DOHA / Emirates Business Qatar Airways Holidays offers travellers from around the world the opportunity to add another experience to their already planned holiday, by stopping over in Doha on their outbound journey, for up to four days. This holiday-within-a-holiday is thanks to a new transit visa scheme that allows visitors to break their outbound journey in Doha without ...

  Bloomberg Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. will spend more than 2 billion yuan ($290 million) buying about a third of Sanjiang Shopping Club Co., picking up a slice of a regional Chinese discount supermarket chain with more than a million members. Shares of Sanjiang surged by its daily 10 percent limit on Monday, giving the Ningbo-based company a market value ...

  Bloomberg Marmageddon, Toblerone-gate, shrinking fish fingers. Get ready for more food fights. The 12 percent slump in sterling following Britain’s vote to leave the European Union is feeding through to food. Prices may be as much as 5 percent higher this time next year, and some grocers are already feeling the pinch from higher costs for milk, cheese and ...

  Bloomberg Global banking regulators said US lenders present a bigger risk to the financial system than last year and should face stiffer capital requirements to ward off threats. Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. all face higher capital surcharges after they rose in the Financial Stability Board’s latest ranking of the most systemically important ...

  Lisbon / AFP Chinese conglomerate Fosun will become the biggest shareholder in the ailing BCP, Portugal’s biggest private bank, by agreeing to buy a 16.7 percent stake, the two sides said Sunday. Fosun is paying nearly 175 million euros ($185 million) via a capital increase after an agreement reached on Friday. Portugal’s banking sector is saddled with debt and ...

  Bloomberg Ghana’s central bank cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time in more than five years after inflation slowed to the lowest rate since 2014. The Bank of Ghana cut the rate by 50 basis points to 25.5 percent, Governor Abdul Nashiru Issahaku told reporters on Monday in the capital, Accra. Five of the six economists in ...

  Bloomberg Shares of India’s big state-owned banks fell on the risk that the government’s recall of high-value currency notes will dent their profits. State Bank of India, the nation’s biggest by assets, declined by as much as 4.8 percent on Monday, its biggest intraday fall since Nov. 9 and the worst performance on the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex. Bank ...

  Bloomberg Iranian banks are trying to catch up with the rest of the world. After years of isolation left them with outdated practices, they’re attempting to fall in line with international standards of transparency so they can better attract business and integrate with the global industry. The central bank has instructed local lenders to set up compliance departments and ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s biggest commercial bank cut its quote for three-month money in the interbank market in a signal that rates could fall further as a liquidity crunch in the banking system eases. Saudi interbank offered rates soared this year, pressuring companies and banks seeking to raise funds, as low oil prices slashed flows of petrodollars into ...

  SAN FRANCISCO / AP It sounds like a great idea: Forget passwords, and instead lock your phone or computer with your fingerprint. It’s a convenient form of security — though it’s also perhaps not as safe as you’d think. In their rush to do away with problematic passwords, Apple, Microsoft and other tech companies are nudging consumers to use ...