Headlines

Crypto hedge fund executive Marco Lim spent Monday racing to open bank accounts in Hong Kong after the sudden collapse of three U.S. lenders, Reuters reported. The hedge fund, MaiCapital, is based in the city and had cash at one of the fallen institutions, Signature Bank. MaiCapital needs alternatives and managing partner Lim was pressing lenders to speed up account opening. “The two biggest crypto friendly banks are gone,” Lim said, referring to Signature and Silvergate Capital Corp., which also had many crypto clients and said Wednesday it would liquidate.

China’s new premier, the country’s No. 2 leader after Xi Jinping, sought on Monday to reinvigorate confidence in the faltering economy, promising that private-sector companies would be treated equally with state-owned ones and that the property rights and other interests of entrepreneurs would be strictly respected, the New York Times reported.

Brazil's Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said on Monday that getting a new fiscal framework right would have a much more important impact on the economy than the discussion about inflation targets, Reuters reported. Haddad said he intended to present the framework to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva this week. "If we get the fiscal framework right, this has a much more important impact (than the discussion of inflation targets)," he said, when asked about possible changes to inflation targets.

As the UK buckles under the strain of anemic growth, strikes, fraying infrastructure and record hospital waiting lists, Jason James thinks back to another economic crisis that dominated an earlier part of his banking career: Japan’s infamous “lost decade,” Bloomberg News reported. James, 58, spent the 1990s working for HSBC Securities in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi financial district. It was a period that suffered a 60% slump in stocks and a collapse in land values that led to zombie banks and an economy overwhelmed by bankruptcies and bad debt.

Germany's last major department store chain aims to close two-fifths of its branches, months after it filed for insolvency protection for the second time in less than three years, the company's employee council said Monday, the Associated Press reported. The long-troubled Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof plans to shut 52 of its current 129 stores, the council said. It added that the move would cost more than 5,000 jobs, German news agency dpa reported.

Traders are on a record-long streak of hedging against a decline in the Egyptian pound as some Wall Street banks warn growing pressures on the currency could soon force the central bank’s hand in allowing another devaluation, Bloomberg News reported. Time may be short for a country facing what Citigroup Inc. said is growing pent-up demand for dollars that won’t ease without more currency flexibility and stronger investment flows. Half measures haven’t been enough, stalling deals and resulting in an underperformance of Egypt’s bonds.

The Bank of England said it would place Silicon Valley Bank’s U.K. subsidiary into insolvency procedure following the collapse of its parent in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported. In a statement late Friday, the BOE said Silicon Valley Bank’s U.K. arm will stop making payments or accepting deposits. “The Bank of England, absent any meaningful further information, intends to apply to the court to place Silicon Valley Bank UK Ltd. into a bank insolvency procedure,” it said. Silicon Valley Bank’s branch in the U.K.

Canada’s banking regulator seized control of SVB Financial Group’s branch in the country Sunday and said it will seek a legal order to wind up the operation, Bloomberg News reported. Peter Routledge, the country’s financial superintendent, “took this action to preserve the value of the assets held at the branch” after US regulators shut down the California-based parent bank on Friday, his office said in a statement. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke with banking executives and Bank of Canada officials on Sunday evening, and said the government continues to watch the situation.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority said on Monday it was seeking more information from Australian banks regarding any impact form the collapse of U.S. startup-focused lender SVB Financial Group, Reuters reported. "While the Australian banking industry has limited connections with the US-based Silicon Valley Bank, APRA is intensifying supervision of the local banking industry and is seeking more information from them on any potential impacts," APRA said in a statement.

The People’s Bank of China is expected to extend monetary support this week and maintain a key policy rate, after Beijing retained its governor in a leadership reshuffle that signals policy continuity, Bloomberg News reported. The central bank will probably provide 350 billion yuan ($50 billion) to financial institutions through a medium-term lending facility on Wednesday, as 200 billion yuan of the one-year policy loans mature, according to the median estimate of seven analysts surveyed. The net expected increase in liquidity would be less than the 199 billion yuan last month.