stolen in February from ...

  Bloomberg Spanish banks are gobbling up a growing slice of Portugal’s financial industry, taking advantage of the country’s halting recovery from Europe’s debt crisis. CaixaBank SA, a Barcelona-based giant, is the latest pursuer, offering about 900 million euros ($1 billion) last month for the portion of Oporto-based Banco BPI SA that it doesn’t own. The deal would mark the ...

  Reuters Qatar’s central bank will offer 2 billion riyals ($550 million) of Treasury bills in an auction this week, according to an invitation sent to banks. Bids will be made on Monday while the results of the auction will be announced on Tuesday. The offer comprises 1 billion riyals of three-month bills, 500 million riyals of six-month bills and ...

  Bloomberg China Construction Bank Corp., the nation’s second-largest lender, reported a 1.4 percent gain in first-quarter profit from a year earlier even as bad loans climbed. Net income rose to 68 billion yuan ($10.5 billion) in the three months ended March 31, the Beijing-based lender said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange. Nonperforming loans jumped to ...

  Ankara / Reuters Turkey’s central bank will promote the head of its markets division to deputy governor, officials announced, elevating another banker with Islamic finance credentials to its policy-setting committee. Erkan Kilimci is due to be named as one of the bank’s four deputy governors shortly, the officials said, declining to be identified because the information has not yet ...