Nobody was surprised that the European Union’s leaders refused to move the Brexit talks forward at last week’s summit. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Council President Donald Tusk talked of progress and suggested there’d be more at the next gathering in December, but this speck of encouragement shouldn’t obscure the bigger picture. The process is moving too slowly, and ...

Bloomberg India’s state-run banks surged in Mumbai trading after the government pledged to inject an unprecedented 2.11 trillion rupees ($32 billion) of capital into the beleaguered lenders to revive credit growth. State Bank of India jumped as much as 25 percent, the biggest intraday gain in eight years. Punjab National Bank advanced as much as 40 percent. The Nifty PSU ...

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc. plans to hire about 20 bankers in Saudi Arabia and start operations by the end of the year after receiving an investment banking license for the kingdom in April. “The total number of people we want to have on the ground for the CMA license is up to 20 for our medium-term plans here,” James Forese, Citigroup’s ...

Bloomberg Blackstone Group LP could double its assets under management to $800 billion in five years, according to CEO Steve Schwarzman. “We have internal targets, plans, aspirations to basically double where we are which would take us to $800 billion,” Schwarzman said in Riyadh on Wednesday. When asked whether the New York-based asset manager could be a trillion dollar fund, ...

Bloomberg Singapore’s second-largest lender has decided that the best place to expand its research is the country’s rival market Hong Kong. Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. plans to add coverage of 60 Hong Kong-listed stocks, with 14 to 20 started by year-end, according to Carmen Lee, its head of research. That would supplement the around 75 firms already tracked by Bank of ...

Bloomberg Barclays Plc’s Jes Staley may need to reassure investors on two fronts when the bank reports third-quarter results on Thursday. While an industrywide slump in securities trading has likely weighed on the investment bank, analysts will look for any clues on how the group’s more profitable retail and card businesses are faring after US rivals signaled this month they’re ...

Bloomberg The question of who’ll be the next leader of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has gained urgency after Governor Zhou Xiaochuan dropped heavy hints that he’s ready to head into retirement. Announcements about changes in the PBOC leadership could come at any time. With President Donald Trump mulling who will be the next chair of the Federal Reserve ...

DUBAI / WAM His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, launched the One Million Arab Coders initiative, as part of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives (MBRGI), foundation. The initiative seeks to equip young Arabs with the tools to build their future, starting with fluency in ...

Abu Dhabi / WAM The UAE Central Bank withdrew AED23.8 billion ($6.53 billion) in excess liquidity in four months, as part of its policy to manage excess liquidity in the banking system. In the meantime, certificates of deposit at the bank rose to the tune of AED126.64 billion by the end of September. Official statistics show that the month of ...

DUBAI / Emirates Business Dubai Trade, the single window for cross-border trade and a DP World company, has integrated its Rosoom secured e-Payment gateway with Tahweel, the e-service portal of Dubai Maritime City (DMC). This partnership supports the Dubai Maritime Sector Strategy and the Smart Dubai initiative. The new step enables companies working in DMC to complete their transactions online ...