Banking

TORONTO / Reuters Bank of Montreal (BMO), Canada’s fourth largest lender, has announced that it had launched the first biometric corporate card programme in Canada and US in partnership with Mastercard. BMO and Mastercard said the technology will enable cardholders to verify transactions using facial recognition and fingerprint biometrics when making online purchases. In a statement, they said the introduction ...

CANBERRA / Bloomberg Australia’s central bank chief brushed aside US criticism of his comments on the local currency’s level, saying that it was probably too high and pointing to a record of overseeing a floating exchange rate. Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Governor Glenn Stevens said in response to a question after a speech in Sydney that there’s “some risk” ...

Budapest / Bloomberg Hungary’s central bank said it had lowered one of its interest rates into negative territory for the first time, faced with with a drastically weaker inflation outlook. The rate for funds parked by commercial banks with the central bank overnight now stands at -0.05 percent. The bank also cut its main interest rate to 1.20 percent, also ...

Reuters British banks have cut the amount they charge for small international transfers between currencies by more than a fifth in the past three months as competition in the sector continues to grow, an index of market costs showed on Wednesday. Money transfer comparison and intelligence firm FXCompared.com said its quarterly International Money Transfer Index (IMTI) showed banks were starting ...

Zurich / Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG is planning to speed up and deepen cuts to the investment bank, five months after it announced an overhaul, said a person with knowledge of the discussions. Switzerland’s second-biggest bank may disclose that it’s accelerating cutbacks to trading businesses, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. ...

Bloomberg Banco Popolare SC is planning to raise about 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) through a share sale, bad loan and asset disposals to meet the European Central Bank’s approval for a planned merger with Banca Popolare di Milano Scarl, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The lender sent a letter to the ECB proposing a series of ...

Dhaka / Bloomberg Bangladesh’s Central Bank has suggested the Federal Reserve Bank of New York had a “major lapse” in allowing hackers to transfer $101 million in transactions that it later flagged as suspicious, according to an internal document seen by Bloomberg. The document, dated March 13, sheds new light on Bangladesh Bank’s interpretation of a cyber heist in which ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) are essentially trying to push down the values of their respective currencies with the use of negative interest rates, former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said. “There are clearly limits” to the effectiveness of negative rates, King said in a interview in New York. “I think you ...

BLOOMBERG HSBC Holdings Plc is discovering the oil crash extends far beyond the deserts of the Gulf, the plains of west Texas and the shale fields of North Dakota. Even a small energy company in Dublin can inflict pain. The lender led a group of banks that extended up to $500 million three years ago to Petroceltic International Plc, helping ...

BLOOMBERG Citigroup Inc., the fourth-largest US bank, should consider breaking itself into smaller pieces because higher capital rules make it difficult to earn acceptable returns, analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods said. A breakup could come in three steps: selling the international consumer businesses excluding Mexico; selling the Mexico franchise; splitting the remaining firm into a US consumer business and ...