Banking

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia is telling international banks to publicly disclose financial statements for the first time as the kingdom’s regulator seeks to boost transparency. The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) is requiring financial institutions it regulates to publish the information on their websites from April 1, an official at the Riyadh-based regulator said in an e-mailed response to questions, without giving ...

Bloomberg Egypt’s central bank is weighing tougher regulations on foreign-exchange dealers, part of a broader effort to crack down on the black market and to end a hard currency shortage that’s impeding economic growth. The bank wants to reduce the number of foreign-exchange bureaus from more than 140 and introduce measures to improve transparency, said a person familiar with the ...

BLOOMBERG The Philippines will hold accountable any bank or banker found responsible or remiss in their duties in the $81 million cyber heist of Bangladeshi foreign reserves that wound up in the Southeast Asian nation’s financial system, officials said. “You can be assured that banks that fail to perform their responsibilities will be held accountable,” Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Deputy ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) began charging banks interest on deposits in June 2014 to encourage them to lend more to companies and consumers. It hasn’t worked. Deposits at the ECB by euro-area banks in excess of required reserves have jumped six-fold since the introduction of negative interest rates, while lending within the currency bloc has barely budged. Of ...

Beijing / Bloomberg People’s Bank of China (PBOC) Governor Zhou Xiaochuan sounded a warning over rising debt levels, saying corporate lending as a ratio to gross domestic product had become too high and the country must develop more robust capital markets. China still has a problem with illegal fundraising and financial services are insufficient, Zhou said in a speech at ...

BLOOMBERG Banco Popolare SC Chief Executive Officer Pier Francesco Saviotti is studying options including a potential capital increase to meet the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) requests to back its planned merger with Banca Popolare di Milano Scarl. “Our capital is sound, but considering that we want to do the deal and that the ECB insists in taking actions to improve ...

Bloomberg Ana Botin, chairman of Banco Santander SA, has appointed a tech-heavy advisory board in a sign that information technology has become crucial to her growth plans at the Spanish lender. “I can’t think of a precedent where you’ve seen a panel of this nature,” says Julian Skan, a managing director at Accenture Plc in London who advises banks on ...

Bloomberg As they grapple with shrinking profitability and the threat of a British exit from the European Union, the UK’s banks also face another challenge, slippery banknotes. Lenders from HSBC Holdings Plc to Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc are working to upgrade or replace thousands of cash machines before the Bank of England starts to switch paper money with ...

Frankfurt / AFP It’s a concept that conjures up images of European Central Bank (ECB) chief Mario Draghi donning his flying suit, starting his helicopter and flying out over the eurozone to throw money to the crowds below. In the question-and-answer session of his traditional post-meeting press conference last week, Draghi was asked whether “helicopter money” was part of the ...

Bloomberg Hackers who stole $101 million from Bangladesh’s central bank stalked its computer systems for almost two weeks beforehand, according to an interim investigation report seen by Bloomberg. Prepared for Bangladesh Bank by cyber security firms FireEye Inc. and World Informatix, the assessment offers a tantalising glimpse into how cyber criminals can use banks’ own systems against them. The cyber ...