Banking

Bloomberg Sam Woods, a former UK Treasury official, was appointed as Deputy Governor for regulation at the Bank of England (BOE), replacing Andrew Bailey. Woods — who will continue as the central bank’s executive director of insurance until the end of June — becomes Chief Executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority, the UK’s main banking supervisor, the Treasury in London ...

Bloomberg Negative interest rates, one of the latest central bank experiments to goad economies back into growth, got low marks at a financial and economic conference along Lake Como. Richard Koo, the chief economist at Nomura Research Institute, said such rates were “intellectually bankrupt.” Olivier Blanchard, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, said they interfere ...

Bloomberg The market for the riskiest bank debt is starting to open for Europe’s weaker lenders — provided they are willing to pay up. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) SA sold 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) of so-called additional Tier 1 bonds, with a coupon of 8.875 percent, according to data. That’s about two percentage points more than the Spanish ...

BLOOMBERG Central banks’ extraordinary measures to spur growth may eventually show diminishing returns while a key part of the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing programme carries a “certain risk” that has been mitigated, ECB Executive Board member Yves Mersch said. Mersch, in a speech to the Ambrosetti Workshop in Cernobbio Italy, on Saturday, reviewed the various policy instruments that the ...

New York / AFP Wells Fargo, an American multinational banking company, will pay $1.2 billion to refund US agencies for wrongly certifying bad loans for federal home insurance ahead of the 2008 housing bust, the Department of Justice announced. The settlement resolves charges that Wells Fargo, a giant in the US mortgage lending, employed shoddy underwriting practices to drive up ...

Reuters Goldman Sachs Group Inc paid Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein $22.6 million for 2015, according to a regulatory filing, marking his first pay decline in the last four years. Blankfein received $24 million for 2014. On top of his salary and other awards, Blankfein will be eligible to receive a total of $7 million based on his and the bank’s ...

Bloomberg Thanks, but no thanks. That was the response of small banks after Jamie Dimon called for a truce this week between large and small lenders. The JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief executive officer said the industry needs to work together, particularly in Washington, to achieve its policy goals with Congress and regulators. “Just because Jamie Dimon says ‘let’s sing ...

FRANKFURT / REUTERS Euro zone banks should be encouraged to keep more of their profits rather than pay dividends, to bolster their capital and finance new loans, the head of research of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) said on Thursday. The euro zone has been battling low economic growth and sluggish lending for years, and banks have complained that ...

NEW DELHI / AFP A group of Indian banks rejected on Thursday embattled businessman Vijay Mallya’s offer to repay $600 million in unpaid loans, less than half of what his defunct airline owes them. The banks told the Supreme Court in New Delhi that they wanted the 60-year-old flamboyant entrepreneur to return to India so they could negotiate with him ...

MADRID / AP A union representing bank workers says Spain’s biggest bank is planning to lay off 1,200 workers as part of a restructuring plan that will also shutter more than 400 branches. The UGT union says Banco Santander SA’s plan calls for half of the employees to take early retirement and receive 70 percent of their annual pay. UGT ...