Bloomberg Latin America’s delivery app wars are intensifying as Brazil’s iFood and a unit of Delivery Hero SE said they will merge operations in Colombia, setting up a battle with SoftBank-backed Rappi Inc on its home turf. Sao Paulo-based iFood and Domcilios.com, a subsidiary of Delivery Hero, said the merger will create one of the largest food delivery companies in ...

Bloomberg With the vast majority of flights out of New York currently canceled and citizens sheltering in place, it would seem there isn’t much use for a helicopter service that’s made a name for itself by transporting the city’s elite above Manhattan gridlock. But Blade Urban Air Mobility Inc quickly adapted to the new way of the world—both to aid ...

Bloomberg Alphabet Inc’s Wing unit is seeing a dramatic increase in the number of customers using its drone delivery service in rural Virginia during the Covid-19 pandemic. Wing, which began routine deliveries under a test programme approved by the federal government last October, has added new vendors and expanded the items customers can order to better serve people during the ...

Bloomberg China’s bank lending and credit provision hit records in March, indicating that government and central bank efforts to boost support for the economy are having an effect. Aggregate financing increased by 5.15 trillion yuan ($732 billion) last month, compared to a median estimate of 3.14 trillion yuan. That was a record for any month in comparable data back to ...

Bloomberg Foreign official holdings of Treasuries stashed at the Federal Reserve declined $21.7 billion during the first week of April, as the economic consequences of the coronavirus roiled governments and central banks around the world. The decrease appeared in the Fed’s weekly custody data, with the latest figure indicating a drop for the week that ended April 8. That’s the ...

Bloomberg Canada’s five biggest banks approved about 69,000 in loans on the opening day of the federal government’s relief program for small businesses hurt by the coronavirus pandemic. That totals $2 billion if every client took the full amount allowed under the Canada Emergency Business Account, which offers government-guaranteed loans of as much as C$40,000 that are interest-free through 2022. ...

Bloomberg South African banks are pushing for the creation of a loan-guarantee program to boost the flow of credit as lenders ramp up efforts to help clients cope with the coronavirus fallout. The nation is in its second week of a 21-day lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19, which if extended could further cripple an economy already in recession. ...

Bloomberg New Zealand’s central bank is not currently preparing retail banks for the introduction of a negative official cash rate, suggesting policy makers will resist cutting it further for the time being. The main reason the Reserve Bank committed to keeping its benchmark rate at 0.25% for at least a year “was to take away the imminent distraction of needing ...

Bloomberg Lenders face continued difficulties in issuing financing under the $349 billion small business relief effort the Trump administration launched a week ago in response to the coronavirus outbreak, leaving mom-and-pop firms at growing risk of failure. Banks have been intermittently shut out of the government’s loan-processing system. They’re manually filling out forms — and are forced to start over ...

Bloomberg The Trump administration wants the 12 largest US airlines to repay a portion of the federal grants they receive to cover their payrolls during the coronavirus crisis. The large carriers, which are set to receive more than $100 million in payroll assistance, are being offered aid packages that would require them to repay 30% of the grants through low-interest ...