December, 2019

• 30 December

  Africa exchanges lobby group to link seven bourses by 2021

  Bloomberg The African Securities Exchanges Association has started a project that will link seven bourses on the continent by the first quarter of 2021 as part of efforts to increase trading in securities. The move would enable brokers on the Casablanca Stock Exchange, the Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières in Abidjan, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the Nigerian Stock Exchange, the ...

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• 30 December

  Grab, Singtel team up to bid for Singapore digital bank license

  

  Bloomberg Grab Holdings Inc is partnering with Singapore Telecommunications Ltd to apply for a full digital banking license, jumping aboard a Singapore government initiative to attract technology firms into its financial sector. A Grab entity will own a 60% stake in the consortium that will apply for the bank license in Singapore, while the telco known as Singtel will hold ...

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• 30 December

  ECB president Lagarde is trying to learn German

  

  Bloomberg European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde is attempting an endeavour possibly as daunting as reigniting inflation in the euro area: Learning German. It’s understandable that the region’s new monetary chief, an internationally minded Frenchwoman now based at the ECB’s headquarters in Frankfurt, might want to communicate in the first language of her latest home. Not only is German ...

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• 30 December

  Taiwan dollar erases gains, remains off-limits to traders

  

  Bloomberg The Taiwan dollar has erased gains with remarkable regularity in afternoon trading over the past weeks, but the predictable moves remain off-limits to traders. The local currency rose as much as 0.6% on Monday before ending the session up 0.2% at 30.135 versus the greenback. Recent late-session paring had spurred speculation that the central bank is taking a more ...

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• 30 December

  Italy’s Monte Paschi cuts bad-loan pile with $2b sale

  

  Bloomberg Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA sold about 1.8 billion euros ($2 billion) of troubled loans, reaching its goal for reducing risk two years early. About 1.6 billion euros of unsecured non-performing loans were sold to Illimity Bank SpA, Monte Paschi said in a statement on Monday. Separately, it sold 0.2 billion euros of unlikely to pay loans, ...

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• 30 December

  Probe sought over Korea’s hedge fund

  Bloomberg Lime Asset Management Co, the firm at the centre of a scandal that sparked unprecedented withdrawals from South Korean hedge funds, now faces an investigation into its investment in a troubled US fund. A senior official at the Financial Supervisory Service said South Korea’s top financial watchdog will ask prosecutors to probe Lime’s investment in funds run by International ...

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• 30 December

  The China bonds investors hate to love are top pick for 2020

  

  Bloomberg China’s local government financing vehicles are seen as the top investment among the nation’s corporate bonds next year as state backing limits the risk of default, a survey showed. Local governments’ financing vehicles, which now have 8.4 trillion yuan ($1.2 trillion) outstanding, have long had a shadow over them because many lack sustainable revenues to make debt payments, and ...

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• 30 December

  Tesla just delivered its first China-built cars in Shanghai

  

  Bloomberg Tesla Inc delivered its first China-built cars, a milestone for Elon Musk’s company as it accelerates a push in the world’s largest electric-vehicle market. The company handed over the first 15 Model 3 sedans assembled at Tesla’s new multibillion-dollar Shanghai plant — its first outside the US — to company employees at the facility on Monday. More workers will ...

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• 30 December

  Duterte renews attacks on TV network

  

  Bloomberg Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte continued his attacks on a local television network he’s accused in the past of bias, and urged owners of ABS-CBN Corp to sell before its franchise expires in March. In a televised speech delivered in the local language at Davao City on Monday, Duterte suggested the media firm’s franchise renewal is uncertain. He had earlier ...

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• 30 December

  Protests in India risk spooking investors away

  

  Bloomberg Protests against a new citizenship law in India risk making investors wary of doing business in Asia’s third-largest economy. At least 25 people have been killed in nationwide demonstrations against the new rules enacted into law earlier this month. The law bars undocumented Muslims from three neighboring nations seeking Indian citizenship, while allowing people of other faiths to do ...

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