Banking

REUTERS The new governor of Bangladesh’s central bank has sent formal letters to the New York Reserve Fed, as well as central bank, and money laundering chiefs in the Philippines, asking them to help recover its stolen $81 million, a senior central bank official said on Sunday. The news came as Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith said the government ...

Bloomberg Banks’ latitude in assessing their biggest source of risk is set to be curtailed as global regulators try to prevent the financial industry from gaming capital requirements. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has proposed to remove the option for lenders to use their own models to determine how much capital they need to fund exposures to financial firms, ...

Boao / Reuters More than 30 countries are waiting to join the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), adding to its 57 founding members, its president said. The AIIB, first proposed by President Xi Jinping less than two years ago, has become one of China’s biggest foreign policy successes. Despite the opposition of Washington, almost many major US allies – ...

ANKARA / Reuters Turkey’s central bank should have cut interest rates more at this week’s policy meeting, an aide to President Tayyip Erdogan said, in a sign the central bank is likely to remain under pressure to lower the cost of borrowing. The bank kept its benchmark rate steady for the 13th straight month this week, but cut the upper ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG, Europe’s biggest investment bank, will hire about 100 people across equities trading as it seeks to expand the business and reduce reliance on desks dealing in bonds, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The hires will include roles in research, sales, technology and prime services, the business that caters to hedge funds, according ...

BEIRUT / AP Hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance money for cash-strapped Lebanon is being held up because of the country’s nearly two-year-old political stalemate, the president of the World Bank group warned, imploring the country’s politicians to vote for a president who can enact laws. In an interview in the Lebanese capital Beirut, Jim Yong Kim also said ...

TOKYO / Reuters Bank of Japan (BOJ) policymakers engaged in heated debate during their policy review in March on the pros and cons of their decision in January to adopt negative interest rates, with one even saying it was preferable to roll it back. A summary of the March 14-15 meeting of the nine-member board that was released on Thursday showed ...

Sydney / AFP ANZ Bank on Thursday warned sour loans will cost it at least A$900 million in the first-half, and analysts warned of more trouble ahead as slumping commodity prices squeeze Australia’s resources companies. The bank said weakness in the mining and energy sectors means it now expects bad debts to cost A$100 million ($75 million) more in the ...

Bloomberg The Swiss National Bank (SNB) spent 86.1 billion francs ($88 billion) on interventions last year, a measure of its efforts to shield the economy from deflation. SNB President Thomas Jordan and his colleagues have repeatedly pledged to step in to prevent the franc from strengthening. They’ve done so even since they gave up a minimum exchange rate of 1.20 ...

Milan / AFP Italian banks Banco Popolare and Banca Popolare di Milano (BPM) have announced that they would merge, in a long-awaited deal that will create the country’s third-largest bank by assets. The deal will create a lender with more than 25,000 staff and four million customers, and could help drive consolidation among Italy’s fragmented bankingsector. The deal has been ...