Banking

New Delhi / AFP India’s central bank on Tuesday cut its key interest rate to a five-year low of 6.5 percent citing a dip in inflation, and signalled there could be further rate cuts to come. In a widely expected move, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said it would lower the benchmark repo rate, the level at which it ...

Bloomberg France is planning to join the Netherlands in taking steps toward greater transparency in the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) 80 billion euros-a-month ($91 billion) quantitative-easing (QE) programme, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plans. In the first disclosure of its kind in 13 months of QE, the Dutch Central Bank has listed price and demand figures ...

Shanghai / Reuters China’s banking regulator said on Tuesday that lenders should tighten risk controls in their overseas branches, after some of the country’s top banks have come under foreign scrutiny for alleged compliance failings. Banks should clarify the responsibilities of staff in overseas branches, strengthen judgment of risk and make sure adequate checks are made on clients, the China ...

Reuters Bank Muscat has received all regulatory approvals to open a representative office in Iran, Oman’s largest lender said in a bourse filing on Tuesday. “The bank is in the process of registering the representative office and expects it to open later in 2016,” Bank Muscat said. On February 25, the bank said it planned to open an office in ...

Tokyo / Reuters Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda stressed on Tuesday his readiness to expand monetary policy still further, saying that market moves would be key factors the central bank would examine in deciding when and how it might next expand stimulus. Kuroda maintained his optimism that Japan’s economy was recovering moderately, despite last week’s ‘tankan’ survey that showed ...

Tokyo / Reuters Japan’s biggest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), is on the lookout for acquisition opportunities in the US and Indonesia as it pursues its goal of becoming a global financial powerhouse, the head of its core unit said. “As a global commercial bank, the US and Asia are our base,” said Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) president ...

Bloomberg More bankers working at foreign firms in Japan expect their salaries will increase this year, despite their outlook for a weakening economy, volatile financial markets and a stronger yen, according to a survey by Morgan McKinley. About 58 percent of respondents received an indication from their employers that their base salary will rise in 2016, compared with 42 percent ...

Bloomberg For Europe’s banks, rising capital requirements represent a huge cost. But for one Swedish firm, the post-crisis world order is proving a goldmine. Hoist Finance, which helps international banks restructure debt by acquiring or managing non-performing unsecured consumer loans, anticipates stricter capital demands will force more banks to shed their problem loans in an effort to remove the costliest ...

Oslo / Reuters Norway’s biggest bank DNB must provide a written explanation of its policy of helping clients set up offshore companies in the Seychelles, the Norwegian industry minister said in a statement on Monday. “DNB says this should not have happened and that the bank should not have participated. That I agree to,” Trade and Industry Minister Monica Maeland ...

Madrid / Reuters At the end of a tough quarter, the fraught debate over how policymakers should tackle the world’s economic woes gets another airing in the coming week as central banks on both sides of the Atlantic publish minutes. Solid growth in US employment and an unexpected manufacturing uptick in China in March will have provided some comfort, but ...