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Bloomberg China’s central bank said initial coin offerings are illegal and asked all related fundraising activity to be halted immediately, issuing the strongest regulatory challenge so far to the burgeoning market for digital token sales. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said on its website that it had completed investigations into ICOs, and will strictly punish offerings in the future ...

Bloomberg UniCredit SpA Chief Executive Officer Jean Pierre Mustier is willing to invest more money in Turkish venture Yapi & Kredi Bankasi AS as he sees the presence in central and eastern Europe as “a growth engine” for Italy’s biggest bank. “ Yapi Kredi is growing and so growth means that there is an organic capital generation,” Mustier told Bloomberg ...

Bloomberg The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has asked banks in the city for details of their loans to HNA Group Co. and Dalian Wanda Group Co., according to people familiar with the matter. Lenders were required to submit a survey to the city’s de facto central bank providing information such as total credit extended and outstanding loans to the ...

Bloomberg Mario Draghi won’t miss the opportunity to mention the euro’s recent appreciation as he prepares to reconfigure the euro area’s stimulus settings, economists say. The European Central Bank president will express concern about the currency’s strength, a Bloomberg survey shows. While he declined to address the exchange rate last month at his appearance in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 67 percent ...

Bloomberg Now that worries Italian banks will suffer a meltdown have subsided, lenders need to persuade investors they can make money. Both optimistic buyers and more skeptical investors, gathered on the shores of Lake Como for the annual Ambrosetti Forum, agree that momentum for bank shares will depend mainly on an acceleration of economic growth and higher interest rates, while ...

BEIJING / Reuters Independent oil refiners in China’s Shandong province are planning to form a consortium to integrate their production of oil products and petrochemicals, according to a planning document reviewed by Reuters. Since late 2015, China has allowed 31 mostly privately-owned oil refineries to import crude oil, the majority of them based in Shandong province. With a combined capacity ...

Bloomberg The UK North Sea is on track for the biggest year of oil and gas field startups in a decade, continuing the aging province’s surprising resilience to the crude-market slump. Fourteen projects with combined peak production of 230,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day will start in the region this year, according to data from consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd. ...

Bloomberg Hurricane Harvey’s crushing blow to the US energy industry reveals just how dependent Mexico has become on natural gas from its northern neighbor. The storm’s wrath forced cross-border gas pipelines in Texas to shut and prevented tankers from loading cargoes of the fuel. Mexican consumers, who are burning record amounts of gas from America’s prolific shale basins, had no ...

Bloomberg Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. is nearing a deal to acquire Cenovus Energy Inc.’s Pelican Lake oil asset for about C$1 billion ($807 million), according to people familiar with the matter. Canadian Natural advanced to the final round of bidding alongside Cona Resources Ltd. for the asset, which is located about 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of Edmonton, said the ...

Bloomberg Gasoline declined to the lowest in more than a week as some US Gulf Coast refineries said they plan to resume operations following shutdowns forced by flooding from Hurricane Harvey. Futures for October delivery lost as much as 4.5 percent in New York after their biggest monthly gain since March last year. While about one-fifth of US refining capacity ...