Banking

Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc has spent the past six months fighting calls from its largest shareholder to split up. That isn’t stopping the bank ramping up its own deal-making program. The London-based lender expects to increase the amount of acquisitions it makes in the coming years, a person familiar with the company’s thinking said. Further disposals are also expected but ...

  Bloomberg The Bank of Korea (BOK) is set to pivot back to an outsized interest-rate increase as it seeks to keep pace with the Federal Reserve and rein in inflationary pressures exacerbated by a weaker currency. The central bank will raise its key rate by a larger-than-regular 50 basis points to 3% at Wednesday’s meeting despite having dialled back ...

Bloomberg The world’s top central banks reacted too slowly to accelerating prices, according Swiss National Bank President Thomas Jordan. “Inflation has been underestimated globally,” Jordan said in Zurich, adding that leading rate setters “very likely waited too long” combating it. “But you have to say: Uncertainty was exceptionally high in this situation — and stays high,” he said. “Central banks ...

  Bloomberg Pakistan’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged for a second consecutive meeting to support an economy staring at crises worsened by deadly floods. The State Bank of Pakistan maintained the target rate at 15% , as forecast by 40 of 43 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Three expected a cut ranging between 25-50 basis points. The decision ...

  Bloomberg India’s central bank is working towards a phased introduction of a digital currency and will put forth a final design after it has conducted large scale pilot projects. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is exploring the option of implementation of an account-based central bank digital currency or CBDC for the wholesale segment and token-based currency for the retail ...

Bloomberg UBS Group AG’s underwriting arm has been left out of the group that is poised to handle the biggest-ever municipal-bond transaction from Texas after the state listed the bank as one of the firms it considers to “boycott” the fossil-fuel industry. Board members of the issuer, the Texas Natural Gas Securitisation Finance Corp., announced a newly configured underwriting syndicate ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) is ratcheting up pressure on some banks to keep 2022 bonuses in check amid fears about the darkening economic outlook, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The euro area’s top banking supervisor has told individual lenders recently that it expects restraint in variable pay and dividends as it’s concerned the energy crunch ...

  Bloomberg The Philippine central bank has been “very active” in the foreign exchange market to curb excessive volatility and stem the peso’s depreciation, Governor Felipe Medalla said. The monetary authority, which has raised the policy rate by a total of 2.25 percentage points, makes its decisions in relation to inflation, Medalla told reporters in Manila. It considers the exchange ...

  Bloomberg India has invited bids to sell 60.72% in state-backed IDBI Bank Ltd, according to an expression of interest floated by the finance ministry, as it seeks to ramp up its privatisation drive. The federal government and the state-owned Life Insurance Corp. of India together own about 95% in the lender. The government will sell 30.48% of its stake ...

  Bloomberg Investors poured the most money into cash since April 2020 on fears of a looming recession, but stocks could see further declines as they don’t fully reflect that risk, say Bank of America Corp (BofA). strategists. Even as major benchmarks bounced off last month’s lows, the bank’s report citing EPFR Global data showed cash funds received nearly $89 ...