North America

Japan’s financial watchdog expects the local unit of Sam Bankman-Fried’s failed crypto empire FTX will repay funds to customers starting next month, according to a senior official, Bloomberg News reported. “We have been in close communication with FTX Japan,” said Mamoru Yanase, deputy director-general of the Financial Services Agency’s Strategy Development and Management Bureau. A mid-February timeline for withdrawals announced last month by the firm is likely a product of such communication so “we are expecting that they will properly take steps based on that,” he said.

Canada’s banking industry regulator will consider limiting how much firms are able to lend to riskier homebuyers as part of a review intended to safeguard the financial system from a housing slump, Bloomberg News reported. The regulator is proposing restrictions on the volume of mortgages made available to those who are seeking to borrow amounts that are far in excess on their incomes. It’s part of a regular consultation on residential mortgage underwriting standards, which started Thursday.

Mexican industrial output was unchanged in November from October but rose 3.2% year-over-year, the national statistics agency said on Wednesday, as economists expect an economic slowdown in the United States to affect the sector ahead, Reuters reported. Statistics agency INEGI said in a statement that higher construction and utilities output boosted industrial production in the month, but ended up offset by a drop in mining and manufacturing.

US-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc. is closing the bulk of its operations in Japan as part of a move to adjust international investment amid a slump in the digital-asset sector, Bloomberg News reported. The shift comes as the firm cuts 20% of its workforce globally, the latest layoffs at the San Francisco-headquartered firm. Coinbase is scaling back in Japan even as the nation loosens some crypto rules, which has spurred rival Binance — the largest digital-asset exchange — to seek a license to return to the country.

Mexico's headline inflation ended 2022 slightly below analysts' expectations, while core inflation finally appeared to have peaked, data from the national statistics agency showed on Monday, Reuters reported. Annual headline inflation in December reached 7.82%, up moderately from 7.80% in November, but still below the record 8.70% reached in August and September. Meanwhile the core index, which strips out some volatile food and energy prices, hit 8.35% on an annual basis in December, dropping from November's 8.51%, and the first slowdown since its stubborn upwards cycle began.

The number of Canadians filing for insolvency is approaching pre-pandemic levels, according to numbers from the federal Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, CBC.ca reported. Insolvency rates dropped during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Michelle Statz, a Saskatchewan-based licensed insolvency trustee with Bromwich+Smith, says that November 2022 saw the highest number of insolvencies since March 2020, the month that saw COVID-19 lockdowns and the announcement of the initial Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).

U.S. managed services and cloud connectivity provider GTT, formerly called Global Telecom and Technology, has emerged from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases after more than two years of corporate and financial restructuring, BNAmericas.com reported. The company, which maintains ethernet and IP sites in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City, first filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2021. "Over the past two years, we have concentrated relentlessly on transforming our business into a customer-focused, managed services provider with a culture of continuous improvement.

Declining world supply chain pressures are being challenged by new disruptions in China tied to the coronavirus pandemic, the New York Federal Reserve reported on Friday, Reuters reported. The regional Fed bank's December Global Supply Chain Pressure Index ticked down to 1.18 from November's revised 1.23 reading. According to the report, supply chain pressures have been easing notably since the spring of last year and bottomed in September, and have since then been bouncing around in a tight range.

The United States and Japan on Friday launched a new task force to promote human rights and international labor standards in supply chains and said they would invite other governments to join the initiative, Reuters reported. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai signed a memorandum on the initiative in Washington with Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura.

Mexico's government said on Friday that it will issue a new decree for a temporary exemption on import tariffs for various items, a measure intended to tame inflation, Reuters reported. The new decree, set to be published in the official gazette on Friday, will extend a prior order to temporarily waive tariffs and include more items, according to a government statement.