Banking

  Reuters The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) will elect a new president next week during its annual meeting to be held in Jakarta, replacing long-serving President Ahmad Mohamed Ali, the Jeddah-based multilateral lender said. Saudi Arabia, the IDB’s largest shareholder, has nominated former Haj Minister Bandar Hajjar for the post, whose candidacy was endorsed by the outgoing IDB president. The ...

  Reuters The Lebanese economy is expected to grow 2 percent this year and deposits in Lebanese banks are forecast to rise by 4.5 to 5 percent, or around $8 billion, Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh said this week. Salameh, speaking at an economic conference in Beirut, described the economic growth as acceptable, adding that the International Monetary Fund had ...

  Reuters Bahrain’s Bank ABC is set to appoint Christopher Wilmot to head its treasury department, sources aware of the matter said. Wilmot will start at the Bahraini lender next month, according to two of the sources, with one saying his title would be group head of treasury and financial markets. The current group treasurer at Bank ABC, John Eldredge, ...

  Bloomberg Nedbank Group Ltd., the South African lender being spun off from parent Old Mutual Plc, said it’s in talks that may lead to the acquisition of a Kenyan bank as it seeks to benefit from an economic growth rate that’s double the average for the rest of the continent. “Within the next 12 months we’ll certainly be looking ...

  Shanghai / AFP China’s bank lending fell sharply in April, the central bank said, as the government refrained from boosting credit amid concerns over growing risk. Bank loans reached 555.6 billion yuan ($85.2 billion) in April, down sharply from 1.37 trillion yuan in March, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) said. The latest figure missed a median forecast of 1.3 ...

  Bloomberg Swift, the inter-bank messaging system embroiled in one of the largest cyber heists in history, warned customers that hackers have struck again, attacking a commercial bank client that it didn’t name. The details of a second hack follow a cyber-theft in February, when more than $80 million was stolen from Bangladesh’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of ...

  Bloomberg Credit Agricole SA reported a 71 percent drop in first-quarter profit, hurt by a decline in consumer lending margins and trading revenue as the bank began a reorganisation to streamline its capital structure. Net income declined to €227 million ($259 million) from €784 million a year earlier, Credit Agricole, based near Paris, said in a statement on Thursday. ...

  Reuters Bahrain-based Al Baraka Banking Group will establish a banking unit in Morocco once it receives approval from local authorities, the Islamic lender said in a statement, adding it aimed to launch the new business soon. The bank, which has operations across the Middle East, Asia and Africa, said entry to the Morocco market would significantly help diversify assets ...

  BLOOMBERG Nations that have adopted a negative interest rate policy to spur economic growth face the possibility of weakening their banks, according to Arunma Oteh, vice president and treasurer of the World Bank. “We still have a global economy that is very fragile,” Oteh said in an interview in Tokyo. “What you find where you have had the expansionary ...

  Lagos / AFP Nigeria’s central bank said it was investigating some banks in connection with slush funds allegedly set up by a former oil minister to rig last year’s elections. The Central Bank of Nigeria said it was “fully aware and indeed a part of the ongoing investigation of certain financial transactions in some banks by law enforcement authorities”. ...