BAI announced the finalists for the 2019 BAI Global Innovation Awards, the industry’s most prestigious awards program that celebrates transformative solutions in the financial services industry worldwide.

Now in its ninth year, the BAI Global Innovation Awards recognizes leading financial services organizations on a global scale. Through hundreds of applications, the Innovation"...

A flurry of interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve and a host of other central banks marks the broadest shift in global monetary policy since the depths of the financial crisis in 2009, analysts at Fitch Ratings said in a report.

Led by the Fed’s policy pivot, which took rate hikes off the table in December and then cut borrowing costs last month, Fitch said its geographic “diffusion index” of central bank policy plummeted from a strong bias towards tightening to what is now a marked tendency"...

MUMBAI: India’s central bank yesterday cut interest rates for the fourth time this year and slashed growth forecasts as New Delhi battles a sluggish economy and high unemployment. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said the benchmark repo rate-the level at which it lends to commercial banks-would be reduced by 35 basis points to 5.40 percent, taking rates to their lowest level since 2010.

...

KUWAIT CITY, Aug 6: At no time an official in the bank has the authority to ask for anyone’s ATM secret code, reports Al-Anba daily quoting a senior banking official.

He said this to warn bank clients against gangs which in the name of the bank may ask for secret code number and the victims may end up losing a lot of money.

The source also warned against responding"...

Sudhir Gharpure and his sales team sat chatting at a big Maruti Suzuki dealership on the outskirts of Mumbai some two hours after its doors were opened on a recent Saturday morning — not a single customer was in sight.
“There used to be close to 15-20 bookings each day, but now we’re down to 3-5 on good days,” said Gharpure, the general manager at the dealership.
Gharpure’s experience is not an isolated one. Across India dealerships are being pushed out of business and the Indian"...

TOKYO: Japanese telco SoftBank Corp said on Monday its operating profit in the quarter ended June rose 4 per cent, in line with estimates, as the number of mobile users grew.
The company’s operating profit was 268.9 billion yen ($2.54 billion) in the first quarter, versus an average estimate of 268 billion yen from four analysts polled by Refinitiv.
Its smartphone subscribers rose 372,000 from three months earlier as SoftBank markets a plan targeting heavy data users.
The telco maintained its full-year"...

HONG KONG/LONDON: HSBC ousted Chief Executive Officer John Flint after just 18 months in that role, in a surprise move that the lender’s chairman said was necessary to accelerate progress of its strategic priorities.
Flint’s exit, which a person familiar with the matter said was a result of differences over execution of his strategy, was disclosed by HSBC early on Monday along with its half-yearly results which had been scheduled for release later in the day.
The departure comes as Europe’s biggest"...

HSBC on Monday announced its Group Chief Executive John Flint had stepped down after less than two years on the job, as the banking giant revealed decent first half profits but warned it faced 'challenging' geopolitics.

The surprise announcement came shortly before an earlier than expected results release in which the London-headquartered behemoth reported pre-tax profit was up 15.8 percent at $12.4 billion for the first half of the year.

Central banks in the Arabian Gulf cut lending rates last week, a move that is expected to stimulate non-oil growth, reduce the risk of further declines in the real estate market and attract foreign inflows, according to the Institute of International Finance .

Lower borrowing costs are expected to boost business activity, giving non-oil economic growth in the GCC a nudge up to 2.8 per cent in 2019 and 2.9 per cent in 2020, from 2.1 per cent in 2018,"...

Standard Chartered’s chief executive warned that investor sentiment in the markets in which it operates is “delicately balanced” as it reported a 3 per cent year-on-year increase in profit for the first six months of 2019.

The lender, which specialises in emerging markets, reported a half-year profit of $2.41 billion (Dh8.85bn) as operating income climbed 4 per cent higher on a constant currency basis to $4.64 billion.

“The"...