Bloomberg Philip Lowe has some high-powered backing if he leaves interest rates on hold Tuesday as widely expected. Days after the Reserve Bank of Australia governor signaled that rate cuts weren’t in the national interest amid record household debt, the securities regulator said it was looking at mortgage lending standards across the banking sector. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation ...

  Bloomberg China omitted a key defense spending figure from its budget for the first time in almost four decades — before an official disclosed the number — highlighting concerns about transparency in the world’s largest military. While authorities said defense expenditures would rise “about 7 percent” this year, the budget report published by the Ministry of Finance on Sunday ...

  Bloomberg China’s credit engine will keep humming this year, adding the rough equivalent of Germany’s annual economic output to its already massive stock of total social financing, according to estimates derived from the nation’s 2017 targets. Adding higher equity market financing and about 5 trillion yuan ($725 billion) worth of local government bond swaps to the official credit growth ...