October, 2017

• 22 October

  Currency world roiled by politics as NZ dollar rocks traders

  

  Bloomberg New Zealand reminded currency traders this week of the power of politics to roil financial markets. The challenge is to figure out which world capital — from Tokyo to Washington — will deliver the next jolt. The kiwi tumbled as much as 2 percent and extended those losses as the opposition Labour Party won enough support in parliament to ...

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• 22 October

  Mashreq launches VAT seminar series for SME clients

  

  DUBAI / Emirates Business Mashreq Bank, one of the UAE’s leading financial institutions, hosted the first VAT awareness seminar for its SME clients in collaboration with Morison MJS Tax Consultancy. With The UAE set to introduce VAT starting January 1, 2018, Mashreq launched a VAT awareness campaign on educating SME customers on how VAT will affect their businesses. This campaign ...

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• 22 October

  Saudi’s IDB plans to use blockchain tech for financial inclusion on products

  

  Bloomberg The research arm of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) plans to use blockchain technology to develop sharia-compliant products, aiming to support financial inclusion efforts across its member countries. The Jeddah-based Islamic Research and Training Institute said it had signed an agreement with local firm Ateon and Belgium-based SettleMint, with the first stage to focus on a technical feasibility study. ...

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• 22 October

  Al Rajhi Bank records 12.7% surge in Q3 profit

  

  DUBAI / Reuters Al Rajhi Bank, Saudi Arabia’s second-largest lender by assets, reported a 12.7 percent rise in third-quarter net profit on Sunday, in line with analysts’ forecasts. The bank made 2.27 billion riyals ($605.3 million) in the three months to September 30, up from 2.01 billion riyals in the same period a year earlier, it said in a bourse ...

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• 22 October

  Turkey regulators say no US probe into banks

  Bloomberg Turkish banks aren’t under investigation and US authorities haven’t sent any information or documents to their Turkish counterparts, Mehmet Ali Akben, the head of the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency, or BDDK, told Bloomberg News by phone. His denial was in response to a report in the Haberturk newspaper, citing banking sources it didn’t name, saying six Turkish banks ...

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• 22 October

  Goldman Sachs is pricing some research as low as $200 per user

  Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is offering fixed-income investors discounted prices for its research once MiFID II rules come into force in January. Firms with as many as 25 users may pay $10,000 annually for a full package of credit research, occasional equity research as well as access to conference calls and ad hoc contact with analysts, according to an ...

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• 22 October

  Rift within India’s central bank panel widens as views differ

  

  Bloomberg India’s monetary policy-makers disagreed sharply over whether the economy needed another dose of stimulus, underlining their dilemma as growth slowed with inflation forecast to accelerate. While five on the six-member monetary policy committee voted to keep the key policy rate unchanged this month, one member said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) must be ready to tighten while another ...

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• 22 October

  For C Series jet, Airbus puts price tag on ‘made-in-US’ label

  

  Bloomberg Securing a “made-in-US” label for Bombardier Inc.’s C Series jet by building another assembly line in Alabama would cost only “a few hundred million dollars,” Airbus SE’s No. 2 executive said. The new facility is crucial to Airbus’s strategy for increasing US sales of the Canadian plane while avoiding stiff trade penalties imposed by the Trump administration. Bombardier projects ...

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• 22 October

  JetBlue drops 12 travel agencies to cut costs

  

  Bloomberg JetBlue Airways Corp. has withdrawn its flights from a dozen online travel sites in the first phase of a broader effort to trim $20 million from its ticket-selling expenses. JetBlue is remaining with larger agencies including Priceline.com and Expedia Inc., along with Expedia’s Travelocity.com and Orbitz.com units. The airline favours sites like Kayak Software Corp.’s Kayak.com where consumers can ...

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• 22 October

  United’s earnings-call shakes faith in CEO

  

  Bloomberg In the span of a one-hour conference call, Wall Street’s confidence in the leadership of United Airlines plummeted. Analysts pressed Chief Executive Officer Oscar Munoz and President Scott Kirby on how they planned to deal with rising costs and falling pricing power. Would they rein in growth in the face of fare weakness? Provide more detail on revenue initiatives? ...

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