Bloomberg Egypt’s external finances improved following the Nov. 3 decision to float the pound, the central bank said, as inflows from investments, remittances and exports picked up. The balance of payments surplus grew to $5.1 billion in the October to December period, from $1.9 billion in the previous quarter, the regulator said in a statement on its website. The ...

  Bloomberg The European Central Bank doesn’t plan to announce a new round of free long-term loans to financial institutions after its policy meeting, according to people familiar with the issue. Targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTROs) won’t be renewed for now, the people said, asking not to be named because the Governing Council’s deliberations are private. That stance could still ...

    NEW YORK / AP If the tech industry is drawing one lesson from the latest WikiLeaks disclosures, it’s that data-scrambling encryption works, and the industry should use more of it. Documents purportedly outlining a massive CIA surveillance program suggest that CIA agents must go to great lengths to circumvent encryption they can’t break. In many cases, physical presence ...