Bloomberg BNP Paribas SA is showing it’s still possible to build a big investment bank franchise from Europe. France’s largest lender outshone Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG and much of Wall Street for another quarter, posting a standout performance in equity derivatives to help drive better-than-expected profit. Among bright spots: Equity and prime services revenue jumped 26 percent amid surging demand …

Bloomberg The euro area’s third-largest economy is seeking someone to help oversee its struggling recovery — and review the European Central Bank (ECB) stimulus the country relies upon. Competition for the top job at the Bank of Italy, which comes with a seat on the ECB’s Governing Council, is heating up. The position has a high-profile history — ECB President …

Bloomberg Aida is the perfect employee: always courteous, always learning and, as she says, “always at work, 24/7, 365 days a year.” Aida, of course, is not a person but a virtual customer-service representative that SEB AB, one of Sweden’s biggest banks, is rolling out. The goal is to give the actual humans more time to engage in more complex …