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Bloomberg Spotify Technology SA is offering parents cooped up at home a new way to entertain their kids. The Swedish audio streaming giant will roll out a kids app in the US, Canada and France, the company said. The new app includes more than 8,000 songs, as well as audio books and bedtime stories, all of which are handpicked by ...

Bloomberg Banks are under increased pressure to raise loan margins in the Greater China region as the coronavirus pandemic weakens lending and a global dollar liquidity squeeze pushes up funding costs. That’s a key takeaway from a Bloomberg survey of 15 major syndicated loan arrangers operating in the region, including international and Chinese banks. The survey was conducted between March ...

Bloomberg DNB ASA, Norway’s biggest bank, is postponing its $1.4 billion dividend as it gives in to calls from national and European authorities to show restraint during the current economic crisis. DNB initially dragged its feet after Norway’s financial watchdog last month urged banks to refrain from dividends. The Norwegian bankers’ association, Finance Norway, argued the move was unnecessary and ...

Bloomberg South Africa’s banking regulator plans to give banks a break from accounting and capital rules that could release around 300 billion rand ($17 billion) for lending to help the economy cope with the fallout of the coronavirus. “It’s quite big, it’s quite meaningful,” said Kuben Naidoo, deputy governor of the South African Reserve Bank and chief executive officer of ...

Bloomberg New Zealand’s central bank needs to step up the scale and pace of its quantitative easing (QE) to achieve a meaningful fall in interest rates, market participants say. Since beginning purchases last week, the Reserve Bank has bought NZ$1.4 billion of government bonds at four auctions. While yields have moved lower, the market is wary that an expected NZ$17 ...

Bloomberg Officials from leading Southeast Asian central banks have agreed to coordinate efforts to boost their economies, all struggling under the blow from the coronavirus pandemic. Bank Indonesia Governor Perry Warjiyo told reporters in an online briefing that he held talks a day earlier with officials from five central banks in the region. He didn’t give details of what kind ...

Bloomberg Singapore’s central bank said lenders will offer additional relief for consumers and companies battered by the sharp economic slowdown, including a freeze on mortgage and business loan payments and cuts to credit card rates. Banks and finance companies can defer both principal and interest payments on residential mortgages through December 31, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in ...

Bloomberg Rand Merchant Bank (RAB) urged South African lenders and other finance firms to adopt a more coordinated approach with the government to the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus outbreak. While South Africa’s banks have made a constructive effort to cushion customers from the impact so far, a much broader response is needed, James Formby, the chief executive officer of ...

Bloomberg EasyJet Plc’s founder escalated his feud with the board, calling for the ouster of a director in a bid to pressure the discount airline into cancelling a 4.5 billion-pound ($5.6 billion) aircraft order. Stelios Haji-Ioannou, EasyJet’s biggest owner with a 34% stake, proposed a general meeting to remove director Andreas Bierwirth, according to a letter sent to the airline’s ...

Bloomberg Boeing Co is offering employee buyouts and weighing additional savings measures such as new output cuts, as the coronavirus pandemic threatens to depress aircraft sales for years. While the company has yet to alter production plans, it’s taking a closer look at manufacturing rates for wide-body jets amid plunging demand, said a person familiar with the matter. Boeing was ...