April, 2016

• 16 April

  Affordable-housing crisis moves inland in USA

    Bloomberg When Nashville Mayor Megan Barry was campaigning last year, she made increasing the city’s stock of affordable housing a big part of her platform. It’s not hard to see why: Home prices in the cradle of country music have jumped 58 percent over the past three years as workers flocked to the city’s thriving economy. One in four ...

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• 16 April

  Spain’s banks drawn back to homebuilder loans as sales surge

    Bloomberg Some Spanish banks are advancing more loans to home builders and cutting their borrowing costs, eight years after they froze credit for construction as the nation’s property bubble burst. CaixaBank SA, Spain’s third-largest bank, will this year lend €1.4 billion for developer financing, more than twice the amount in 2015, the lender said. Banco de Sabadell SA gave ...

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• 16 April

  Home in USA has fewer tax benefits than thought

  

    Bloomberg The tax benefits of homeownership, which generations of U.S. residents have counted on, have been elusive for typical buyers since mortgage rates started tumbling in 2008, according to an analysis by John Burns Real Estate Consulting LLC. For a married couple who put 20 percent down on a median-priced home and borrowed the rest, the standard deduction for ...

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• 16 April

  Hit by energy volatility, Citigroup sees pain ahead

  

  New York / AFP Citigroup joined the growing list of banks to boost reserves for bad energy loans, but said it saw no signs the energy bust was spreading to the broader economy. The US banking giant lifted its reserves for loan losses by $233 million due to energy-related loans as company officials signaled they expect further hits to results ...

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• 16 April

  Kenya to weigh over 5 offers for Chase Bank

    Bloomberg Kenya’s central bank is evaluating more than five offers from potential local and foreign suitors for Chase Bank Kenya Ltd., which was placed into receivership last week, Governor Patrick Njoroge said. The nation’s regulators were forced to step in with emergency support to stem depositor panic after the collapse last week of Chase Bank, the third lender to ...

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• 16 April

  PBOC slashes fixing most as Asian currencies drop

  

    BLOOMBERG The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) weakened the daily yuan reference rate by the most in three months after the dollar strengthened. The central bank set the daily fixing of the local currency at 6.4891 to the dollar on Thursday, the lowest level in more than two weeks. The yuan in Shanghai fell 0.1 percent in a third ...

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• 16 April

  Hungary to remove incentives for banks buying state debt

  

    Bloomberg Hungary’s central bank will review whether to remove incentives it has provided for commercial banks to buy government debt after yields plunged to record lows and government foreign-currency debt trail off. The National Bank of Hungary will reassess the need to continue providing interest-rate swap facilities to banks, Vice Governor Marton Nagy said in an article on Portfolio ...

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• 16 April

  ECB doesn’t aim to weaken euro against dollar

  

  WASHINGTON / Reuters The European Central Bank (ECB) is unhappy with the US dollar’s recent fall but accepts it as a natural consequence of the Federal Reserve’s cautious economic outlook and sees no reason to act to weaken the euro, three ECB sources said. A weaker dollar — it has shed 4 percent against the euro since the beginning of ...

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• 16 April

  Chatbots: Future of online biz?

  

    Washington / AFP An artificial intelligence “chatbot” from Taco Bell now lets you order a meal in a smartphone text exchange that might look something like this: TacoBot: Hello there, I’m your TacoBot, I can help you order a meal for you or your team. You: Can I order one soft taco with beef? TacoBot: Sounds good… do you want ...

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• 16 April

  Mona Lisa’s villa up for sale in Italy

  

  Rome / AFP One of Tuscany’s most famous villas is up for sale with its owners hoping to be smiling all the way to the bank thanks to its links to the Mona Lisa. The Villa Antinori was once owned by the family of silk merchant Francesco Del Giocondo, whose wife Lisa Gherardini is widely believed to have sat for Leonardo ...

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