Headlines

Australia concluded its quantitative easing program, leaving the Reserve Bank with more than 40% of government bonds on issue and raising questions about what it will do with the pile of assets, Bloomberg News reported. The RBA on Thursday conducted its final A$1.6 billion purchase of securities under a program that tripled its balance sheet to about A$650 billion ($465 billion). Indeed in 2021 it bought more than three times more debt than the government issued, the largest ratio across the world’s six largest developed bond markets.

Mexico raised its key interest rate by a half-percentage point for a second consecutive meeting as policy makers look past an economy in recession to address inflation near a two-decade high, Bloomberg News reported. In the first monetary policy meeting led by new Governor Victoria Rodriguez Ceja, the central bank raised the benchmark rate by a half point to 6% on Thursday. The increase matched the forecasts of 19 of 22 economists surveyed by Bloomberg, with three analysts anticipating a quarter-point hike.

China arrested a former senior official at the nation’s banking regulator over alleged bribery, adding to a long list of executives and policy makers caught up in the nation’s latest anti-graft crackdown, Bloomberg News reported. Cai Esheng, the former vice chairman at the banking watchdog who retired in 2013, also faces charges over the abuse of power, The Supreme People’s Procuratorate of the People’s Republic of China said on Thursday.

China Evergrande Group’s EGRNF 9.52% chief executive sold his holdings of company dollar bonds with a face value of $128 million last summer, stock exchange-filings showed, with the sales coming a few weeks before the property developer issued a profit warning, the Wall Street Journal reported. Evergrande CEO Xia Haijun, and Hui Ka Yan, the group’s founder and chairman, have in recent years bought sizable quantities of new bonds from the company, according to company statements and to earlier filings disclosing changes to their holdings.

A former Goldman Sachs banker charged with helping to embezzle hundreds of millions of dollars from Malaysia's 1MDB sovereign wealth fund will go on trial in the United States next week, in a case that could shed light on how the bank responded to warnings of corruption, Reuters reported. Roger Ng, Goldman's former investment banking chief in Malaysia, will be the first - and likely only - person to stand trial in the United States over one of the biggest financial scandals in Wall Street history.

President Nayib Bukele’s unorthodox policies -- from ousting top court judges to trading Bitcoin on his phone with public money -- have heightened the nation’s perceived riskiness for investors and ratings agencies, Bloomberg News reported. “The weakening of institutions and concentration of power in the presidency have increased policy unpredictability, and the adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender has added uncertainty about the potential for an IMF program that would unlock financing for 2022-2023,” Fitch said in its statement.

More than 25,000 people died by suicide due to either unemployment or bankruptcy between 2018 and 2020, the Union home ministry told the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, the Economic Times of India reported. A total of 3,548 people committed suicide due to unemployment in 2020 (when the first wave of Covid-19 hit), 2,851 in 2019 and 2,741 in 2018, Union minister of state for home Nityanand Rai said while replying to a written question. As many as 5,213 people committed suicide due to bankruptcy or indebtedness in 2020, 5,908 in 2019 and 4,970 in 2018.

The Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has directed the liquidator of Sterling Biotech to stay the auctioning process of the company until further orders, the Economic Times of India reported. The NCLT was hearing a petition filed by one of Sterling Biotech’s successful qualified bidders, India Gelatine and Chemicals Ltd. Gujarat-based Sterling Biotech is the world’s sixth-largest manufacturer of pharmaceutical gelatin and owes over Rs 8,100 crore to financial and operational creditors.

Over the past decade, Credito Real SAB was the rising star of a booming new business in Mexico: cutting small loans -- and charging double-digit interest rates -- to the millions of traditionally unbanked all across the country. Now, with its cash hoard shrinking, Credito Real faces a moment of truth, Bloomberg News reported. It either pays off 170 million Swiss francs ($184 million) of bonds due by the end of Wednesday, or goes the way of a smaller peer in the non-bank lending industry that has already fallen into default.

The Canadian Debtors Association is calling on all parties in the credit, debt and insolvency industry to work together and modernize Canada's Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (BIA) to help Canadians in financial difficulty, according to a press release. "A core principle of Canada's insolvency legislation and policy is to provide a "fresh start" for people who are overwhelmed by debt," says Canadian Debtors Association President and CEO Henrietta Ross. "This principle is widely accepted by legislators, stakeholder groups, academics and insolvency experts.