Bloomberg ING Groep NV, the biggest Dutch lender, saw expenses increase as a proportion of income last year as Chief Executive Officer Ralph Hamers said the bank increased spending on measures that will help it cut costs further in the future. ING reported a cost-to-income ratio of 59.9 percent in the fourth quarter, a rise from a year earlier and ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan increased the amount of bonds it offered to buy at a regular operation for the first time since July, helping to bring down yields and weaken the yen. The BOJ sought to buy 330 billion yen ($3 billion) of 3-to-5 year debt, more than the 300 billion yen at the last operation, it said a ...

DUBAI / WAM The National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah (RAKBank) reported a 22 percent y-on-y jump in net profit, which reached AED810.5 million in 2017, up from AED663 million a year earlier. “The figure puts net profit in the fourth quarter of 2017 at AED204.2 million, close to twice the AED108.7 million in net profit in the same quarter ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOHAP) and Mubadala Investment Company (Mubadala) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore cooperation across eight key healthcare pillars. The agreement will see the organisations collaborate on a range of healthcare and therapeutic areas in which Mubadala Healthcare and its network of world class healthcare companies has deep expertise. ...

DUBAI / WAM Private healthcare in the Gulf Cooperation Council region, estimated at $62 billion in 2016, is forecasted to expand 8.7 percent annually, to reach $94 billion in 2021, according to MENA Research Partners (MRP), a leading research company in the region. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE together represent more than two third of the market, ...

ABU DHABI / WAM Customers with contracts for the supply of Murban crude oil from the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) have been advised of a 25 percent cut in allocations for March 2018, ADNOC sources have confirmed. In a Twitter message, the Minister of Energy and Industry, Suhail Mohammed Faraj Al Mazroui, said that the cut was ‘in ...

DAMMAM / WAM The Middle East and North Africa (Mena) will need investments of approximately $180 billion to add a capacity at 7.4% annually until 2021, which corresponds to additions of more than 130GW, according to estimates by Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (APICORP). ‘‘Governments continue to meet this challenge by expediting new projects and upgrading their infrastructure to meet increasing ...

DUBAI / Reuters Emirates NBD said it had started initial strategic discussions with Russia’s Sberbank about a possible purchase of Sberbank’s stake in Turkey’s Denizbank. Emirates NBD has previously acquired BNP Paribas’ Eygptian banking business and has been scouting for opportunities in the Turkish banking sector for several years as part of its international expansion. Moscow-based Sberbank was evaluating opportunities ...

DUBAI / WAM Dubai Startup Hub, an initiative of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, announced the signing of several deals between four leading UAE-based corporates and organisations, namely Dubai Chamber, flydubai, Emirates NBD, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and the three winning start-ups of the MarketAccess programme. Memoranda of understanding (MoUs) were unveiled on Tuesday during a deal signing ...

Bloomberg US stocks are on pace for the biggest two-day decline since August, while yields on benchmark government bonds are near April 2014 highs, as caution creeps into markets after one of the best starts to a year in recent history. The S&P 500 Index fell the most in seven weeks and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped more than ...