July, 2019

• 28 July

  India stocks erase outperformance versus their peers

  

  Bloomberg The premium Indian equities command versus their emerging-nation peers has narrowed to the smallest since last April and may not rebound soon. That’s the view from Bank of America Merrill Lynch as the country’s equity benchmark head for its worst monthly drop since October, weighed down by disappointments related to a proposed super-rich tax, tepid earnings, and the lingering ...

  Read More »
• 28 July

  Japanese banks running out of room to cope with negative rates

  

  Bloomberg Japanese banks have spent more than three years trying to flee negative interest rates at home by ramping up lending abroad. Now their escape routes are closing. Declining global rates are buffeting the country’s three largest lenders as they prepare to post fiscal first-quarter results next week. And with central banks around the world now in monetary easing mode, ...

  Read More »
• 28 July

  Nigeria facing risk of losing $15 billion of crisis-era bad loans

  

  Bloomberg Nigeria is facing the risk of never recovering about 5.5 trillion naira ($15 billion) of bad loans taken over during a banking crisis more than a decade ago. The money is almost 80 percent of the West African nation’s revenue target for 2019 and 62 percent of planned spending by president Muhammadu Buhari, amounting to 8.9 trillion naira. That ...

  Read More »
• 28 July

  China bank courts investors over bonds

  

  Bloomberg Bank of Jinzhou Co said it is in talks to introduce strategic investors after a report that China’s financial regulators are seeking to resolve its liquidity problems pushed down the lender’s dollar-denominated debt. Officials including those from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission recently held a meeting with financial institutions in Bank ...

  Read More »
• 28 July

  Lagarde’s future ECB colleagues are not all convinced on her

  

  Bloomberg When Christine Lagarde chairs her first meeting as European Central Bank (ECB) president in November, she might wonder which of her colleagues don’t really want her there. As the Governing Council signed off on the decision by governments to appoint the former International Monetary Fund chief, not all of the 21 voting members backed her, according to two euro-zone central ...

  Read More »
• 28 July

  HK’s new monetary authority head vows to maintain stability

  

  Bloomberg Hong Kong has appointed a veteran central banker as the next chief executive of its monetary authority, signalling continuity remains the priority as the city faces ongoing political turmoil. While the social unrest over the government’s botched extradition bill won’t be Eddie Yue’s responsibility, and may even have dissipated by the time he takes office in October, maintaining the ...

  Read More »
• 28 July

  Jack Ma’s $290b MYbank changing China banking

  

  Bloomberg Jack Ma’s online bank is leading a quiet revolution in the way China lends to small businesses, taking aim at a credit bottleneck that has held back Asia’s largest economy for decades. Using real-time payments data and a risk-management system that analyses more than 3,000 variables, Ma’s four-year-old MYbank has lent 2 trillion yuan ($290 billion) to nearly 16 ...

  Read More »
• 28 July

  Hong Kong’s protests affected economy, says finance secretary

  

  Bloomberg Social unrest gripping Hong Kong has affected the city’s economy and businesses, and the unemployment rate is likely to rise from current levels, financial secretary Paul Chan said. In the Chinese-language post on his website, Chan said many local retail and catering businesses had experienced a “sharp decline” in business, and he warned that the longer the historic protests ...

  Read More »
• 28 July

  Tencent, GIC raise stakes in Weimob

  Bloomberg Tencent Holdings Ltd, Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte and BlackRock Inc increased their stakes in Weimob Inc through a share sale that’s said to have netted $180 million. Weimob, which has a market value of about $1.2 billion, will use the proceeds to bankroll technology development, it said in an emailed statement. The six-year-old company, which went public ...

  Read More »
• 28 July

  Agarwal’s Anglo deal ends with a whimper

  

  Bloomberg It once looked like Anil Agarwal could shake up the mining industry by amassing the biggest stake in Anglo American Plc. But in the end the Indian tycoon’s lack of financial firepower forced him to unwind his investment. For two years, Agarwal kept insiders and Anglo executives guessing about why the billionaire decided to take a position in the ...

  Read More »