London / AFP British bank Lloyds on Tuesday bought Bank of America’s UK credit card division MBNA for £1.9 billion in the first acquisition since its government bailout during the global financial crisis. The deal, worth $2.4 billion or 2.3 billion euros, will bolster the group’s position in Britain’s prime credit card market, Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) said in ...

  New York / AFP New York’s state bank regulator fined Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo $235 million for “sweeping violations” anti-money laundering laws and deliberately concealing information from bank examiners. The big Italian bank failed to flag questionable transactions and deviated from policies designed to root out wrongdoing, which “seriously (compromised) the security of the international financial system,” said Maria ...

  Bloomberg Malaysia’s ringgit touched its lowest level since the Asian financial crisis in 1998, as investors continue to sell down emerging-market assets and after a crackdown on currency speculators last month exacerbated outflows. The ringgit declined as much as 0.1 percent to 4.4805 per dollar, a level unseen since January 1998, according to prices from local banks compiled by ...

  Bloomberg BP Plc is piling up assets with more than $3 billion of deals in three days as Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley sees the company emerging from the doldrums after a two-year price slump. Since Saturday, BP has announced a $2.2 billion expansion of output in Abu Dhabi and a $916 million investment in fields in Mauritania and ...

BENGHAZI / Reuters An oil tanker docked at the east Libyan port of Es Sider to load the first cargo of crude since the terminal reopened following a two-year closure, port officials said. Es Sider, Libya’s biggest export terminal, had been shut due to a blockade by a military faction since 2014. It reopened in mid September, but repairs were ...

  CAIRO / Reuters The Egyptian government has increased the price it pays local farmers for sugar cane by 25 percent, the Ministry of Supplies said on Tuesday. Sugar companies belonging to the Ministry of Supplies will buy local sugar cane from farmers for 500 Egyptian pounds ($26.11) per tonne, up from 400 pounds in the last season, the statement ...

  Bloomberg Few countries have benefited from the oil market’s 2016 recovery like Iran. Since sanctions on its economy were eased in January, the Persian Gulf producer has doubled exports as prices rallied and won approval from OPEC last month to pump even more while other members cut. The key to continued growth will be attracting foreign investment to the ...

  Reuters Oman’s Electricity Holding Company (EHC) has signed an agreement for a $325 million working capital loan, the state-owned company’s finance chief said on Tuesday. The company, which holds the Omani government’s stake in nine electricity firms, has raised the funds to support four of its distribution subsidiaries, Hussain Al Balushi said. Bahrain’s Bank ABC coordinated the facility, which ...

  Reuters New standards for the use of precious metals in Islamic finance are encouraging the development of financial products based on gold and silver, from futures contracts to a mobile app. The Bahrain-based Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI), which sets guidelines followed in whole or in part by Islamic financial firms around the world, approved ...

  Bloomberg In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political base of Varanasi, Hinduism’s holiest city, weaver Zainul Abedin stares at the uneven mud floor of his home. Behind him, more than a dozen handlooms lie idle. Abedin is part of the collateral damage of Modi’s Nov. 8 decision to ban high-value currency notes, effectively canceling 86 percent of cash in circulation. ...