Bloomberg Indonesia is extending its mobility curbs for another week until August 2 as coronavirus cases remain high following near month-long restrictions. Adjustments are made in order to allow small businesses to operate under strict health protocols, President Joko Widodo said in a briefing broadcast on YouTube. Traditional markets selling staple foods will open as normal, while shops selling non-food ...

Bloomberg The US and China left open the possibility of a summit between their presidents despite a contentious day of talks between officials from both sides in city of Tianjin. Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng told visiting Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman during a meeting on Monday that the relationship was “in a stalemate and faces serious difficulties.” Xie ...

Bloomberg Najib Mikati, a billionaire businessman and former premier, is poised to be named Lebanon’s third prime minister-designate in less than a year, as the country scrambles to escape a spiraling economic crisis. Lawmakers and President Michel Aoun are holding talks to name a new premier, but Mikati’s already won the backing of a group of former Sunni Muslim heavyweight ...

Bloomberg Ethiopia’s northern Amhara province urged its adults to enlist in military and fight rebels advancing from neighbouring Tigray region, potentially intensifying the nine-month conflict. Amharans of above 18 years should fight for the “existence of the region,” Chief Administrator Agegnehu Teshager said on a regional broadcaster weeks after Tigray fighters crossed into towns in Amhara and Afar states. The ...

Bloomberg Britain’s biggest financial institutions are on track to meet the Bank of England’s deadline to be ready for negative interest rates, giving authorities another tool to aid the economy if the recovery fades. Banks including Natwest Group Plc, HSBC Holdings Plc, Barclays Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc are close to completing the technical steps necessary to implement negative ...

Bloomberg Yes Bank Ltd’s top executive said the Indian lender is putting its problems behind it and will focus on earnings growth after profit surged in the first quarter. “We have been able to take care of the legacy issues,” Prashant Kumar, the bank’s chief executive officer, said in a Bloomberg TV interview on Monday. “Going forward, there will be ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co is planning to more than double the advisers in its traditional broker business as the Wall Street giant plots an expansion in wealth management amid intensifying competition for rich clients. The bank aims to hire more than 500 advisers in coming years, bringing its total in the unit to 1,000, said Kristin Lemkau, who oversees ...

Bloomberg Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd posted an increase in first-quarter profit buoyed by a jump in income from non-lending businesses, including fees for services, even as its bad loan ratio widened because of a deadly second wave of Covid-19 infections during the period. Net income at India’s fourth-largest private lender was 16.42 billion rupees ($220 million), a 32% jump from ...

Bloomberg NatWest Group Plc is set to take a minority stake in Permanent TSB Group Holdings Plc as part of a potential deal to offload $8.9 billion of assets to the Irish lender. The two banks signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding to work together on an agreement that would see Permanent TSB take over much of NatWest’s Ulster Bank ...

Bloomberg Three years after the world learned of Danske Bank’s central role in one of Europe’s biggest money-laundering scandals, the cost of that stunning failure of governance is still palpable. Denmark’s biggest bank, once among the Nordic region’s most reputable companies, has yet to fully resurrect itself from a dirty money affair that’s made it the target of ongoing criminal ...