London / AFP The Bank of England (BoE) is expected to slash interest rates to a record-low 0.25 percent this week and could pump more stimulus into the economy as it battles the fallout from Britain’s vote to leave the EU, economists say. The announcement, due Thursday after the British central bank’s latest monetary policy meeting, would take rates to their …

  Nairobi / AFP Kenya’s banking industry last year recorded the first decline in profit since 1999 as costs outpaced income in the wake of two failures and more onerous regulations. Pretax profit across the sector declined 5 percent to 134 billion shillings ($1.3 billion) in the 12 months through December, according to the central bank’s Bank Supervision Report, released in …

  The Hague / AFP Dutch bank ING, the country’s biggest lender, said on Wednesday that its second-quarter operating profits rose by more than a quarter as it boosted lending. Underlying net profit, which strips out one-off items, rose by 26.7 percent to 1.4 billion euros ($1.6 billion). Net profit more than quadrupled to 1.3 billion euros, but the huge increase …