For once, the fine print in India hasn’t damped enthusiasm for the broad-brush plan. New Delhi’s Rs2.11 trillion bank recapitalisation, detailed last week, goes to the heart of state-run lenders’ acute capital shortage. With a little help from the global economy—and from finance minister Arun Jaitley’s forthcoming budget—India Inc. can finally rediscover its missing animal spirits. Soaring equity valuations will ...

Bloomberg Pressure on the ratings of India’s state-owned banks is set to ease after the government unveiled plans to inject 881 billion rupees ($14 billion) of fresh capital to help the lenders meet looming Basel norms without hurting a nascent recovery in credit growth. “The large recapitalisation is credit positive and will stem downward pressure on viability ratings, which have ...

Bloomberg DBS Group Holdings Ltd. plans to increase the number of relationship managers in its private banking business to tap into surging Asian wealth. Headcount will rise between 10 percent and 20 percent this year — after increasing more than 20% in 2017 — adding to a team that currently comprises 200 private bankers, Lawrence Lua, deputy private-banking head, said ...

Bloomberg Nordea Bank AB reported a slump in profit at the end of last year, lagging behind analyst estimates, as the Nordic region’s only global systemically important bank struggles with a transformation it says will ultimately make it more efficient. Investors were quick to express their dissatisfaction. Shares in the bank opened more than 4 percent lower in Stockholm, their ...

Bloomberg After aggressive digitalisation and cost-cutting programs helped turned around Bank Leumi Le-Israel Ltd, Chief Executive Officer Rakefet Russak-Aminoach is preparing an international expansion of its mobile bank. “We are looking at going global; we are checking some business plays and considering some partnerships with others” including technology companies and larger banks, she said in an interview on the sidelines ...

Bloomberg Malaysia’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate for the first time since 2014, with economists guessing that it won’t need to tighten again this year. Bank Negara Malaysia increased the overnight policy rate to 3.25 percent from 3 percent, it said in a statement in Kuala Lumpur, as predicted by 16 of the 20 economists in a Bloomberg ...

Bloomberg Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has forged another alliance to counter Amazon.com Inc., partnering with Japan’s Rakuten Inc. to sell e-books in the US and improve its online grocery business in Asia’s second-largest economy. The collaboration will bring Rakuten’s Kobo device and e-book catalog to Walmart’s US stores later this year, the companies said in a statement. The partnership also includes ...

Bloomberg US airlines tumbled for a second day as more carriers announced plans to add seating capacity— compounding fears of a fare war that would crimp revenue as fuel costs climb. Alaska Air Group Inc. said it expects to increase capacity 7.5 percent this year, while JetBlue Airways Corp. projected as much as 8.5 percent. Economists predict gross domestic product ...

Bloomberg Asos Plc’s domestic sales growth rebounded over the holidays as the UK’s largest online-only fashion retailer profited at the expense of store-based rivals. Sales in the UK, Asos’s largest market, rose 23 percent to $429 million in the four months ended on December 31, the London-based company said. The shares rose as much as 1.3 percent, recouping early losses. ...

Bloomberg Southwest Airlines Co. is pushing its supplier to fix customer service problems that emerged following a $500 million upgrade of its outdated reservations system. The carrier is leaning on Amadeus IT Group SA to resolve issues with its Altea programme that replaced Southwest’s 30-year-old, mostly home-grown technology. There have been at least five technical outages since August, with most ...