Banking

BLOOMBERG Bank of Ireland plans to return to paying dividends next year for the first time since the financial crisis after profit at the nation’s largest lender by assets rose 30 percent in 2015. Underlying pretax profit, excluding items such as restructuring costs, rose to 1.2 billion euros ($1.33 billion) from 921 million euros a year earlier, the bank said ...

Manama / Emirates Business The Bahrain-based leading Islamic banking group, Al Baraka Banking Group B.S.C (ABG), announced that its total operating income reached one billion dollars in 2015 for the first time since the start of the Group activities 12 years ago due to continued growth in income-generated business at all the Group units, while the net income for the ...

Muscat / EMIRATES BUSINESS Marking its third award of the year, Bank Sohar was recently recognised as one of the best ‘Straight Through Processing’ (STP) banks in Oman by JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association, a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and a globally renowned financial firm. Award was handed over to Bank Sohar at its headquarters in MBD by Karim ...

Washington / AP Here’s another use for the smartphone as it invades daily life: in place of your debit card at your bankcash machine. The “cardless” automatic teller machine (ATM) is gaining ground in the US and around the world, with smartphone technology allowing for speedier and more secure transactions. Dozens of US banks are installing new ATMs or updating ...

Dubai / Emirates Business Banks must wake up to the way technology affects the daily lives of their customers or risk being left behind in the smart phone revolution, a digital banking expert will tell a major assembly of financial service decision-makers in Abu Dhabi. Chris Skinner, Chair and founder of the European networking forum, the Financial Services Club, says ...

BEIJING / Bloomberg The head of China’s securities regulator has been removed from his post after last year’s $5 trillion stock- market bust, an unprecedented government rescue and a renewed crisis as plunging Chinese equities last month reverberated around the world. Xiao Gang, 57, a former head of Bank of China Ltd., had been chairman of the China Securities Regulatory ...

BOGOTA / AP Citibank is planning to sell the consumer banking operations it has operated for a century in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia as South America’s three biggest economies suffer a major downturn. The New York-based bank said Friday in a statement that its decision was prompted by a desire to allocate resources where it can generate the best returns. ...

Colombo / AFP Sri Lanka’s central bank raised benchmark interest rates for the first time in nearly four years by 50 basis points ahead of a possible IMF bailout. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka raised its lending rate from 7.5 to 8.0 percent, saying that relatively cheap money had the potential to fuel demand-driven inflation that could undermine the ...

Frankfurt / Bloomberg With German government bonds on their longest winning streak in more than a year, investors are set to scour inflation data next week for clues as to whether the European Central Bank will provide more stimulus next month. A measure of euro-region inflation expectations stayed near a record low this week even as the central bank pledged ...

WASHINGTON / AP The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it is giving managing director Christine Lagarde a second five-year term. Lagarde, the first woman to hold the post, was the only candidate nominated. Her new term starts July 5. Lagarde, 60, was named the IMF’s 11th managing director in 2011. She has led the multinational lending agency through the European ...