September, 2018

• 9 September

  Amazon at $1 trillion is more dream than reality

  

  The stock market is a weighing machine of companies’ potential rather than their current circumstances. That is doubly true for Amazon. Amazon.com Inc. has briefly reached a stock market value of $1 trillion. It’s a meaningless (and unoriginal) milestone but a notable symbol for a company that until recently hardly looked like a world-shaking giant. Amazon’s market cap is six ...

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• 9 September

  The sound of corrupt cash being sucked through Europe

  

  Europe’s national regulators are discovering the limits of their ability to police cross-border money laundering in a complex and globalized financial system that’s full of holes. As incomplete and imperfect as the region’s banking union may be, more supranational oversight and co-operation would help. The severity and complexity of corruption probes hitting supposedly humdrum, diversified consumer-and-business banks should be a ...

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• 9 September

  How oil executives make their own luck on pay

  

  You have to make your own luck, allegedly, but it really helps when stuff just goes your way. And it really really helps if you can somehow combine favourable vagaries with a little fortune-engineering of your own. Such alchemy is practiced in the c-suites of an industry with a Vegas-like affinity for the lucky: oil. Intuitively, bosses get paid well ...

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• 9 September

  Draghi seen pressing ahead with ‘rate hike’ despite risks

  

  Bloomberg Mario Draghi will only just manage to raise the European Central Bank’s interest rates before his term as president ends in October 2019 amid continued risks from US tariffs and Italian politics, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. With asset purchases about to conclude in December, most respondents predict euro zone policy makers will increase the deposit rate ...

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• 9 September

  SoftBank is seeking loans from banks pitching for mega IPO

  

  Bloomberg Masayoshi Son is asking Wall Street banks to open their pocketbooks if they want in on what could be the biggest-ever initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter. SoftBank Group Corp. has told potential underwriters seeking a large role in the blockbuster IPO of its Japanese wireless unit that they should offer to lend to other ...

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• 9 September

  Europe’s dirty money defenses not up to the task, says Nordea

  

  Bloomberg Next month, the euro zone will get its eighth global systemically important bank, Nordea Bank AB. Its management is now asking authorities in the bloc to consolidate anti-money laundering defenses after a spate of scandals rocked confidence in the finance industry and its regulators. Julie Galbo, chief risk officer at Nordea and a former regulator at the Danish Financial ...

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• 9 September

  Bank fines surge in China as watchdog battles rising bad loans

  

  Bloomberg China’s banking regulator is handing out fines at a record pace, as it battles a build-up of financial risk. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, along with its predecessor agency, has issued fines worth about $585 million since Chairman Guo Shuqing took charge of the watchdog in early 2017, compared with a total of some 1 billion yuan ...

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• 9 September

  Wells Fargo faces DOJ probe of wholesale-banking unit

  

  Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co. is facing a Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into whether employees in the company’s wholesale-banking business improperly altered customer data, a person familiar with the matter said. The changes were made to meet a regulatory deadline, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier Thursday. “This particular situation involved a new process and a new required document ...

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• 9 September

  BA hack leaves airline open to fines under ‘data rules’

  

  Bloomberg British Airways may become the first high-profile company to run afoul of Europe’s far-reaching data privacy rules — and face potentially hefty fines — after a computer hack compromised credit card data from some 380,000 customers. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which took effect in May, mandates that companies have to take technical precautions such ...

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• 9 September

  EasyJet targets more long-haul feeder ties after Singapore deal

  

  Bloomberg EasyJet Plc Chief Executive Officer Johan Lundgren is in talks for further deals allowing passengers to connect with flights operated by long-haul carriers after announcing an accord with Singapore Airlines Ltd. Europe’s second-biggest discount carrier aims to seal more tie-ups before the year’s end, Lundgren said in an interview in London. Potential allies include more Asian operators as well ...

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