September, 2016

• 19 September

  Payday lender ordered to repay customers $44 mn

    Bloomberg CFO Lending Ltd, a U.K. payday lender, must give back 34 million pounds ($44.4 million) to more than 97,000 customers because of unfair practices, including failing to assess the affordability of loans for clients, according to the U.K. markets regulator. CFO Lending was ordered to pay the compensation by the Financial Conduct Authority after an investigation showed the ...

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• 19 September

  Port of Melbourne leased for massive $9.7billion

  

    Sydney / AFP An Australian-led consortium with Chinese investment won a 50-year-lease on Monday on the nation’s biggest container and cargo port for Aus$9.7 billion (US$7.3 billion), the latest maritime asset to be privatised. The Port of Melbourne, which deals with more than 3,000 ships annually, was snapped up by a consortium including Australia’s second-largest wholesale funds manager the ...

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• 19 September

  Damage to Great Barrier Reef costs ship owner $30mn

  

    Sydney / AFP The owners of a Chinese ship that ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef in 2010 agreed to pay Australia Aus$39.3 million (US$29.6 million) on Monday, in a settlement dismissed by conservationists as “woefully inadequate”. The fully-laden coal carrier Shen Neng 1 hit a shoal in April 2010, leaking tonnes of heavy fuel oil and threatening ...

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• 19 September

  China facing possible debt crisis: Bank watchdog

  

    Beijing / AFP China’s banking sector could be facing an imminent debt crisis, a global central bank watchdog has warned, fuelling fresh fears about a blowout in the world’s number two economy that could hit the world economy. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) — dubbed the central bank of central banks — said a gauge of Chinese debt ...

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• 19 September

  Hanjin cuts fleet, may face $1.7bn penalty

  

    Seoul / AFP Hanjin Shipping Co., the South Korean container line that sought bankruptcy protection last month, received a court advisory to return all chartered vessels to cut costs while the company is in the midst of reducing its fleet. Giving the ships back to the owners makes sense as they were chartered at high rates, a spokesman at ...

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• 19 September

  Fed meeting shouldn’t obscure BOJ’s moment

  

    This week, much attention will focus on the Open Market Committee of the U.S. Federal Reserve, the most powerful central bank in the world, whose actions have global impact. Yet the most informative, and intriguing, policy decision could take place in Tokyo. And the outcome will not only tell us more about Japan’s daunting challenges, but could also signal ...

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• 19 September

  Getting the balance right on infrastructure spending

  The big guns are coming out in the battle over infrastructure spending. Larry Summers, a celebrated Harvard economist and veteran policy adviser, has a new article making the case for spending more. Ed Glaeser, a brilliant and versatile colleague of Summers’ who studies urban economics, has an article making the opposite case. Though both make many good points, I think ...

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• 19 September

  Income liftoff shows the US recovery is real

  During the past two years, we have seen signs that wage pressure is building as the economic recovery grinds on. Enough evidence has now accumulated to suggest that it is already happening. The latest data, courtesy of the Census Bureau, which released its annual update on incomes and poverty yesterday, showed that median household income increased a whopping 5.2 percent ...

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• 19 September

  Merkel needs to convince her critics

    Two back-to-back stinging defeats have rattled German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The internal splits are palpable now. Even though Merkel has dropped the “we can do it” rallying cry on migrants, she has refused to put a cap on migration. This is a bold and righteous move, but to convince her coalition partners about her stand ...

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• 19 September

  Watch out this year’s most consequential Senate race

  

    From Erie in the west to Scranton in the east, Pennsylvania is flecked with casualties the stubborn economic sluggishness and relentless globalization have inflicted on industrial communities. But in this middle-class Philadelphia suburb, Tom Danzi knows that the economy is denting even his business repairing damaged cars. His Suburban Collision Specialists once had 27 employees kept busy by drivers ...

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