Bloomberg China will now permit foreign companies to access its $27 trillion payments market, which will further open up the world’s second-largest economy. Foreign players can start applying for payment licenses and will be treated the same as local firms, the People’s Bank of China said in a statement on Wednesday. Applicants must set up local units, establish payment infrastructure …

Bloomberg Hoist Finance AB of Sweden is gearing up to buy non-performing credit portfolios from Greek banks as they prepare to offload loans that soured during the country’s debt crisis. “There’s been a lot of talk about Greece for a long time, but now it’s actually happening,” Klaus-Anders Nysteen, the chief executive officer of Hoist, said in an interview in …

Bloomberg The European Central Bank is on a slow walk towards concluding four years of quantitative easing, and that challenge might look easy compared with what comes next. While policy makers are comfortable with market expectations for bond purchases to end this year, the bigger specter of 2019 looms large. That’s when the Governing Council might dare to actually withdraw …

Bloomberg Nordea Bank AB may be cutting thousands of jobs to go digital, but in its wealth management business, it’s hiring. The bank, which is moving its headquarters to Finland from Sweden for regulatory reasons, has hired about 75 people over the past year to help run its $400 billion wealth unit, according to its head, Snorre Storset. “Wealth management …

Bloomberg Airbus SE is considering building a freighter version of its slow-selling A330neo wide-body, spurred by requests from potential customers Amazon.com Inc and United Parcel Service (UPS) Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. The interest from Amazon and UPS could rekindle a competition between Airbus and Boeing Co. as the global air-cargo market rebounds from a decade-long slump. …

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc. has looked at the possibility of expanding its retail footprint by acquiring some locations from bankrupt Toys ‘R’ Us Inc., according to people with knowledge of the situation. The online giant isn’t interested in maintaining the Toys ‘R’ Us brand, but has considered using the soon-to-be-vacant spaces for its own purposes, said the people, who asked not …

Bloomberg Ryanair Holdings agreed to buy an Austrian airline from former Formula One motor-racing champion Niki Lauda, only the second acquisition in the Irish carrier’s history. The low-cost giant will pay Lauda less than $61.7 million for a majority stake in LaudaMotion, which retook control of carrier Niki just two months ago following the insolvency of Air Berlin. The aviation …

Bloomberg British retailer John Lewis Partnership Plc is opening its 50th department store in London amid a spate of retail restructurings and outright collapses. In a bid to draw in shoppers, it’s doubling down on everything it says Amazon.com Inc. can’t do. The employee-owned retailer wants to build more personalised relationships with its customers through concierge-style services and educational sessions …

Bloomberg Energy-related companies led a rise in US stocks as equity markets looked to shrug off weakness in technology. Government bond yields increased as investors braced for higher US borrowing rates. Oil climbed to a two-week high as output curbs by OPEC and its allies continued to deplete the remnants of a global supply surplus, helping to lift the shares …

Reuters The region’s biggest market, Saudi Arabia, was up 0.2 percent with financial stocks among the largest gainers ahead of an expected decision by FTSE at the end of this month to include Riyadh in its secondary emerging market index. Al Rajhi Bank, the kingdom’s second largest bank by assets, rose 1.7 percent, while Saudi British Bank was up 2.3 …