International News

  Bloomberg At the 600-year-old Guildhall in the City of London, key players in a two-decade-old industry looking to remake finance are gathering. Innovate Finance’s summit — part of UK Fintech Week — aims to showcase Britain’s financial technology sector and its global ambitions. Its profile has never been higher, with soaring demand from both customers and investors — even ...

  Bloomberg US consumer borrowing surged in February by the most on record, reflecting outsized increases in both credit-card balances and non-revolving loans. Total credit jumped $41.8 billion from the prior month after a revised $8.9 billion gain in January, Federal Reserve figures showed. The increase exceeded all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists. On an annualised basis, borrowing ...

  Bloomberg Some of the world’s biggest automakers are linked through their suppliers to labour programs in China’s Xinjiang region that experts have flagged as coercive, according to a new report by Horizon Advisory, a ..-based consultancy. The concerns center around the production of aluminum, raising questions for another key industry about alleged human rights abuses in its supply chain. ...

Bloomberg The German government is working on a financial-aid package for companies suffering from the fallout of the Ukraine war and the economic sanctions against Russia. The support measures, which are being assembled by the economy ministry, will include a loan program by the KfW state-owned bank as well as direct financial aid, according to a person involved in the ...

  Bloomberg The Panama Canal Authority proposed a comprehensive restructuring of its toll system, which would increase rates charged on cargo such as vehicles, oil and gas and soybeans that cross the waterway as ocean shippers rake in record profits. The changes would reduce the current structure to fewer than 60 tariffs from 430 now and focus on vessel capacity ...

Bloomberg Hungarian inflation continued to accelerate as the effects of record pre-election spending, weaker currency and a surge in oil prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fed through to prices across the economy. Consumer price rises an annual 8.5% in March, the highest level since 2007, the Budapest-based statistics office said in a statement. The median estimate in a Bloomberg ...

  Bloomberg UK companies are jacking up starting salaries at a record pace, and some of the country’s biggest grocery chains are already raising pay as labour shortages hand workers unprecedented bargaining power. The latest signs of wage pressures may add to concern at the Bank of England (BOE), which has raised interest rates three times since December to slow ...

  Bloomberg Los Angeles plans to electrify its fleet of more than 10,000 vehicles as part of an effort to become one of the first US cities to rely on carbon-free energy by 2035. The Electric Vehicle Master Plan was unanimously approved by the LA city council. The switch to electric vehicles will start at the city’s largest departments of ...

  Bloomberg Mexico’s annual inflation accelerated more than expected in March to its highest level in over two decades led by fuel prices, putting additional pressure on the central bank to continue boosting interest rates. Consumer prices rise 7.45% from the same month a year earlier, above 7.38% median estimate of economists , the national statistics institute reported. On a ...

  Bloomberg Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is imposing a one-time windfall levy on Canada’s major banks and permanently increasing their income tax rate, fulfilling an election promise that has raised the ire of the industry’s top executives. The measures will force banks and insurance companies to pay an additional C$6.1 billion ($4.8 billion) in tax over five years, according to ...