Bloomberg ING Groep NV Chief Executive Officer Ralph Hamers’s international expansion is helping the biggest Dutch lender boost profits. Net core lending increased by 5.7 billion euros ($6.2 billion) in the first quarter, as strong growth in nations including Germany more than offset a drop in Dutch consumer lending, the Amsterdam-based bank said in a statement on Wednesday. Loan …

  Dubai / Emirates Business Egyptian banks are lifting restrictions on customers’ overseas credit card purchases, the latest indication that a foreign-currency crunch that crippled the economy is easing. State-run Banque Misr, Egypt’s second-biggest lender, is removing curbs imposed last year on purchases, while keeping limits on foreign-currency cash withdrawals, the official Middle East News Agency reported on Tuesday, without …

  Bloomberg Ecobank Transnational Inc., Africa’s most geographically diverse lender, is betting that Nigeria’s plans for a digital revolution will increase the number of its customers in the country more than fivefold over the next five years. The bank is closing branches in the continent’s most populous nation to cut costs while using improving access to the internet to add …