Tag: Banking and Financial Institutions

World Bank Projects Weak Global Growth Amid Rising Interest Rates

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The World Bank said on Tuesday that the global economy remained in a “precarious state” and warned of sluggish growth this year and next as rising interest rates slow consumer spending and business investment, and threaten the stability of the financial system. The bank’s tepid forecasts in its latest Global Economic Prospects report highlight the predicament that global policymakers face as they try to corral stubborn inflation by raising interest rates while grappling with the aftermath of the pandemic and continuing supply chain disruptions stemming from the war in Ukraine.…

HSBC Shareholders Defeat Ping An-Backed Measures

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Shareholders in HSBC, the European financial giant, voted on Friday to reject an investor proposal meant to pressure the bank into breaking off its lucrative Asian operations. That initiative — backed by HSBC’s largest investor, the sprawling Chinese insurer Ping An — received only about 20 percent of the votes, the company said. A companion proposal backed Ping An, to restore the bank’s dividend to prepandemic levels, was also defeated. The vote was a show of support for HSBC’s management, which had urged shareholders to vote no. It was announced…

Born in Asia but Based in Britain, HSBC Fights to Stay in One Piece

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For many investors, HSBC, Europe’s largest lender with a venerable place in Britain’s banking industry, offers little to critique: It is performing well and has focused on its most profitable and fastest-growing operations, those in Asia. But for the firm’s largest investor, the sprawling Chinese insurance giant Ping An, that isn’t enough. Over the past year, Ping An has waged a campaign to convince HSBC to spin off its Hong Kong-based operations in some way, cracking open the bank’s global empire to improve its financial performance. It’s a move that…

China Is Cracking Down on Bankers. Here Are Some of the Targets.

Chin@Strategy

For years, Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has railed against greed and corruption in the country’s financial sector, making an example of a few prominent figures along the way. But recently, the anti-graft campaign has kicked into overdrive, sweeping up a who’s who from the country’s financial and insurance sector as Mr. Xi and the Chinese Communist Party seek to consolidate control over a critical facet of the economy. China’s anti-corruption officials warned bankers in February that it would “investigate and deal with the people who neglect the party’s leadership.” They…

Pressure Mounts on China to Offer Debt Relief to Poor Countries Facing Default

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — China, under growing pressure from top international policymakers, appeared to indicate this week that it is ready to make concessions that would unlock a global effort to restructure hundreds of billions of dollars of debt owed by poor countries. China has lent more than $500 billion to developing countries through its lending program, making it one of the world’s largest creditors. Many of those countries, including several in Africa, have struggled economically in the wake of the pandemic and face the possibility of defaulting on their debt payments.…

Pressure Mounts on China to Offer Debt Relief to Poor Countries Facing Default

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — China, under growing pressure from top international policymakers, appeared to indicate this week that it is ready to make concessions that would unlock a global effort to restructure hundreds of billions of dollars of debt owed by poor countries. China has lent more than $500 billion to developing countries through its lending program, making it one of the world’s largest creditors. Many of those countries, including several in Africa, have struggled economically in the wake of the pandemic and face the possibility of defaulting on their debt payments.…

Sri Lanka, Its Economy Reeling, Is Approved for $3 Billion Rescue Loan

Chin@Strategy

The executive board of the International Monetary Fund approved a loan worth $3 billion to help Sri Lanka through the financial crisis that has had the nation in a rolling economic and political crisis for more than a year. The I.M.F. had agreed in principle to extend the funds last September — subject to Sri Lanka’s meeting a series of conditions that included tightening its finances and renegotiating the terms of repaying debt it owes to the biggest economies in Asia. Even before the announcement was made, late on Monday…

To Rein in China’s Banks, Xi Uses Familiar Playbook

Chin@Strategy

To a man with a hammer, a renowned psychologist once posited, everything looks like a nail. For most of his decade in power, Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has usually arrived at the same conclusion for how best to deal with the country’s issues: get the Communist Party more involved. And now, as China is confronting an economy lacking the dynamism of the past and teetering from a real estate sector in crisis and local governments overrun with debt, Mr. Xi is again wielding his hammer. At the annual gathering of…

Why China Is Tightening Its Oversight of Banking and Tech

Chin@Strategy

A real estate market that is threatening the financial system and holding back the economy. A tech industry that is being targeted by aggressive U.S. efforts to cut it off from the world. Tech companies that are trying to keep pace with fast-moving developments in artificial intelligence. As its trade and economic rivalry with the West has intensified, China has launched a government overhaul intended to address some of its biggest stated priorities. A series of changes handed down from the highest reaches of the government were approved Friday at…

China’s Tech Rainmaker Vanishes, and So Does Business Confidence

Chin@Strategy

On Valentine’s Day in 2015, two of China’s biggest ride-hailing start-ups, one backed by the tech giant Alibaba and the other by Tencent, announced they would merge after burning through hundreds of millions of dollars in a price war. Brokering the deal, while managing the egos of combative founders and investors, was Bao Fan, the rainmaker of China’s tech industry. His company, the investment bank China Renaissance, went on to advise and invest in many of China’s most successful tech companies, taking them public in Hong Kong and New York.…