June, 2022

• 17 June

  Online merchants lead Europe retailers back to Covid-19 lows

  

    Bloomberg Europe’s retail stocks are heading back towards pandemic lows. And after the profit warning from Asos Plc and the first UK sales decline in Boohoo Group Plc’s history, it’s online merchants that are leading them there. Asos shares sunk as much as 28%, falling to the lowest since August 2010. The warning sent tremors through larger peer Zalando ...

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• 17 June

  Cathay on hiring push as Hong Kong still wrestles with Covid

  

    Bloomberg Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd is planning to recruit 4,000 staff between now and the end of 2023 to replenish its severely depleted workforce and gear up for an anticipated recovery in air travel as Hong Kong rebuilds itself as an aviation hub, according to Chief Executive Officer Augustus Tang. The hiring spree would still leave Cathay with significantly ...

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• 17 June

  Ryanair to face strike by its Italy employees on June 25

    Bloomberg Ryanair Holdings Plc staff in Italy announced plans to strike on June 25, adding to Europe’s travel headaches as the industry tries to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Unions representing pilots and flight attendants will strike for 24 hours to press demands for better working conditions, they said. The walkout will also involve staff in Spain, Portugal, France ...

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• 17 June

  Wizz Air abandons no fuel hedging policy

    Bloomberg Wizz Air Holdings Plc said it will reinstate its jet-fuel hedging policy as volatile oil prices add to other surging costs for the airline industry and threatens to upend the sector’s recovery from the pandemic. Eastern Europe’s biggest discounter will “mirror” the hedging levels of its main peers and put additional jet fuel price caps in place for ...

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• 17 June

  Banks flow billions to companies involved in damaging rainforests

  

    Bloomberg Banks are often criticised for the financing they provide to fossil-fuel companies. But it doesn’t stop there. There’s also the funding they offer to companies that are damaging the world’s rainforests and indigenous communities. Since the Paris climate agreement was announced at the end of 2015, seven banks arranged at least $22.5 billion via loans and debt and ...

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• 16 June

  UK regulator tells banks to support customers

  

    Bloomberg The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) told more than 3,500 lenders they need to provide customers in vulnerable circumstances with more support as the rising cost of living threatens to tip millions into financial difficulty. The UK regulator said on Thursday that it was concerned consumers aren’t getting the support they need across the sector. “Changing pressures on consumers” ...

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• 16 June

  Credit Suisse prosecutor finds $60mn in money laundering

  

    Bloomberg A prosecutor has identified more than $60 million that he believes was laundered through Credit Suisse Group AG, in the precursor to what would be an historic Swiss criminal indictment against the bank. Geneva’s top financial-crime prosecutor, Yves Bertossa, identified a series of eight transactions the bank let slide between 2008 and 2014 at a hearing last week, ...

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• 16 June

  Hungary unexpectedly raises key interest rate

    Bloomberg Hungary unexpectedly raised the country’s key interest rate after the forint fell to a record this week. The one-week deposit rate was increased by 50 basis points to 7.25% on Thursday, the second rate increase in three weeks. All economists in a Bloomberg survey expected no change, in line with central bank messaging to try to keep rate ...

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• 16 June

  Development Bank Ghana sets $4 billion capital target

  

    Bloomberg Development Bank Ghana, which officially starts operations with about $800 million in capital, plans to grow fivefold over the next five years to help end a shortage of funding to small and medium sized enterprises. It will lend money to financial institutions, which should in turn give loans to business owners at an affordable interest rate, Kwamina Duker, ...

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• 16 June

  HSBC fires trader over personal messages to client

    Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc fired a trader in London after scrutinizing the personal mobile phones of some staff, in a sign of increased pressure on banks to closely monitor business communications. Earlier this year, the lender’s UK-based compliance team pushed some traders and bankers to hand over their phones so they could examine business messages on platforms such as ...

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