August, 2021

• 9 August

  New York Gov’s top aide resigns amid harassment claims

  

  Bloomberg Melissa DeRosa, the highest-ranking aide to Andrew Cuomo, resigned as the embattled New York governor contends with possible criminal charges over numerous harassment claims and a potential impeachment trial. DeRosa, who had remained one of Cuomo’s chief defenders throughout multiple scandals, said she would step down from her post as secretary to the governor after what she called a ...

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• 9 August

  Troops eject rebels who besieged Total’s Mozambique LNG project

  

  Bloomberg Troops from Mozambique and Rwanda retook a port town at the heart of a four-year insurgency that led to the suspension of a $20 billion project by TotalEnergies SE. Soldiers from the two countries retook Mocimboa da Praia, which insurgents with ties to IS have held for a year, the Rwanda Defence Force said in Twitter post. The Mozambican ...

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• 9 August

  China punishes officials as Delta outbreaks spread

  

  Bloomberg China has punished a slew of officials for failing to curb a Covid-19 outbreak that’s spawned nearly 900 symptomatic infections across the country in less than a month, a resurgence that complicates Beijing’s strategy of keeping the virus out entirely. The eastern Chinese city of Yangzhou issued warnings to five officials for mishandling mass testing that they said allowed ...

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• 9 August

  Australian PM’s popularity slumps amid lockdowns

  Bloomberg Australians’ approval of Prime Minister Scott Morrison has fallen to the lowest level since the pandemic began, with voters wearying of virus-induced lockdowns amid his government’s tardy vaccine rollout. Support for Morrison’s handling of the crisis has fallen from 85% in April last year —when his conservative government imposed strict border controls that helped keep virus fatalities to less ...

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• 9 August

  BOE’s hawkish turn reignites pound’s pre-Covid strength

  

  Bloomberg The pound is about to enter a new era of strength against the euro, thanks to the Bank of England’s (BOE) hawkish turn. Traders have raised the odds of a rate hike in February to 60% after the BOE made clear last week that it’s beginning a countdown to end the era of rock-bottom borrowing costs. And it’s given ...

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• 9 August

  Ecuador central bank doubles BIS credit line to $840m

  

  Bloomberg Ecuador’s central bank doubled its emergency credit line with the Bank for International Settlements to $840 million as a precautionary measure in case of a downturn, its governor said in an interview. The credit line is part of efforts to strengthen the bank after previous administrations used its funds for government spending, Guillermo Avellan said. Those actions hurt the ...

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• 9 August

  JPMorgan: Digital currencies must balance inclusion, banks

  

  Bloomberg The creation of central bank digital currencies to address economic inequality with new retail loan and payments channels must be designed so they don’t “cannibalise” a country’s commercial financial system, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. If set up hastily, retail CBDCs could risk “disintermediating commercial banks” and lead to the exodus of 20% to 30% of their funding ...

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• 9 August

  Westpac sells Life Insurer unit to Dai-Ichi for $660m

  Bloomberg Westpac Banking Corp has agreed to sell its life insurance unit to Dai-ichi Life Holdings Inc’s Australian subsidiary TAL for $660 million as Australia’s second-largest lender continues to jettison non-core assets to focus on lending. The completion of the transaction, confirming an earlier Bloomberg report, is expected to happen in the second half of next year, Westpac said. Under ...

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• 9 August

  Citi sells its Australia retail unit as CEO Jane Fraser begins revamp

  

  Bloomberg Citigroup Inc has sold the first of 13 markets Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser put on the block, agreeing a deal to offload its Australian consumer unit to National Australia Bank Ltd. The Australian lender will pay the US bank cash for the net assets of the Citigroup Consumer Business plus a premium of A$250 million ($184 million), according ...

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• 9 August

  India holds rates amid dissent on lower-for-longer stance

  

  Bloomberg India’s central bank kept interest rates unchanged at a record low to support the economy, even as a split appeared among policy makers on continuing with the lower-for-longer stance. The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) six-member Monetary Policy Committee retained its main repurchase rate at 4%, as predicted by all 29 economists in a Bloomberg survey. Policy makers voted ...

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