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The Swiss government stopped short of offering the country’s banking watchdog the power to fine lenders, despite widespread support for the measure — including from the finance minister, Bloomberg News reported. After the near-collapse of Credit Suisse over a year ago and its takeover by UBS Group AG, Switzerland is grappling with how to handle an outsized financial sector dominated by a behemoth bank that’s more than twice the size of its economy.
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The Bank of Japan would consider a policy response if the yen’s weakness causes inflation to rise sharply higher, Gov. Kazuo Ueda said on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. “If there is a risk that a virtuous cycle of wages and prices strengthens more than expected and underlying inflation rises above 2%, we need to consider changing monetary policy,” Ueda said in a parliamentary committee meeting, when asked by an opposition lawmaker whether the bank would act against the yen’s fall. The yen is trading around 151.75 to the dollar on Wednesday, staying near its 34-year low.
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Thailand's central bank left its key interest rate unchanged for a third straight meeting on Wednesday, resisting repeated calls by the government to lower borrowing costs to help revive Southeast Asia's second-largest economy, Reuters reported. The Bank of Thailand's (BOT) monetary policy committee voted 5-2 to hold the one-day repurchase rate at 2.50%, the highest in more than a decade. It had raised the rate by 200 basis points since August 2022 to curb inflation.
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The Reserve Bank of New Zealand left its official cash rate steady at a policy meeting on Wednesday, but signaled that the rate will need to remain restrictive for some time yet given that inflation remains high, the Wall Street Journal reported. The OCR was held at 5.5%, which was widely expected by economists. “While some near-term price pressures remain, the Monetary Policy Committee is confident that maintaining the OCR at a restrictive level for a sustained period will return consumer price inflation to within the 1% to 3% target range this calendar year,” the central bank said.
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The high concentration in crypto trading on a handful of exchanges, with Binance alone accounting for about half the market, raises concerns about the impact of a failure on the sector, the EU's securities watchdog said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The bloc is rolling out the world's first comprehensive set of rules to regulate trading in cryptoassets such as bitcoin, Ether and Tether, requiring exchanges to be authorised. The European Securities and Markets Authority's detailed analysis of what's being traded and by whom found that so far the euro currency plays only a minor role.
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Australia plans to toughen its corporate merger rules amid regulators’ and public concerns that market concentration is restricting competition in key industries and adding to inflation, the Wall Street Journal reported. The reforms will strengthen and simplify Australia’s merger approval system, the federal government said Wednesday. It plans to give the competition watchdog additional powers to scrutinize all mergers above certain value and market-share thresholds.
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European Union leaders will call next week for a harmonisation of the 27-nation bloc's bankruptcy and corporate tax laws to attract more private capital for the EU shift to renewable energy and a more digital economy, a draft document showed, Reuters reported. Draft conclusions of a summit of EU leaders scheduled for April 17-18, seen by Reuters, also showed leaders would call for the development of a European securitisation market and for better supervision of cross-border financial market actors.
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The number of corporate bankruptcies with liabilities of at least ¥10 million in fiscal 2023 rose 31.5% from the previous year to 9,053, topping 9,000 for the first time in nine years, a survey by Tokyo Shoko Research showed on Monday, the Japan Times reported. In the year through March, bankruptcies mainly rose among small and midsize companies as they struggled to raise prices to reflect higher material and other costs. Labor shortages were also behind the rise in bankruptcies.
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Fashion retailer Esprit’s Belgium subsidiary has filed for insolvency due to rising costs and cash flow difficulties, the Wall Street Journal reported. Esprit Belgie Retail filed for the commencement of insolvency proceedings over its assets at the insolvency court of Belgium on April 8, Esprit said late Monday in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange. Esprit said that its Europe retail business operations were under stress because of high energy and logistics costs and weak consumer sentiment. Late last month, the fashion retailer’s Swiss unit had filed for insolvency.
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