Banking

LONDON / Bloomberg The Bank of England (BOE) should force banks to set aside more capital to support lending in a downturn, former policy maker Charles Goodhart said. The countercyclical capital buffer is currently set at zero and while the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) has said it intends gradually to increase the level to 1 percent, Goodhart said such a ...

New York / AFP US banking supvervisors should beef up their oversight of large banks beyond stress tests with deep-dive audits and greater use of outside examiners, a top regulator said. Under a ‘full-scope’ exam, a team of regulators would converge on the largest US banks to pull ledgers, check whether loan payments are on time and “systematically review a ...

BLOOMBERG Executives at Banco Popolare SC and Banca Popolare di Milano Scarl are racing to reach a merger accord that meets the European Central Bank’s (ECB) capital demands as Italy’s biggest banking deal in years threatens to unravel. After a month of talks with the lenders failed to assuage the ECB’s concerns over capital and governance, the central bank sent ...

LONDON / Bloomberg The UK Green Investment Bank Plc moved closer to selecting special shareholders who can veto changes to its environmental mission after the institution is privatised. The national science academy known as the Royal Society, Scotland’s Institute of Chartered Accountants and Scotland’s Law Society will help create a committee to protect the mandate of the bank, according to ...

Washington / AFP The Federal Reserve has cut its outlook for the US economy and kept its interest rate policy unchanged, citing the impact of the global slowdown and turmoil in world markets. Giving a picture of the US economy less bullish than many had expected, the Fed still forecast continuing hikes to the federal funds rate this year, but ...

MANILA / Bloomberg The Philippine bank manager who approved fund transfers at the center of an $81 million cyber heist will tell lawmakers in a closed hearing on Thursday that she was following orders from high-level officials at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., her lawyer said. Maia Santos Deguito has e-mails, mobile-phone messages and other evidence showing that she was acting ...

Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co., the most valuable US bank, left Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf’s compensation for 2015 unchanged at $19.3 million. Stumpf, 62, received $2.8 million in salary, a $4 million bonus and $12.5 million in long-term equity incentive awards, the San Francisco-based bank said Wednesday in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. That’s the ...

BLOOMBERG Switzerland’s central bank held interest rates at a record low and repeated its pledge to intervene in currency markets, a threat President Thomas Jordan has used to keep the franc from strengthening. Describing the nation’s currency as “significantly overvalued,” the Swiss National Bank kept its deposit rate at minus 0.75 percent on Thursday, as expected by all economists in ...

BLOOMBERG A newly discovered Russian-language hacker group known as Buhtrap has attacked 13 Russian banks since August using malware that infiltrates their gateway to the central bank, according to Moscow-based cybersecurity company Group-IB. The hackers spread the malware using infected e-mails that mimickedcorrespondence from the central bank and Gazprombank JSC, Group-IB said in a report Thursday. The program then targeted ...

Bloomberg Banks dragged European shares lower, while investors awaited the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting for signals on the health of the world’s biggest economy and the trajectory of interest rates. Credit Suisse Group AG led declines among banks, sliding 6.5 percent, with four Europe-based traders citing the absence of Chief Financial Officer David Mathers from a conference in London ...