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  Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co. said retail customers opened 31 percent fewer checking accounts in January than a year earlier in the wake of a settlement with regulators over fraudulent sales. Customers submitted 47 percent fewer applications for credit cards, the worst year-over-year decline since October, the San Francisco-based lender said in a statement. January marks the fifth consecutive ...

Bloomberg Perng Fai-Nan began his tenure as chief of Taiwan’s central bank by defending the currency during the Asian financial crisis. As he approaches retirement nearly two decades later, the Taiwan dollar will again pose a challenge. Perng, 78, will step down next February after 20 years in his post, making him a longer-serving central bank chief than Alan Greenspan. ...

  Nuremberg / DPA In the old days, people used to complain that children were glued to the television. Now they worry that they’re even more under the spell of their smartphones and tablets. The toy industry first exploited tech and used apps to build out their business. But now they’re also looking to take advantage of the counter trend. ...

  Ibiza / DPA Victor Jordan is lacking a certain enthusiasm when he talks about his island. “When it comes down to it, it’s like any other rural property, only surrounded by water,” he says. Alegranza sits in the Chinijo archipelago, a nature reserve in the Canary Islands. In Spain, a few dozen families own islands. Most are not multimillionaires ...

  RIYADH / Reuters Saudi Arabia is considering two options for the shape of Saudi Aramco when it sells shares in the national oil giant next year: a global industrial conglomerate, and a specialised international oil company, industry and banking sources said. The listing of Aramco <IPO-ARMO.SE>, expected to be the world’s biggest initial public offer and raise tens of ...

    Bloomberg Add Corsa Coal Corp. to the short list of US coal producers doing something that’s become a bit of a rarity these days: opening mines. The Canonsburg, Pennsylvania-based company will start a new operation in Pennsylvania as early as May. It joins Ramaco Resources Inc., which began producing at its first mine in West Virginia in December ...

  Bloomberg Shale wildcatters pushed ahead on the biggest surge in US oil drilling since 2012 as the explorers take advantage of prices above $50 for more than two months. Rigs targeting crude in the US rose by 6 to 597 this week, the highest total since October 2015, according to Baker Hughes Inc. data reported. Drillers have added 72 ...

  Bloomberg The biggest gasoline market in the US is bursting at the seams. Traders are lining up to export gasoline and diesel from New York Harbor, an area that normally relies on fuel imports from Europe and eastern Canada, shipping data compiled by Bloomberg show. While at least 6 cargoes that were headed to New York from Europe in ...

  Reuters A shift in the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to petrochemicals and away from transport has pushed demand for the fuel to new records in South Korea, after years of slumping consumption, a change which mostly benefits US suppliers. South Korea mainly used LPG to power cars up to 2010, but sales started to spiral down as ...

  Bloomberg Hong Kong and Singapore are at it again. The Asian financial hub rivals are reviving a debate on dual-class shares as global competition for the hottest initial public offerings intensifies. Singapore is a few steps ahead. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week gave his approval to dual-class shares and other measures proposed by a panel to drive ...