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Bloomberg Singapore and Thailand are in discussions about connecting their national digital payment systems to forge an unprecedented regional alliance, as officials step up efforts to curb the use of cash. The link would bring together Southeast Asia’s first national digital-payment platforms, Singapore’s PayNow and Thailand’s PromptPay, said Naphongthawat Phothikit, director of payment systems policy at the Bank of Thailand. ...

Bloomberg Leverage debt guidelines set up to help prevent a rerun of the financial crisis are losing adherents under the Trump administration. With the say-so of the Treasury Department, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is among underwriters of leveraged buyouts arranging deals that skirt guidance designed to contain excessive leverage that left banks with more than $200 billion of unsellable LBO ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government tapped Rajnish Kumar to helm State Bank of India (SBI), handing him the task of curtailing a surge in bad debts at the nation’s biggest lender. Kumar, who has headed the state-run bank’s domestic lending business since November 2015, was elected chairman on Saturday as Arundhati Bhattacharya’s four-year term ends, the government said in ...

Bloomberg With just four words, Mark Johnson allegedly passed a secretive signal to fellow HSBC Holdings Plc currency traders to launch a buying spree of pounds: “My watch is off.” The bank’s former global head of foreign exchange alerted the traders around the globe via phone calls and chat messages, prosecutors at Johnson’s fraud trial say. The gambit in December ...

Bloomberg The US slapped duties on Bombardier Inc.’s showcase commercial jet for the second time in as many weeks, upholding Boeing Co.’s case that its Canadian competitor sold planes at less than fair value. The Commerce Department imposed a preliminary import duty of 80 percent on Bombardier C Series aircraft based on its finding, according to an emailed statement. The ...

Bloomberg Sycamore Partners is betting on the ailing retail sector at a time when other investors are shying away. The buyout firm, which bought Staples Inc. last month, is trying to raise $4 billion for its biggest fund yet, two people with knowledge of the matter said. It’s planning to finish raising the money in January, one of the people ...

Bloomberg South African Airways has agreed to hire a restructuring expert to help turn around the state-owned airline and meet conditions laid down by lenders to roll over debt, according to two people familiar with the matter. Incoming Chief Executive Officer Vuyani Jarana met with British industry veteran Peter Davies last month and he agreed to help try return SAA ...

Bloomberg US online retailers like Amazon.com Inc. stand to gain from the Trump administration’s push to throw open the doors for Canadians and Mexicans to buy American goods duty-free. The US is demanding Canada and Mexico raise the threshold at which duties are applied to purchases crossing the border, according to two people with knowledge of a proposal put forward ...

Bloomberg Ryanair Holdings Plc Chief Operating Officer (COO) Michael Hickey will step down from Europe’s biggest discount carrier after a management misstep resulted in the cancellation of more than 20,000 flights into next summer. Hickey will step down at the end of October, the airline said. A search to identify and recruit a successor is underway. Ryanair’s botched rosters has ...

Bloomberg Oman pledged to create 25,000 public sector jobs by December, a move that risks adding to a budget gap that was the Gulf’s widest last year. The government will follow up with additional measures to address the lack of jobs in the sultanate, the state-run Oman News Agency reported on Wednesday, citing the cabinet’s decision a day earlier. Unemployment ...