Banking

Bloomberg State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, announced loan rates based on marginal cost of funds as the nation’s central bank pushes for faster pass-through of cuts in its borrowing benchmark. The Mumbai-based bank set charges for seven maturities, varying from 8.95 percent for overnight lending to 9.35 percent for three years, a statement posted Monday on its ...

Bloomberg Banque International Pour l’Afrique au Congo (BIAC) limited cash withdrawals after a rearrangement of credit lines from the central bank in the Democratic Republic of Congo forced the lender to shut its branches last week. BIAC, as the bank is known, negotiated an emergency credit line with the Banque Centrale du Congo of as much as 16 billion Congolese ...

Frankfurt / AFP The German central bank, or Bundesbank, is worried that private savers may soon face negative interest rates on their bank accounts, board member Andreas Dombret warned in an interview. “The banks and savings banks I speak to want to do everything to avoid that,” Dombret told Der Spiegel news magazine in its online edition. “But the longer ...

Bloomberg PT Bank Mandiri, Indonesia’s largest bank by assets, will tackle rising bad loans as its top priority this year while setting a longer-term target to expand business abroad, said new Chief Executive Officer Kartika Wirjoatmodjo. Non-performing loans will peak at around 3.5 percent of total credit this year, up from last year’s 2.5 percent, Wirjoatmodjo said in an interview ...

Bloomberg Bank of Korea (BOK) Governor Lee Ju Yeol warned on Wednesday that economic growth for 2016 is poised to fall below 3 percent and said the impact of further interest-rate cuts may be limited. The comments come amid a change in the BOK’s board and speculation of additional rate cuts given the ruling party’s request for the bank to ...

Bloomberg National Bank of Kenya Ltd. placed Managing Director Munir Ahmed on compulsory leave pending an internal audit, a day after dismissing speculation on social media that he’d been fired. Five top managers were also sent on leave, the Nairobi-based lender said in an e-mailed statement. The board appointed Wilfred Musau as acting-chief executive officer, it said. “The aforementioned actions ...

JOHANNESBURG / Reuters South African lender Capitec Bank Holdings reported a 26 percent rise in full-year profit on Wednesday, in line with forecast, as growth in client numbers boosted both interest and transaction fee income. Capitec, which grants loans not supported by assets, said it gained 1 million active clients, to total 7.3 million customers, over the past year as ...

Frankfurt / Reuters The European Central Bank (ECB) will not move interest rates into absurdly negative territory and negative rates are not the bank’s main policy instrument even if further cuts cannot be ruled out, Executive Board Member Benoit Coeure told a political magazine. Although negative rates could reduce banks’ profitability, lenders actually increased their interest margins last year when ...

Bloomberg India’s most reliable source of foreign funding is under threat. Remittances fell to $15.8 billion last quarter, the lowest since April-June 2011 and a 9.4 percent drop from a year earlier, as the global slowdown and slumping oil prices reduce demand for foreign workers. Indians working abroad — from construction labourers in Dubai to Silicon Valley engineers — send ...

Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG hired Jeffrey Cohen from Lazard Ltd. as the firm seeks to expand its retail and consumer products investment-banking business. Cohen, 52, is a vice chairman based in New York and reports to Jens Welter, global head of retail and consumer products, the Zurich-based firm said in a staff memo, a copy of which Bloomberg obtained ...