Headlines

Kenya's central bank held its benchmark lending rate steady at 8.75% on Monday, its monetary policy committee said, saying its last hike in November was still working its way through the economy, Reuters reported. Six out of nine market participants polled by Reuters had predicted the bank would hold the rate steady, while three expected it would be raised. The move bucks the trend among major African central banks who have maintained a tightening stance into this year. Policymakers in Nigeria and South Africa hiked rates last week, while their Ghanaian counterparts hiked earlier on Monday.

Nigeria’s sovereign-risk premium jumped the most in three months on Monday after Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the country deeper into junk, Bloomberg News reported. The extra yield investors demand to own the West African country’s dollar debt rather than Treasuries widened 49 basis points to 780, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. data. The rate on the nation’s 2032 bonds jumped 56 basis points to 12%, also the most since October. Forward contracts on the currency traded 28% weaker than the official rate on the one-year tenor.

Pakistan’s moves to loosen its grip on the currency and increase fuel prices indicate that the beleaguered nation is finally taking the unpopular decisions needed to secure the $6.5 billion bailout program from the International Monetary Fund, Bloomberg News reported. The rupee fell to as low as 270 per dollar on Monday, according to the foreign-exchange desk at AKD Securities Ltd., as authorities allowed the currency to be more determined by the market, one of the preconditions of the IMF for the loan.

Major insurers operating in New Zealand including Insurance Australia Group and Suncorp Group have cumulatively received over 9,000 claims so far following severe storms and flooding in and around the biggest city, Auckland, Reuters reported. As of Monday morning, Suncorp's Vero and AA Insurance brands have received about 3,000 claims, while IAG's AMI, State and New Zealand Insurance brands have fielded over 5,000 claims. Tower Ltd on Sunday said it had received over 1,000 claims since Friday, and noted losses were "substantial".

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said his government will work to gradually lower the nation’s debt and narrow the budget gap, without resorting to raising taxes that hurt the poor, Bloomberg News reported. “We have reached the ceiling and we should gradually go down,” Anwar told Bloomberg Television’s Haslinda Amin in an interview Monday in Singapore. Otherwise it would be irresponsible to the next generation, he said.

A Brazilian court has ordered the seizure of all corporate emails of managers and board members from bankrupt retailer Americanas SA sent and received over the last 10 years, according to documents seen by Reuters.

Flybe ceased trading on Saturday, marking the struggling British regional airline's second collapse in three years, with all flights canceled and 276 workers made redundant, the Daily Sabah reported. The airline initially slumped into bankruptcy in March 2020, shedding 2,400 jobs, as coronavirus restrictions decimated the travel industry. However, it relaunched in April last year, flying many of the same routes out of Belfast, Birmingham and London Heathrow.

Atlas Technologies, the operating company responsible for the production of the Lightyear solar cars, has now been declared insolvent by a Dutch court. What will happen to the entire project is now very uncertain, Electrive.com reported. A few days ago, Lightyear had already announced the stop of production for the Lightyear 0 in order to concentrate on the Lightyear 2.

China's central bank said on Sunday it will roll over three lending tools to increase support for targeted sectors of the economy, Reuters reported. The People's Bank of China will roll over a lending tool for supporting carbon emission reduction to the end of 2024, and extend a relending tool for promoting the clean use of coal to the end of 2023, the bank said in a statement on its website. The central bank will also extend a relending tool for the transport and logistics sector to June 2023, it said.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) is working on two papers to address fundamental legal risks in the crypto markets, such as the insolvency of crypto exchange firms, according to a statement released on Jan. 26, CoinTelegraph.com reported.