Banking

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 ...

Bloomberg Bank of America (BofA) Merrill Lynch says India’s central bank should set a schedule for bond purchases to help bring down lending rates amid a cash crunch in the financial system. The Reserve Bank of India has bought 570 billion rupees ($8.5 billion) of sovereign debt since resuming open-market operations, or OMOs, in early December after almost two years. ...

Beijing / Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) gauged demand for medium-term loans on Wednesday at an interest rate lower than it’s offered in the past, Reuters reported, citing people it didn’t identify. The monetary authority lowered the cost of the three- and six-month, and one-year Medium-term Lending Facility by 25 basis points to 2.5 percent, 2.6 percent and ...

BLOOMBERG Israel is experiencing one of the world’s longest streaks of negative inflation. Yet unlike central banks in Europe or Japan, which have lowered interest rates below zero to combat deflation, the Bank of Israel isn’t as worried about the trend. While these other banks fret about growth, Israeli central bankers say the local economy is healthy and the drop ...

VIENNA / Bloomberg Raiffeisen Bank International AG can afford to keep its Polish unit rather than sell it at a fire-sale price because the Austrian lender is already “within striking distance” of its target to boost capital ratios, according to its chief executive officer. Eastern Europe’s second-biggest lender still wants to dispose of the business but may not succeed in ...

TOKYO / AFP Japan’s central bank chief on Tuesday defended a negative interest rate policy slammed as a desperate bid to keep alive efforts at resuscitating the world’s number three economy. Haruhiko Kuroda’s comments came after the Bank of Japan held off unleashing more stimulus following a two-day meeting, as it gauges the impact of its unprecedented move into sub-zero rates. ...

BLOOMBERG FirstRand Ltd. plans to close branches and cut jobs at its South African retail-lending unit as customers switch to digital banking and the continent’s biggest lender by market value responds to an economy on the brink of a recession. Almost 600 positions will be lost at First National Bank, while more than 500 people at the Johannesburg-based company may ...