Bloomberg The popular Chinese messaging application WeChat appears to have blocked access to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s account, leading one senator to call for a parliament-wide boycott of the service. Senator James Paterson, chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, said on Monday the prime minister’s team had been having trouble accessing the WeChat account ...

  Bloomberg French President Emmanuel Macron’s approval rating has stumbled less than three months before the first round of the country’s election. Macron’s approval rating fell to 37% in January from 41% a month earlier, while 60% disapproved, according to a poll by Ifop for the Journal du Dimanche published on Sunday. It was the biggest decline in the survey ...

  Bloomberg Standard Bank Group Ltd said 99% of its transaction volumes in South Africa are now cashless, a trend that has helped the continent’s largest lender by assets to cut costs. “It’s extraordinary,” Standard Bank’s Chief Executive Sim Tshabalala said in an interview with Bloomberg News editor-in-chief Emeritus Matthew Winkler at the Africa Business Media Innovators Conversation. “What we’ve ...

  Bloomberg ICICI Bank Ltd’s profit in the third quarter rises 25% from a year earlier, helped by interest earnings from lending as the impact from the coronavirus pandemic eased. Net income was 61.9 billion rupees ($832 million) in the quarter ended December compared with 49.4 billion rupees a year ago, the company said in a statement to the stock ...

  Bloomberg Barclays Plc is offering its chief executive officer C.S. Venkatakrishnan 6,550 pounds ($8,877) a month in housing allowance for almost two years to encourage the banker to shift from New York to London after his appointment late last year, according to the Sunday Times. Venkatakrishnan took over as CEO on November 1 after former CEO Jes Staley stepped ...

  Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc is promoting Luke Sarsfield to co-head of its asset-management business, putting an end to an anomaly atop one of its key units. Chief Executive Officer David Solomon is set to disclose the leadership change this week in a division that oversees $1.7 trillion in assets, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Sarsfield’s ...

  Bloomberg HSBC Holdings warned traders that one of the main risks to business continuity is the city’s quarantine policy as the Asian financial hub tightens to contain a fifth wave of infections. Hong Kong, which is pursuing a Covid Zero strategy to match mainland China, has employed some of the strictest measures in the world to keep infections at ...

  Bloomberg The Swiss franc rises to the highest level against euro in more than six years on Monday, as concern over a possible military confrontation in Ukraine boosted demand for the haven currency. The franc climbed 0.2% to 1.0324 per euro, a level last seen in June 2015. It is poised for a 10th day of gains, the longest ...

  Bloomberg China’s central bank set its strongest reference rate for the yuan in three years in a sign it’s loosening its grip on the currency amid a relentless rally. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) set the reference rate at 6.3485 per dollar, the strongest since May 2018, similar to the average estimate in a Bloomberg survey. The move ...

  Bloomberg Equities in Europe declined on Monday and US futures reversed gains as the rout in technology stocks deepened amid concerns over the Federal Reserve’s imminent rate liftoff. Bonds gained. Tech stocks were among the largest decliners as the Stoxx Europe 600 index dropped almost 2%, on track for the biggest two-day slump since October. Tensions between Russia and ...