Banking

  Sydney / BLOOMBERG Australia’s central bank forecast core inflation is unlikely to reach the bottom of its target this year and will probably only do so in the ensuing two years as the developed-world disinflation quandary emerges Down Under. The central bank, in its quarterly statement, left estimated economic growth at 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent this year and ...

  Milan / AFP Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo reported earnings ahead of market expectations as bad loan risks on its books diminished. Net profit fell 24.2 percent in the first quarter to 806 million euros ($920.4 million), which compares with forecasts by analysts of around 708 million. Operating profit dropped on the back of falling interest income and earnings from ...

  MILAN / AP-BLOOMBERG Italian prosecutors are investigating top former Deutsche Bank management on suspicion of market manipulation related to the sale of €7 billion of Italian government bonds in 2011. News agency ANSA reported that financial police have taken depositions and seized documents in Deutsche Bank’s Italian headquarters in Milan in recent days. Deutsche Bank, based in Frankfurt, Germany, ...

  Bloomberg The Belarusian central bank warned that the financial industry is under increasing strain from a buildup in overdue loans as company profits suffer during an economic contraction. “We are facing an accelerated manifestation of accumulated credit risks,” central bank Chairman Pavel Kallaur said at a news conference in the capital, Minsk. “The difficult situation in the real sector ...

  Bloomberg Societe Generale SA reported an unexpected increase in first-quarter profit, boosted by consumer banking, and announced plans to deepen cost cuts at its investment bank. The shares jumped. Net income rose to 924 million euros ($1.06 billion) from 868 million euros a year earlier, the Paris-based bank said on Wednesday. That beat the 765 million-euro average estimate of ...

  Bloomberg Prashant Jain, who oversees $27 billion at HDFC Asset Management Co., took home Rs.61.7 million ($931,000) in salary and Rs.163 million in stock options in the year ended on March 31, figures posted on the fund’s website for investors show. ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co., the second-largest fund, paid its Chief Investment Officer S. Naren Rs.48 million, while ...

  Bloomberg HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA is appealing a HK$605 million ($78 million) fine imposed by Hong Kong’s securities regulator in connection with its sales of structured products including Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.-related notes between 2003 and 2008. The appeal hearing began in the city on Wednesday after the Securities and Futures Commission previously alleged failures in internal controls ...

  Paris / AFP France’s BNP Paribas has became the first European major bank to post a profit rise for the first quarter, delighting analysts and sending its shares sharply higher. Net profit grew by over 10 percent year-on-year to 1.8 billion euros ($2.1 billion) for the first three months of the year, thanks to one-off gains but also to ...

  New York / AFP Erste Group Bank AG, Austria’s biggest bank, beat analyst expectations for first-quarter profit as a sharp drop in bad debt provisions outweighed declining lending and fee revenue. Net income came in at 274.7 million euros ($316 million) in the three months through March compared with 226 million euros a year earlier, the Vienna-based bank said in ...

  Madrid / AFP Spanish banks, which slimmed down after a property boom went bust in 2008, are once again closing branches and slashing jobs as their profitability is hit by stiff competition. The country’s three biggest lenders — Santander, BBVA and CaixaBank — last week all posted lower first quarter net profits, especially in Spain, which is grappling with ...