Big central banks are starting to cut rates, slowly

The move to ease monetary policy among major central banks is proving much slower than the race to jack up interest rates from late 2021 to curtail surging inflation.

KeyCorp forecast a bigger drop in average loans in 2024 than previously anticipated on Thursday, and posted a 5% fall in second-quarter profit as costlier deposits eroded the regional lender’s interest income, sending its shares down 2% in premarket trading.

M&T Bank raised its forecast for annual net interest income on Thursday, on expectations that the Federal Reserve’s policy easing would help lower deposit costs and boost loan demand.

Increasingly popular “earned wage” advances on worker paychecks are consumer loans subject to existing federal laws, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said on Thursday, moving to set federal guard rails for a fast-growing market.

Blackstone said on Thursday its second-quarter distributable earnings rose 3% from a year earlier, as a jump in asset sales in its private equity and credit divisions more than offset a slump in its real estate arm.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has asked its China-based partners to take a pay cut of up to 50%, two people with knowledge of the matter said, as a regulatory probe into the firm and departure of some of its corporate clients prompt cost cuts and layoffs.

The booming non-bank financial industry has created excessive leverage that poses financial stability risks and more reforms are needed to tackle it, including improving disclosure of positions, a Bank of England regulator said on Thursday.

Financial regulators and supervisors in some G20 countries are overlooking the risks posed by biodiversity loss and deforestation because of insufficient data, focusing instead on climate risks, a report by the G20’s financial watchdog found.

Standard Chartered has hired more than a dozen new bankers to its private banking teams in Singapore, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates in a bid to grow the affluent business, a bank statement said on Thursday.

Discover Financial Services on Wednesday reported a 70% rise in second-quarter profit, as a high-rate environment helped the U.S. credit issuer earn more in interest income.

Technology Roundup is sent seven days a week. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also sign up here.

Want to stop receiving this email? Unsubscribe here. To manage which newsletters you’re signed up for, click here.

Reuters Terms & Conditions and Privacy Statement