Banking

An investment group from Asia has expressed interest in buying the 95-percent share held by claimants of Glitnir Bank in Íslandsbanki. According to Morgunblaðið, the estimated price is ISK 115 billion (USD 970 million, EUR 726 million). After the 2008 banking collapse, the Icelandic government transferred domestic accounts from Glitnir to state-created lender Íslandsbanki. ZR Iceland Review

The Bank of Japan kept monetary policy steady and held off on revising up its assessment of the economy on Thursday, opting to wait for more clues on whether the increasingly positive mood will encourage companies to ramp up spending. The Bank of Korea also left its policy interest rate untouched on Thursday, for a third straight month, and is …

A liquidity squeeze in the second half of June is refocusing attention on China’s banks, and not a moment too soon. Much recent discussion has surrounded the broader macroeconomic transformation China needs, away from export- and investment-led growth and toward greater reliance on domestic consumption. But the effect of such a transformation on the country’s financial system remains poorly understood. …

Singapore is the world’s fastest growing wealth centre and is predicted to overtake Switzerland to become the largest offshore private banking market by 2020, according to recent research. Global financial analysis group Timetric said assets under management within the city-state had risen to US$550bn by the end of 2011 from just US$50bn in 2000 and that it is set to …

(Reuters) – Carlyle Group LP has hired a former UBS banker to launch an Indonesia office, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, becoming the first major private equity firm to set up shop on its own in Southeast Asia’s largest economy. Carlyle (CG.O) has tapped Rajiv Louis, a banker with a decade of dealmaking experience in Indonesia, to …

BOAO — Billionaire investor George Soros said on Monday China had a “couple of years” to control risks from nontraditional financing whose expansion had parallels with the cause of the global financial crisis. “The rapid growth of shadow banking has some disturbing similarities with the subprime mortgage market in the US that caused the financial crisis of 2007-08,” Mr Soros …

Financial regulators across Asia are tightening oversight of how key interest rates are set and cracking down on signs of corruption, as a widening investigation into the banking industry world-wide unearths more evidence of systematic rate rigging. In Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority has stripped a banking-industry group of control and is phasing out some versions of the …

Asian and European banks registered as US swap dealers this week, joining Wall Street rivals in complying with new rules that aim to shed light on the opaque US$650 trillion derivatives market. Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Societe Generale, BNP Paribas and Nomura were among the swap dealers listed in the registry of the National Futures Association (NFA), a US regulator. But …

SINGAPORE—Moody’s Investors Service cut Vietnam’s credit rating further into junk territory, citing risks that the government will have to pump money into the country’s banks and the sector’s limited ability to support the economy. Moody’s on Friday downgraded Vietnam by one notch to B2 with a stable outlook and said risks to the rating were balanced going forward. It also …