Bloomberg The creation of central bank digital currencies to address economic inequality with new retail loan and payments channels must be designed so they don’t “cannibalise” a country’s commercial financial system, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. If set up hastily, retail CBDCs could risk “disintermediating commercial banks” and lead to the exodus of 20% to 30% of their funding ...

Bloomberg Westpac Banking Corp has agreed to sell its life insurance unit to Dai-ichi Life Holdings Inc’s Australian subsidiary TAL for $660 million as Australia’s second-largest lender continues to jettison non-core assets to focus on lending. The completion of the transaction, confirming an earlier Bloomberg report, is expected to happen in the second half of next year, Westpac said. Under ...

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc has sold the first of 13 markets Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser put on the block, agreeing a deal to offload its Australian consumer unit to National Australia Bank Ltd. The Australian lender will pay the US bank cash for the net assets of the Citigroup Consumer Business plus a premium of A$250 million ($184 million), according ...

Bloomberg India’s central bank kept interest rates unchanged at a record low to support the economy, even as a split appeared among policy makers on continuing with the lower-for-longer stance. The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) six-member Monetary Policy Committee retained its main repurchase rate at 4%, as predicted by all 29 economists in a Bloomberg survey. Policy makers voted ...

Bloomberg Stocks were steady with US futures on Monday, while commodities tumbled as investors weighed concerns about a pullback in stimulus and a resurgence in the fast-spreading delta virus variant. The Stoxx 600 Index traded little changed as gains in technology firms offset declines in energy shares and miners. Crude oil extended last week’s decline — its worst since October ...

Bloomberg Investors pulling out of China due to the recent regulatory crackdown may overlook India, where stocks are looking pricey after their climb to successive records, according to UBS Group AG. “The perception of risks in China has gone up and may lead investors to take out money and deploy it into other emerging markets,” Sunil Tirumalai, head of India ...

Bloomberg Bitcoin and Ether reached their highest levels in more than two months after a major Ethereum upgrade and even in the face of uncertainty over crypto rules in the US infrastructure plan. Bitcoin gained as much as 3.1% to $45,328 on August 8, its highest level since May 18. Ether increased as much as 3.5% to $3,191, gaining for ...

TUNIS / WAM President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has sent a letter to President Kais Saied of Tunisia, addressing bilateral relations and ways to enhance them, as well as issues of mutual interest. The letter was delivered by Dr Anwar bin Mohammed Gargash, the Diplomatic Advisor to President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa, during his meeting with ...

DHAHRAN / WAM The Saudi Arabian Oil Company Aramco announced on Sunday its second quarter 2021 financial results, reporting a 288 percent increase in net income from the same quarter of last year to $25.5 billion and declaring a dividend of $18.8 billion. The Company’s net income for the first half of the year was $47.2 billion, representing a 103 ...

ABU DHABI / WAM Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD), the economic development arm of the UAE government, has signed an agreement with the Government of Guinea to provide a concessionary loan valued at AED95.5 million ($26 million) to finance developing a major interchange and roads project in the heart of Conakry, the nation’s capital city. Once completed, this project ...