Sydney / AFP ANZ Bank on Thursday warned sour loans will cost it at least A$900 million in the first-half, and analysts warned of more trouble ahead as slumping commodity prices squeeze Australia’s resources companies. The bank said weakness in the mining and energy sectors means it now expects bad debts to cost A$100 million ($75 million) more in the ...

Bloomberg The Swiss National Bank (SNB) spent 86.1 billion francs ($88 billion) on interventions last year, a measure of its efforts to shield the economy from deflation. SNB President Thomas Jordan and his colleagues have repeatedly pledged to step in to prevent the franc from strengthening. They’ve done so even since they gave up a minimum exchange rate of 1.20 ...

Milan / AFP Italian banks Banco Popolare and Banca Popolare di Milano (BPM) have announced that they would merge, in a long-awaited deal that will create the country’s third-largest bank by assets. The deal will create a lender with more than 25,000 staff and four million customers, and could help drive consolidation among Italy’s fragmented bankingsector. The deal has been ...