Headlines

HSBC Holdings Plc's board is unanimous in recommending that shareholders vote against proposals to restructure the bank and pay fixed dividends, its chairman, Mark Tucker, told Hong Kong shareholders on Monday, Reuters reported. The comment came as Ken Lui, an individual HSBC shareholder and leader of a Hong Kong-based investor group, called for a break-up of the bank. His second proposed resolution calls on HSBC to restore pre-COVID-19 dividend levels.

Pakistan has the habit of intentionally creating controversies in order to divert public attention from its own failures, according to a Financial Express analysis. Just last week, Esther Perez Ruiz, who is IMF’s Resident Representative to Pakistan was forced to speak out and clear the air on Islamabad’s “posturing on several key matters.” She told the media that there is no truth in Pakistan Finance Minister Ishaq Dar’s statement that the IMF has asked Islamabad to compromise on its nuclear programme if it wants funds.

Sight deposits held by the Swiss National Bank declined last week, data showed on Monday, suggesting that Credit Suisse and UBS may have cut back on use of emergency funds that had been offered to them to facilitate their planned merger, Reuters reported. Total sight deposits — meaning commercial bank cash held by the central bank overnight — fell to 563.566 billion Swiss francs ($614.71 billion) from 567.003 billion francs in the previous week, the SNB data showed.

Thai AirAsia X has announced that it will be putting its rehabilitation plan into place by the end of next month, Simple Flying reported. The Chief Executive Officer of Thai AirAsia, Tassapon Bijleveld, has said that negotiations with various creditors are ongoing but should be completed by mid-April. He hopes that if the negotiations are completed soon, then the airline can begin refunding and compensating passengers towards the end of this year. Thai AirAsia suspended operations two separate times, once in early 2020 and again in 2021.

The German arm of EY, one of the world's Big Four accounting firms, has been fined 500,000 euros ($544,630) after acting as the auditor for collapsed payments company Wirecard and barred from auditing certain kinds of companies for two years, ABC News reported. Germany's APAS accounting oversight body said it imposed the fine for breach of professional duty in auditing Wirecard from 2016-18. It said the decision can be appealed in court, and while it bars the auditor from taking on new companies “of public interest,” it does not prevent it from servicing existing clients.

Central banks will seek to safeguard financial stability amid growing concerns about their ability to weather the higher interest rate environment, which has resulted in raising fears of a credit crunch, the Swiss Re Institute has stated in a recent report, Reinsurance News reported. Credit has already been tightening in the U.S. and EU, just as smaller banks are experiencing renewed pressure on assets. This potential credit crunch would involve a sudden and sharp restriction on lending to businesses and households, which could cause serious damage to the real economy.

Over the past year, governments around the world have announced tax breaks, subsidies and new laws in a bid to accelerate investment, combat climate change and expand their workforces. That might not be enough, the Wall Street Journal reported. The World Bank is warning of a “lost decade” ahead for global growth, as the war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic and high inflation compound existing structural challenges.

The U.K. government said it would hire 475 financial crime investigators and change laws around corporate crime as part of a new plan to crack down on economic crime, the Wall Street Journal reported. The three-year plan, unveiled Thursday, calls for new spending of £400 million, equivalent to $495 million, at several government agencies—£200 million of which will come from the government and £200 million from a levy on the private sector. The government will make a £100 million investment in data analytics and other technology to aid law enforcement.

A gauge of activity in China’s services sector reached its highest level in more than a decade in March, a sign that Chinese consumers are heading back to stores and restaurants, powering an economic recovery following the end of almost three years of strict COVID-19 controls, the Wall Street Journal reported. The reading represents a promising signal for the global economy, which depends on Chinese consumers to prop up growth this year as their counterparts in the U.S.

Chinese authorities opened a probe into former Bank of China Ltd. Chairman Liu Liange, the most senior banker to become implicated in a broad crackdown on corruption in the financial sector that was unleashed in late 2021, Bloomberg News reported. Liu is suspected of “serious violations of discipline and law,” the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission said in a one-sentence statement. Liu is among the highest-ranking financial executives to be targeted in President Xi Jinping’s clampdown on the financial sector.