Banking

BLOOMBERG Arnaud Droitcourt, Bank of America Corp.’s head of Asia-Pacific equity trading, left the company as it cuts jobs to trim expenses, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Droitcourt, a Hong Kong-based managing director who oversaw both cash equity and equity derivatives trading of the bank, left Tuesday, said the person, who asked not to be identified ...

BLOOMBERG European Central Bank (ECB) Executive Board member Yves Mersch has said he wants evidence that high-denomination euro banknotes facilitate crime. While there’s been much coverage of the matter, Mersch would be “very happy if any substantiated evidence would be shipped to the ECB.” Step forward the Spanish police, who arrested two men at Madrid airport and seized 200,000 euros ...

Bloomberg For the biggest US bank, the best way to fight Silicon Valley is to mimic it. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s. new technology hub across the street from the Hudson Yards development on Manhattan’s West Side — a 125,000-square-foot space so vast it’s subdivided into five neighbourhoods — has all the trappings of a start-up: foosball tables, a game room, ...

Canberra / Bloomberg Already faced with higher capital requirements and a housing market past its peak, Australian banks have a new headache to contend with: corporate loans. Bad-debt provisions at the lenders are set to rise to their highest in eight years by 2018, as the chances of defaults in the mining, agricultural and dairy sectors increase, according to a ...

Bangalore / AFP A group of Indian banks has petitioned a court seeking the arrest of corporate honcho Vijay Mallya, the beleaguered businessman accused of defaulting on hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, a lawyer said. Heavily indebted Mallya has been deep in a financial fight over his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines, which owes more than $1 billion to a ...

ABUJA / BLOOMBERG Nigeria’s biggest manufacturing body has lobbied the central bank to sell dollars directly to its members, bypassing commercial lenders as it looks to counter a shortage of foreign-currency it says threatens thousands of jobs in Africa’s largest oil producer. The Manufacturers’ Association of Nigeria, which has about 2,700 members, proposed weekly auctions of dollars to manufacturing businesses ...

Bloomberg Banca Popolare di Vicenza SCpA’s owners approved a plan to raise as much as 1.8 billion euros ($2 billion) in an initial public offering and transform the cooperative lender into a joint-stock firm, a crucial step toward ensuring its survival. The proposals passed at a meeting in Vicenza, Italy, after the European Central Bank (ECB) warned that without a ...

Zurich / AFP A fragile calm in global financial markets has given way to all-out turbulence, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) said, warning of a ‘gathering storm’ which has long been brewing. In its previous quarterly report, watched closely by investors, the BIS — which is known as the central bank of central banks — warned of an ‘uneasy ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) will almost certainly announce new stimulus measures at its policy meeting next week, analysts said, as eurozone inflation turned negative and the economic outlook continues to cloud over. After disappointing financial markets with what were widely to perceived as half-hearted measures in December, ECB chief Mario Draghi will announce bolder policy moves this time ...

Yangon / AFP Four more foreign banks have been given preliminary approval to operate in Myanmar, state media reported on Sunday, the latest government attempt to attract overseas investment to the emergent nation. Myanmar’s banking system was closed for decades to outside competition under junta rule, leaving the country laden with a creaking financial infrastructure and a populace deeply suspicious ...