TORONTO / Reuters Bank of Montreal (BMO), Canada’s fourth largest lender, has announced that it had launched the first biometric corporate card programme in Canada and US in partnership with Mastercard. BMO and Mastercard said the technology will enable cardholders to verify transactions using facial recognition and fingerprint biometrics when making online purchases. In a statement, they said the introduction …

Bloomberg Tahya Masr (Long Live Egypt) Fund, initiated by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, is set to deliver the first and second phases of a social housing project tailored for slum residents in April. The Tahya Masr social housing project is to include 15,000 housing units to place 60,000 slum residents, said Manal Shaheen, the fund’s General Director of Development Projects. …

Bloomberg A research unit of China’s central bank branch in Shenzhen asked commercial banks in the city to strengthen risk-control practices on household mortgage loans as property prices have soared. Mortgage leverage in Shenzhen has been far higher than in other first-tier cities since 2015, and has accumulated risks, according to the statement from the Financial Society of Shenzhen Special …

Bloomberg Buyers from China comprised about one-third of purchases of Vancouver’s hot housing market in 2015, according to “back of the envelope calculations” by National Bank of Canada. Chinese investors spent about C$12.7 billion ($9.6 billion) on real estate in the western Canadian city in 2015, or 33 percent of its C$38.5 billion in total sales, according to a note …

Bloomberg Hainan Airlines Co., the biggest private airline in China, reported a 15.9 percent jump in full-year profit as cheaper oil prices drove down costs and passenger numbers increased. Billionaire Chen Feng’s airline reported net income of 3 billion yuan ($460.6 million) last year compared with 2.6 billion yuan in 2014, the Haikou, Hainan-based company said in a Shanghai stock …

Bloomberg Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. almost doubled earnings last year after expanding its pact with 49 percent shareholder Delta Air Lines Inc., hosting more people on holiday packages and benefiting from the drop in oil prices. Pretax profit excluding exceptional items surged to 22.5 million pounds ($32 million) from a restated 12.4 million pounds in 2014, helped by …

Reuters TreeHouse Foods Inc has announced it would introduce more premium, healthy snacks and popular drinks to revitalise the struggling private-label business it bought from ConAgra Foods Inc last month. TreeHouse’s $2.7 billion acquisition of ConAgra’s business — its biggest ever — makes it the largest private-label food company in the US, with 2015 pro-forma sales of about $7 billion. …

Bloomberg BHS, the dowdy department store, will live to fight another day. The struggling privately owned retailer has been given a lifeline after landlords voted to approve a restructuring that would ease its rent burden. The company’s near miss can only partly be seen as consequence of the 15 years it spent under the leadership of retail entrepreneur Sir Philip …

Bloomberg The owners of Turkish supermarket chain Carrefoursa have hired Bank of America Corp. to sell shares in the joint venture to boost the stock’s trading on the Istanbul stock exchange, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The companies haven’t made a final decision about the share sale, said the people, who asked not to be named because …

Bloomberg American Airlines Group Inc. gave in to pressure from employees and adopted a profit-sharing programme, acknowledging the issue was thwarting efforts to improve labor relations and the carrier’s performance. American joins the other large US carriers — Delta Air Lines Inc., United Continental Holdings and Southwest Airlines Co. — in splitting some earnings with employees. Starting this year, 5 …