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Germany’s famed autobahns have lost an important source of funding. Their new management hoped the money would help them to ease congestion and restore the roads to their former glory. Historically free of charge, the highways are widely viewed as a symbol of freedom. The absence of speed limits on much of the country’s 13,000-kilometer network is part of the ...

Bloomberg Walmart Inc came to dominate retailing through its mastery of logistics—the complicated choreography of getting goods from farm or factory to the consumer. But even the world’s biggest store doesn’t make money selling its wares online in the US, largely due to runaway shipping costs. So Walmart is turning to robots. Earlier this month, Walmart’s US chief Greg Foran ...

Bloomberg Waymo LLC agreed to explore driverless services with Renault SA, Nissan Motor Co and Mitsubishi Motors Corp, pairing a leader in self-driving technology with the world’s largest automotive alliance. The three carmakers and Alphabet Inc’s autonomous-vehicle unit will study market opportunities and research legal and safety issues related to driverless transportation services in France and Japan, the companies said ...

Bloomberg Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc’s Warren East said he’s keen to lead the engine maker into a new age of electrically powered aircraft after spending years focussed on costs cuts and restructuring. The CEO, recruited by Rolls from semiconductor developer ARM Holdings Plc, said his enthusiasm for leading the UK engineering giant is undimmed by the saga of firings, disposals and ...

Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley improved on last year’s poor results in the first round of the latest Federal Reserve stress tests, a sign they may have more flexibility to boost payouts to shareholders. In figures posted by the Fed, the pair didn’t come as close to breaching regulatory minimums as they did last year, offering hope ...

Bloomberg While global banks have been pouring money into information technology — to the tune of $1 trillion over three years — only a handful appear to be fully committed to a digital transformation and are therefore reaping the benefits, according to an Accenture Plc study. Just 19 of the 161 largest retail and commercial banks that the consulting firm ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan (BOJ) kept monetary policy unchanged, just hours after the Federal Reserve became the latest central bank to signal a willingness to cut interest rates in the face of rising threats to global growth. The BOJ maintained its interest rates and asset purchases, it said in a statement. All 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted ...

Bloomberg Brazil held its benchmark interest rate at a record low and signaled it can cut borrowing costs to help a frail economy once a key austerity measure advances further in Congress. The bank’s board, led by its President Roberto Campos Neto, kept the Selic unchanged at 6.50 percent in a decision expected by all but one of the 39 ...

Bloomberg In the Ivory Coast, Standard Chartered Plc may have found its template for the future of banking. Didier Drogba, the retired Ivorian soccer star, was drafted as a “digital bank ambassador” on social media. Fifteen months later, more than 18,000 of his compatriots have signed up for digital-only accounts, outstripping the London-based lender’s early targets. Ivory Coast is just ...

Bloomberg Lloyds Banking Group Plc’s Bank of Scotland unit was fined $58 million by UK’s finance regulator over a scandal at the bank’s Reading division that siphoned millions from failing businesses a decade ago. The company “failed to alert the regulator and the police about suspicions of fraud at its Reading branch when those suspicions first became apparent,” the Financial ...