Headlines

The Swiss National Bank raised its interest rate by 50 basis points and signaled more to come as it resumed its inflation fight just days after the downfall of the country’s second-biggest bank became the epicenter of global financial turmoil, Bloomberg News reported. Officials lifted the benchmark to 1.5%, an outcome predicted by most economists before Credit Suisse Group AG’s forced takeover by larger rival UBS Group AG clouded the outlook with worsened market turbulence earlier this week.

The chairman of Switzerland’s largest bank received an urgent call last week. On the other end were three top Swiss officials who delivered an ultimatum dressed up as a proposal. UBS Group AG needed to rescue its failing rival, Credit Suisse Group AG. For any country, it would be a financial emergency. For Switzerland, the stakes verged on existential, the Wall Street Journal reported. Its economic model and national identity, cultivated over centuries, were built on safeguarding the world’s wealth. It wasn’t just about a bank. Switzerland itself needed rescuing.

The Bank of England raised interest rates by a quarter-point on Thursday, its 11th consecutive rate increase, a day after data showed that Britain’s inflation rate unexpectedly increased last month, the New York Times reported. The central bank also affirmed that Britain’s banking system was “resilient” and able to withstand a period of higher interest rates, according to the minutes of this week’s meeting.

Steinhoff International Holdings NV failed to pass a plan to give creditors 80% of its equity as it sought to be released from its debt that is due at the end of June, Bloomberg News reported. Shareholders rejected all the resolutions that were voted on at the global retailer’s annual general meeting held in Amsterdam on Wednesday. The gathering lasted three hours because of numerous questions and accusatory comments. The company has been battling to survive since auditors refused to sign off on its accounts in late 2017.

Holders of Sri Lanka's international sovereign bonds face a 20% principal haircut in the country's debt restructuring as well as maturity extensions and a reduction in coupons, according to a Barclays report, Reuters reported. Investors' focus has shifted to the restructuring of Sri Lanka's $13.4 billion sovereign dollar bonds after Colombo got final sign off on a $3 billion programme from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) earlier this week, a financial lifeline in its bid to recover from its worst economic crisis in more than seven decades.

The International Monetary Fund gave a grim assessment Thursday of Lebanon’s prospects for getting out of its deepening financial crisis, saying that without reforms, the country is headed for hyperinflation, the Associated Press reported. Since late 2019, tiny Lebanon has fallen into the worst economic crisis in its modern history, rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement by a political class that has ruled the country since the end of the 1975-90 civil war.

Mexico’s inflation eased more than economists expected in early March, likely boosting the odds that the central bank will slow a record monetary tightening cycle at next week’s meeting, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices rose 7.12% in the first two weeks of the month from the same period a year earlier, down from 7.48% in late February, the national statistics institute reported Thursday. Core inflation, which excludes volatile items such as fuel, was 8.15% on an annual basis, below the previous measure of 8.21% and matching economists’ estimate.

Mexican consumer prices rose less than expected in early March, the national statistics agency said on Thursday, backing bets the central bank could slow the pace of its monetary tightening later this month, Reuters reported. Annual headline inflation in the first half of March hit 7.12%, down from 7.48% in the second of half of February and below market expectations. Mexican core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy products and has in recent months been more stubborn than headline inflation, was 8.15% in annual terms.

Turkey’s central bank held off from cutting interest rates on Thursday as the lira comes under pressure and the economy absorbs the fallout of last month’s catastrophic earthquakes, Bloomberg News reported. The Monetary Policy Committee led by Governor Sahap Kavcioglu left the one-week repo rate at 8.5%. The decision was in line with its guidance that the benchmark was at an “adequate” level following a half-a-percentage point decrease in February, a view the central bank reiterated in its statement on Thursday.

Italy is preparing a new package of measures worth at least 5 billion euros ($5.5 billion) to help businesses and families cope with costly energy bills and plans to unveil it next week, two government sources told Reuters on Thursday. The right-wing administration led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni earmarked over 21 billion euros in its 2023 budget to soften the impact of energy costs on the euro zone's third largest economy in the first quarter of this year.