Bloomberg The Bank of Thailand extended its 500 billion baht ($16 billion) “soft loan” program for small and medium-sized enterprises by six months to help with the effects of the lingering Covid-19 outbreak, the central bank said on its website. The central bank also relaxed rules to allow listed SMEs to join the low interest-rate lending program, which started April ...

Bloomberg HDFC Bank Ltd., India’s largest private lender, posted second-quarter profit that beat analysts’ expectations on strong loan growth and fall in bad loans. Net income was 75.1 billion rupees ($1.02 billion) for the three months to September, up from 63.4 billion rupees a year earlier, the lender said in a filing. The profits were 17% higher than the 64.1 ...

Bloomberg Westpac Banking Corp. is cutting more than 150 jobs as Australia’s second-largest lender consolidates its international operations, according to people familiar with the matter. The cuts will impact employees in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mumbai and Jakarta where the Sydney-based bank is exiting its operations. Most staff are locally employed and the process will take one to two years, ...