December, 2016

• 19 December

  Ukraine nationalises country’s largest bank

  

    Kiev / AFP Ukraine nationalised the country’s biggest bank in a bid to avert a financial meltdown in the war-scarred former Soviet state. The government moved to take over PrivatBank after months of rumours that the lender was heavily burdened by bad debts. PrivatBank controls one-third of the east European country’s deposits and even has branches in the Baltic ...

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• 19 December

  Indonesia plans to cut three zeroes from Rupiah

  

    Bloomberg Indonesia’s central bank is reviving a plan to redenominate the currency of Southeast Asia’s biggest economy despite the threat of market turmoil as the US steps up the pace of interest-rate increases. “Re-denomination must be done while the economy is stable,” Bank Indonesia Senior Deputy Governor Mirza Adityaswara told reporters in Jakarta on Monday. “Now, at this moment, ...

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• 19 December

  Barclays severs ties with clients to boost returns

  

    Bloomberg Barclays Plc is preparing to tell 7,000 clients to do more trading with the firm or find another bank, the latest move in an industrywide trend of winnowing down customer lists to the ones that produce significant profits. The British bank launched a new computer system, called Flight Deck, this month that ranks every customer of its trading ...

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• 19 December

  Goldman warns, China outflows ris in both yuan payments, forex

  

    Bloomberg China’s capital outflows are accelerating and the central bank is selling larger amounts of foreign exchange, Goldman Sachs Group Inc warned as the yuan headed for its biggest annual decline in more than 20 years. A net $69.2 billion exited the nation in November, compared with a monthly pace of around $50 billion since June, Goldman economists led ...

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• 19 December

  Paschi starts share offer as Italy prepares possible rescue plan

  

    Bloomberg Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA is attempting to sell shares on the market while the government prepares a plan to inject as much as 15 billion euros ($15.7 billion) into Italian banks should the fundraising fail, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Italy’s Treasury plans to participate in the share sale, which may ...

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• 19 December

  Germans turn to graphic novels

  

    Berlin / AFP Better known for its electronic music and street art, Berlin is now also home to a budding graphic novel scene in a country that has treated illustrated stories as children’s literature. Hardly seen in bookstores just a few years ago, German-produced graphic novels now have their dedicated shelves, as not only homegrown artists but also foreign ...

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• 19 December

  Here, ‘Smart-Valleys’ bring rice bounty

  

    Ouinhi / AFP Daniel Aboko proudly shows off the 11 hectares (27 acres) of paddy fields he shares with other farmers — a small spread that produces a bounty of food thanks to smart irrigation and a hardy strain of rice. In just four years, small farmers in Ouinhi, southeastern Benin, have seen their rice harvest double from three ...

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• 19 December

  EU pivots away from distorted energy markets towards gas

  

    Bloomberg The European Union seeks to tackle energy market distortions with policies that will eliminate coal and favour natural gas-fired and renewable power while reducing the cost of lowering emissions. The European Commission plan to limit the use of high-emissions generation to secure supply will hurt coal plants starting in 2020, but not modern gas units, according to the ...

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• 19 December

  Oil trades below $52 as investors eye Libyan crude output return

  

    Bloomberg Oil prices traded below $52 a barrel as investors eye the potential return of crude volumes from Libya amid continuing tension in the OPEC member that’s exempt from output cuts. Futures were down as much as 0.8 percent in New York following a 2 percent gain on Friday. Libyan oil-facility guards backtracked on an agreement to allow supply ...

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• 19 December

  OPEC output deal makes oil investors bullish

  

    Bloomberg Investors are the most optimistic on oil since the slump began two and a half years ago. Money managers boosted bets on rising West Texas Intermediate crude prices to the highest level since July 2014 after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and producers outside the group agreed to coordinate crude production cuts. Prices advanced to a 17-month ...

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