April, 2020

• 4 April

  S Africa eases bank rules

  

  Bloomberg South Africa’s banking regulator plans to give banks a break from accounting and capital rules that could release around 300 billion rand ($17 billion) for lending to help the economy cope with the fallout of the coronavirus. “It’s quite big, it’s quite meaningful,” said Kuben Naidoo, deputy governor of the South African Reserve Bank and chief executive officer of ...

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• 4 April

  RBNZ urged to release ‘all guns blazing’ on QE to slash rates

  

  Bloomberg New Zealand’s central bank needs to step up the scale and pace of its quantitative easing (QE) to achieve a meaningful fall in interest rates, market participants say. Since beginning purchases last week, the Reserve Bank has bought NZ$1.4 billion of government bonds at four auctions. While yields have moved lower, the market is wary that an expected NZ$17 ...

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• 4 April

  Central banks in Southeast Asian coordinating efforts

  

  Bloomberg Officials from leading Southeast Asian central banks have agreed to coordinate efforts to boost their economies, all struggling under the blow from the coronavirus pandemic. Bank Indonesia Governor Perry Warjiyo told reporters in an online briefing that he held talks a day earlier with officials from five central banks in the region. He didn’t give details of what kind ...

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• 4 April

  Singapore banks to defer mortgage, SME loan payments

  

  Bloomberg Singapore’s central bank said lenders will offer additional relief for consumers and companies battered by the sharp economic slowdown, including a freeze on mortgage and business loan payments and cuts to credit card rates. Banks and finance companies can defer both principal and interest payments on residential mortgages through December 31, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in ...

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• 4 April

  RMB urges coordinated effort to soften virus blow

  Bloomberg Rand Merchant Bank (RAB) urged South African lenders and other finance firms to adopt a more coordinated approach with the government to the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus outbreak. While South Africa’s banks have made a constructive effort to cushion customers from the impact so far, a much broader response is needed, James Formby, the chief executive officer of ...

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• 4 April

  EasyJet founder escalates feud with board over plane order

  

  Bloomberg EasyJet Plc’s founder escalated his feud with the board, calling for the ouster of a director in a bid to pressure the discount airline into cancelling a 4.5 billion-pound ($5.6 billion) aircraft order. Stelios Haji-Ioannou, EasyJet’s biggest owner with a 34% stake, proposed a general meeting to remove director Andreas Bierwirth, according to a letter sent to the airline’s ...

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• 4 April

  Boeing mulls wide-body jet cuts, plans buyouts

  

  Bloomberg Boeing Co is offering employee buyouts and weighing additional savings measures such as new output cuts, as the coronavirus pandemic threatens to depress aircraft sales for years. While the company has yet to alter production plans, it’s taking a closer look at manufacturing rates for wide-body jets amid plunging demand, said a person familiar with the matter. Boeing was ...

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• 4 April

  American Air blunder forces carrier to cut leave offer in half

  

  Bloomberg American Airlines Group Inc botched its offer of paid time off to some pilots, forcing the carrier to pull back offers for 1,200 slots and award short-term voluntary leave to just 600 of them. One hundred pilots of Airbus SE A320 and Boeing Co 737 narrow-body jets started leave from April 1, the airline said by email. Another 500 ...

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• 4 April

  Walmart told to halt in-store sales of non-essentials in Vermont

  

  Bloomberg Shoppers in Vermont hoping to wander the aisles of their local big-box store in search of an exercise mat or a video game are out of luck. The state ordered Walmart Inc and other big-box retailers to halt the sale of “non-essential” products in their brick-and-mortar locations to reduce the potential spread of the coronavirus. A spokesman for Vermont’s ...

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• 4 April

  Amazon chooses Irvine for second grocery-concept site

  Bloomberg Amazon.com is planning to open a new grocery store in Irvine, California, the second confirmed location for an as-yet-unnamed retail concept separate from the company’s Whole Foods Market chain. Amazon job postings show the retailer is hiring for managers and grocery staffers for a store in the city, located southeast of Los Angeles in Orange County. An Amazon spokeswoman ...

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