December, 2019

• 3 December

  German banks to charge retail clients for savings

  

  Bloomberg After five years of negative rates imposed by the European Central Bank (ECB), German lenders are breaking the last taboo: Charging retail clients for their savings starting with very first euro in the their accounts. While many banks have been passing on negative rates to retail clients for some time, they have typically only done so for deposits of ...

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• 3 December

  ‘Thailand has options to curb baht strength’

  

  Bloomberg The Bank of Thailand said it has many tools left to manage capital inflows to curb the local currency’s strength, which is hurting growth prospects in the Southeast Asian economy. The scope and speed of the baht’s appreciation is out of line with economic fundamentals such as the current-account surplus, Don Nakornthab, a senior director in the central bank’s ...

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• 3 December

  World Bank sees Tanzania growth rising to 5.6%

  

  Bloomberg The World Bank sees Tanzania’s economic growth accelerating to 5.6% this year from an estimated 5.4% in 2018, driven by a recovery in exports and growing tourist arrivals. The rate of expansion will also quicken to 5.8% in 2020 and 6.1% in the following year, it said in a report published on Tuesday. “Tanzania was again one of the ...

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• 3 December

  UniCredit pushes bank job cuts past 70k mark

  

  Bloomberg UniCredit SpA’s plan to eliminate 8,000 jobs is pushing cuts announced by banks this year past 73,000, almost all of them in Europe, where negative interest rates and a slowing economy force lenders to slash costs. Chief Executive Officer Jean Pierre Mustier announced the measures as part of the next, four-year chapter in his overhaul of Italy’s largest bank. ...

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• 3 December

  Most valuable Indian lender sees signs of a rural revival

  

  Bloomberg HDFC Bank Ltd, India’s most valuable lender by market capitalisation, sees tentative signs of a revival in rural areas at a time when the wider economy is sputtering. “The recent loan outreach programmes underway in rural areas have given us the sense that the consumption in rural and semi-urban areas is turning more positive,” HDFC Bank Executive Director Kaizad ...

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• 3 December

  Philippine seeks tough anti-money laundering laws

  Bloomberg Financial regulators are pushing for legal changes in order to avoid the Philippines being placed on a global monitoring list for countries with weak anti-money laundering and terrorism financing controls. The government needs to implement the changes by October or risk being placed on a “grey” list by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, the Philippines Anti-Money Laundering Council ...

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• 3 December

  China’s school children smartest in the world

  

  Bloomberg Chinese students far out-stripped peers in every other country in a survey of reading, math and science ability, underscoring a reserve of future economic strength and the struggle of advanced economies to keep up. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s triennial study of 15 year-old students across the world found that the four Chinese provinces tested — ...

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• 3 December

  Beijing raises e-car sales target to 25%

  

  Bloomberg China raised its 2025 sales target for electrified cars as the government tries to spur an industry that’s showing signs of slowing down. The country wants about 25% of new cars sold by 2025 to be electrified, according to a draft policy published by the ministry of industry and information technology. Its last roadmap on the industry announced in ...

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• 3 December

  China hints US blacklist soon in threat to trade deal talks

  

  Bloomberg Chinese state media said the government will soon publish a list of “unreliable entities” that could lead to sanctions against US companies, signalling trade talks between the two nations are increasingly under threat from disputes over human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. The Communist Party-backed Global Times said in a tweet that the list was being sped up ...

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• 3 December

  TikTok sued by California college student over data use

  

  Bloomberg A California college student has sued TikTok, the viral video service run by social media giant ByteDance Inc, for secretly funnelling her personal information to China while using her videos to create an online profile for targeted ads. The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of California by full-time university student Misty Hong, alleges TikTok harvested her videos, gathered ...

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