Banking

Budapest / Reuters Hungary’s state-owned MKB Bank posted a loss of 76.4 billion forints ($277.3 million) last year, down from 148.1 billion in 2014, as the costs of spinning off a large chunk of distressed debt still pushed it deep into the red, it said on Wednesday. Last year MKB disposed of a gross 213 billion forints worth of bad ...

Warsaw / Reuters Polish bluechip lender Alior Bank plans to raise up to 2.2 billion zlotys ($587 million) from a rights issue of shares to finance its flagged takeover of local rival BPH and strengthen its capital base, it said on Wednesday. Alior, controlled via a 25.2 percent stake by Polish state-run insurer PZU, wants its shareholders to approve the ...

Sydney / AFP Westpac Bank has vowed to “vigorously defend” itself against allegations it manipulated the interbank lending rate after Australia’s corporate regulator launched legal action against the financial giant, the second case in a lengthy investigation. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said it began legal action against Westpac in the federal court for manipulating a key market ...

Muscat / Reuters Oman’s central bank has increased the maximum amount of government securities which banks can hold to 45 percent of their net worth from 30 percent, central bank and commercial banking sources said. The move will make it easier for the government to sell debt as it steps up bond issues to finance a big budget deficit caused ...

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 ...