Headlines

Australia’s big banks are set for their worst earnings season since the global financial crisis. A softening housing market, margin pressure from rising funding costs, and the ballooning cost of dealing with the fallout from an inquiry into misconduct in the financial industry, are all squeezing profits, Bloomberg News reported. Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. and National Australia Bank Ltd. are expected to report their first declines in full-year cash profit since 2016, while Westpac Banking Corp.

Noble Group Ltd. warned of another quarterly loss, driven by restructuring and finance costs, as the embattled commodity trader moves toward completing a $3.5 billion rescue deal that’ll hand control to creditors, Bloomberg News reported. The net loss for the three months to September will be $90 million to $115 million, according to a filing on Monday. It expects to incur restructuring costs of about $35 million, after spending more than $100 million in the first half. Once Asia’s largest commodity trader, Noble Group’s crisis has escalated in recent years as losses and defaults mounted.

Long-simmering discord between the Indian central bank and the government is turning into a very public brawl, a Bloomberg View reported. The timing couldn’t be more awful for markets. In a hard-hitting speech Friday on central-bank independence, Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor Viral Acharya startled his audience by invoking Argentina of 2010. Back then, the Argentine central bank chief quit after being coerced to hand over a part of its reserves to the government, causing panic in the markets.

The board of Italy’s state-owned railway operator will meet on Monday afternoon to discuss an offer for the whole of national carrier Alitalia, a source close to the matter said. Any offer by railway group Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) will be subject to series of conditions, including finding an industrial partner, the source said. Once a major player in the European airline industry, Alitalia has suffered in the face of competition from high-speed trains and low-cost carriers in recent years, eroding its market share and denting its profits, Reuters reported.

An arbitration chamber run by Brazil’s Sao Paulo Stock Exchange has temporarily suspended a capital hike planned by Oi SA in order to adjudicate a dispute between the major telecommunications company and a shareholder, Reuters reported. In a statement on Monday, Oi shareholder Pharol SGPS SA said it had been given until Nov. 5 to present additional arguments to the body regarding the legality of the planned capital raise.

Two former executives of collapsed oil company Afren were sentenced to up to six years in prison on Monday after they were convicted of fraud and money laundering over a $300 million business deal, Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said, Reuters reported. Former Afren Chief Executive Osman Shahenshah and former Chief Operating Officer Shahid Ullah laundered more than $45 million, some of which was used to buy luxury properties in Mustique and the British Virgin Islands, the SFO said. "The significant sentences reflect the seriousness of this fraud.

Indian billionaire Ajay Piramal’s home finance firm is set to tap overseas markets for funds, as hurdles mount for such non-bank lenders to raise money at home after landmark defaults by IL&FS group, Bloomberg News reported. The tycoon’s Piramal Capital & Housing Finance, which provides services including mortgages to individuals and real estate financing, is firming up plans to raise "sufficient capital" through external commercial borrowings and bond markets.

A European Union plan to counter money laundering at banks urges a review of a series of recent high-profile cases but defers a comprehensive reform, a draft document seen by Reuters showed. The plan is a response to alleged money-laundering scandals involving banks in Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Spain, the Netherlands, Britain and Cyprus, with schemes often executed through foreign branches inside the EU, Reuters reported. The preliminary document, dated Oct.

Europe’s leaders have come down hard on Italy for its plans to increase spending with the aim of boosting growth and helping the poor. What they fail to recognize is that a little stimulus might be just what the Italian economy needs, a Bloomberg View reported. The outlook for the global economy is deteriorating more rapidly than forecasters realize. A slowdown in China has hit global trade, European exports are decelerating, and euro-area business sentiment is sharply down.

In a sign of a mounting policy struggle between India’s central bank and the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a top bank official warned on Friday that undermining a central bank’s independence could be “potentially catastrophic,” Reuters reported. The comments by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor Viral Acharya showed that the central bank is pushing back hard against government pressure to relax its policies and reduce its powers ahead of a general election due by next May, and as Indian financial markets have been dropping in recent weeks.