Taking stock of the global economy as finance ministers and central-bank governors gathered in Washington for its spring meetings, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) found reason for concern. “[R]isks beyond the next several quarters clearly lean to the downside,” it reports. Well, that’s hardly unusual — the IMF exists to be concerned. Rarely, though, has it had better grounds. To ...

To many economists, the solution to India’s bad-loan crisis appears as obvious as the problem: Privatize state-owned banks, which have racked up billions more in soured loans and performed much worse than their private-sector counterparts. Yet, unless the government first strengthens its ability to supervise all banks, public and private, selling some of them off will be slim guarantee against ...

Outside of Britain it’s commonly assumed that the country regrets its decision to leave Europe. Indeed European Parliament Brexit Representative Guy Verhofstadt suggested recently that one day the UK might rejoin the EU. It’s also a view some inside Britain cling to as well; and yet there’s very little evidence to support it. Ever since the Brexit vote in June ...

Since 1993, the year before the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) went into effect, per capita gross domestic product in Mexico is up about 26 percent in real terms. That’s a lot better than the outright decline in per capita GDP that the country had experienced over the course of the 1980s. But it’s nowhere close to the 41 ...

Bloomberg European Central Bank policy makers see scope to wait until their July meeting to announce how they’ll end their bond-buying program, according to euro-area officials familiar with the matter. Governing Council members want sufficient time to judge if the economy is overcoming its first-quarter slowdown, the officials said, asking not to be identified because the internal deliberations are confidential. ...

Bloomberg Even before Bundesbank will publish its annual statistics on the consolidation in the German banking industry in May, there are already indications that the total number of banks and branches has dropped even further. Banks from abroad or those focussing on very specific customer groups are among the few that are expanding. The number of savings and cooperative banks, ...

Bloomberg Barclays Plc Chief Executive Officer Jes Staley survived a year-long regulatory probe into his attempts to unmask a whistle-blower, escaping with a fine instead of losing his job. While the UK Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority will impose a financial penalty on Staley for failing to behave “with due skill, care and diligence” in the scandal, they ...

Bloomberg The Hong Kong dollar’s interbank borrowing costs rose to their hig-hest level this year, as the city’s de facto central bank bought more of the currency to defend its peg to the greenback. The three-month interbank rate — known as Hibor — climbed for a fourth day to reach 1.32 percent, the highest since December 27, as the Hong ...

Bloomberg The bad news at Deutsche Bank AG just got worse. Amid a weeks-long leadership tussle that claimed the scalps of the chief executive, two of his top lieutenants and tainted its chairman, the bank inadvertently transferred 28 billion euros ($35 billion) to one of its outside accounts, Bloomberg News has revealed. While the blunder was quickly reversed and caused ...

Bloomberg Passengers aboard a crippled Southwest Airlines Co. jetliner endured a tense, bumpy, 22-minute ride after an engine failed and hurled a hail of shrapnel that blew out a window, causing the death of a woman. The plane banked hard to the left by 41 degrees moments after the engine shutdown and its smooth exterior tore loose, dramatically increasing wind ...