February, 2016

• 16 February

  New year woe for Taiwan as exports fall again

  Taipei/ AFP The new year has brought Taiwan no respite from its economic woes as exports fell in January for the 12th successive month, the longest continuous decline for almost seven years. The island slid into recession in the last quarter of 2015, posting its slowest annual growth since 2009, as China’s economic slowdown and weaker international demand took their ...

  Read More »
• 16 February

  BoK keeps rate at record low amid market turbulence

  

  Bloomberg The Bank of Korea (BoK) kept its key rate unchanged Tuesday for an eighth consecutive month as it waits for a clearer picture of first-quarter data and assesses the impact of unstable markets. The decision to keep the seven-day repurchase rate at a record low 1.5 percent was forecast by all 15 economists in a Bloomberg survey. South Korea’s ...

  Read More »
• 16 February

  Swedish Banks’ big risk becomes a benefit

  

  Bloomberg For years, the country’s central bank and financial supervisor have railed against lenders’ dependence on markets — rather than deposits — because of the risk that investors might flee, leaving banks in a lurch. Now, Sweden is finding the markets may be a better funding source than savers as central bank rates go deeper into negative territory. Market funding ...

  Read More »
• 16 February

  China to mull minimum bad-loan coverage

  Bloomberg China’s cabinet has discussed lowering the ratio of provisions banks must set aside for bad loans, potentially easing a drag on earnings after soured debts at lenders climbed to the highest in a decade. The China Banking Regulatory Commission would be responsible for deciding the timing and magnitude of any reduction, said people with knowledge of the matter, who ...

  Read More »
• 16 February

  Neske poised to become CEO of LBBW

  Bloomberg Rainer Neske, the former head of consumer banking at Deutsche Bank AG, is poised to become the next chief executive officer of state-owned regional lender Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg, according to people with knowledge of the matter. LBBW’s supervisory board will meet on Tuesday to decide whether to approve the 51-year-old as successor to Hans-Joerg Vetter, 63, according to the people, ...

  Read More »
• 16 February

  UOB profit Q4 barely rises

  Bloomberg United Overseas Bank (UOB) Ltd.’s fourth-quarter profit barely rose as swelling expenses and provisions for bad loans capped gains in income. Net income gained 0.3 percent to S$788 million ($564 million) for the three months ended Dec. 31 from a year earlier, Singapore’s third-biggest bank said Tuesday in an exchange statement. That matched the average estimate of seven analysts ...

  Read More »
• 16 February

  China bank lending surges to record high in January

  Bloomberg China’s bank lending surged to a record 2.51 trillion yuan ($385 billion) in January, official figures showed Tuesday, as credit gushed to help boost the flagging economy. New loans extended by banks beat market expectations of 1.9 trillion yuan, according to a median forecast compiled by Bloomberg News, and far exceeded the 597.8 billion yuan in December. But analysts ...

  Read More »
• 16 February

  Credit Suisse Russia CEO Hellman resigns

  Bloomberg Steven Hellman has stepped down as chief executive officer of Credit Suisse Group AG’s Russian business after heading the Swiss bank’s business in the country since 2010. “We’re going through a very difficult transitional period for the industry and that’s exacerbated in Russia by the particular political and other issues the country is facing,” Hellman said in an interview ...

  Read More »
• 16 February

  Singapore Banks can’t be relaxed about rig-building woes

  

  Bloomberg It’s not clear how much of Singapore’s bad loans for 2015, the highest since 2009, are due to low commodity prices, because banks don’t give a detailed industry breakdown of their assets. Given the city’s focus on becoming a global rig-building hub, chances are there’s a link. Another report Monday from Sembcorp Marine, the world’s second-largest maker of offshore ...

  Read More »
• 16 February

  Germany brings its gold hoard home

  

  Frankfurt / DPA Germany is slowly bringing home its gold, lodged outside the country in vaults in New York, Paris and London during the years of the Cold War. Germany’s central bank possesses the second-biggest hoard of gold bars in the world, and conspiracy theories have multiplied over the years, based around the fact that only a tiny number of ...

  Read More »