Banking

  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 ...

  Berlin / Reuters Restoring German banks’ financial ties with Iran will take time given debt owed to Berlin and transparency concerns, the head of the German banking association said, dampening expectations before a business summit in Tehran. Iran owes Germany about €500 million ($569 million) under so-called Hermes covers, a German government arrangement that protects German companies if foreign ...

    Madrid / AFP Spain’s state-rescued lender Bankia has posted a 3.3-percent fall in first-quarter net profit due in part to lower interest rates and fierce competition which hurt its margins. The bank reported a net profit of 237 million euros during the first three months of the year, below analysts’ forecasts of 246 million euros, according to a Factset ...

  Bloomberg Italy’s Atlante, the government-orchestrated banking fund, raised € 4.25 billion ($4.9 billion) from 67 domestic and foreign institutions to help the country’s lenders build capital and reduce bad debt. Atlante, which targets a 6 percent annual return from investments, will invest as much as 70 percent of its money in capital increases by Italian banks, Quaestio Capital Management, ...

  London / AFP Britain’s state-rescued Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) said net losses more than doubled in the first quarter owing to an exceptional payment back to the government. Losses after tax in the first three months of the year stood at £968 million ($1.4 billion, 1.2 billion euros), which compared with a net loss of £459 million in ...

  CAIRO / Reuters Egypt’s Commercial International Bank (CIB) approved a two-week extension for an offer by Beltone Financial to acquire its subsidiary CI Capital, CI Capital’s Chief Executive Officer Mahmoud Atalla told reporters. “CIB approved Beltone’s request to extend the period of the offer to acquire CI Capital by two weeks, ending on May 12,” Atalla said. In February, ...

  CAIRO / Reuters Egypt’s central bank kept its key interest rates unchanged in its first decision since it raised rates by 150 basis points last month. The bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) kept the overnight deposit rate at 10.75 percent and the overnight lending rate at 11.75 percent, it said in a statement. Egypt has been struggling to restore economic ...

  Bloomberg ICICI Bank Ltd., India’s second-largest lender by assets, reported the biggest drop in quarterly profit in at least 15 years after setting aside reserves on top of bad-loan provisions to cushion future defaults. Net income fell 76 percent to 7 billion rupees ($105 million), or 1.2 rupees a share, for the three months ended March 31, from 29.2 ...

  Reuters Saudi Arabia’s central bank, which serves as the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, reported a fall of $6 billion in net foreign assets in March as low oil prices took their toll. Net foreign assets held by the central bank dropped by 1.0 percent from the previous month to 2.17 trillion riyals ($579 billion) in March, central bank data ...