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Deutsche Bank to cut jobs in equities business; Turkish central bank hikes rate

* ECB executive board member Benoit Coeuré and governing council member Jozef Makuch said there is still a possibility that the central bank may end its €2.55 trillion bond-purchasing program later in 2018, despite new signs of an economic slowdown.

UK AND IRELAND

* Barclays PLC Chairman John McFarlane's attempts to explore a potential merger with rivals has put him at odds with CEO Jes Staley, who has spent the past two years disentangling the lender from markets including Asia and Africa, according to The Times.

* U.K. share trading venue Aquis Exchange Ltd. is lining up a London listing next month that could give it a market capitalization of roughly £73 million, the Financial Times wrote.

* RSA Insurance Group PLC backtracked on plans not to give performance-based bonuses to employees following backlash from staff, news outlets including City A.M. and Insurance Post reported. Steve Lewis, RSA's U.K. and international CEO, emailed staff in February saying the company "cannot justify" handing out performance-based bonuses in light of its recent financial performance.

* Accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the administrators overseeing U.K.-based Beaufort Securities Ltd., revised its forecast for the cost of carrying out insolvency proceedings for the troubled broker to £55 million from £100 million, the FT reported.

* Arden Partners PLC said Chairman Luke Johnson has stepped down with immediate effect. Mark Ansell, senior independent nonexecutive director, has assumed the role of interim chairman.

GERMANY, SWITZERLAND AND AUSTRIA

* Deutsche Bank AG announced plans to reduce headcount in its equities sales and trading business by roughly 25%, bringing the number of its full-time employees to well below 90,000 from just over 97,000. In addition, the lender's management board plans to lower adjusted costs to €22 billion for 2019, with no further significant disposals currently planned. The bank is holding its annual general meeting today.

* Public banks are calling for a regulatory pause following the agreement on more stringent international capital rules known as Basel IV, Handelsblatt reported. After the extensive measures of the past 10 years, it is time to think about the future of banking, said Johannes-Jörg Riegler, president of the Association of German Public Banks.

* A German court has ordered Société Générale SA to pay Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen Girozentrale €23 million in compensation, the first conviction in a massive tax fraud investigation connected to dividend stripping, AFP reported.

* An anti-fraud specialist at Allianz Group has been arrested for alleged fraud, Süddeutsche Zeitung reported. The unnamed suspect is believed to have defrauded the company out of €2 million to €3 million.

* Vienna Insurance Group AG reported a first-quarter net result after noncontrolling interests of €75.5 million, up 9.4% from €69.1 million a year earlier.

* Vontobel Holding AG will acquire Notenstein La Roche Privatbank AG from Raiffeisen Gruppe Switzerland.

FRANCE AND BENELUX

* Société Générale SA CEO Frédéric Oudéa said the lender is expecting to reach an agreement with U.S. and French authorities over two outstanding legal issues in the coming days. The bank has set aside €1 billion to cover the suits, and Oudéa said the provisions were sufficient.

* A new French law related to small and medium-sized enterprises is likely to trigger a profound governance reform within Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, according to Les Echos.

* ABN Amro Group NV bought an interest in financial technology startup Ockto, which allows customers to retrieve data necessary for complex financial products from authorities, Het Financieele Dagblad reported.

* Dutch payment solutions provider Adyen BV today announced plans to proceed with an offering and listing of its shares on Euronext Amsterdam. The offering will consist of a private placement of approximately 15% of the company's existing shares held by certain shareholders.

SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

* The Bank of Spain told Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA that it must hold, beginning Jan. 1, 2020, a minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities equivalent to 15.08% of total liabilities and own funds of its resolution group as at 2016-end, or 28.04% of the bank's risk-weighted assets. The Bank of Spain also informed Banco de Sabadell SA of its MREL, according to Europa Press.

ITALY AND GREECE

* Italian President Sergio Mattarella gave law professor Giuseppe Conte a formal mandate to become the country's next prime minister and form a government made up of a populist coalition consisting of the Five Star Movement and the League.

* Italian financial market regulator Consob authorized Attestor's Trinity Investments unit to bid for shares it does not already own in Banca Intermobiliare, MF said, with the offer set to run from May 28 to June 22. Trinity already owns 68.8% of Banca Intermobiliare.

NORDIC COUNTRIES

* A Swedish central bank assessment concluded that Nordea Bank AB (publ)'s decision to move its headquarters to Finland will reduce risks to the Swedish financial system over the long term, Göteborgs Posten wrote.

* New bankruptcy requirements being advanced by the Danish government will require small and medium-sized banks to set aside capital reserves to cover potential future bankruptcy risks and losses, Berlingske Business wrote. Estimates compiled by the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority suggest that Denmark's small and medium-sized banks will need to set-aside up to 14 billion Danish kroner to comply with the proposed capital reserve rules.

EASTERN EUROPE

* The Central Bank of Turkey yesterday decided to raise its late liquidity window interest rate to 16.5% from 13.5%, triggering an immediate reversal of a deep selloff in the Turkish lira, which had fallen more than 5% earlier in the day.

* VTB Bank (PJSC) CEO Andrey Kostin said the lender is once again considering the purchase of Vozrozhdenie Bank at the request of the Russian central bank, and will let the regulator know about its decision by June 1, Vedomosti reported. VTB will also officially announce the sale of its insurance business to JSC Sogaz tomorrow, Vedomosti said.

* Separately, Kostin said VTB stopped issuing new loans to Oleg Deripaska and his companies after he was included in the U.S. sanctions list, Reuters reported after CNBC. The newswire also cited Kostin as saying VTB was ready to give aluminum producer United Co. Rusal PLC, in which Deripaska owns a 48% stake, more time to make repayments on its loans.

* The Russian National Reinsurance Co., owned by the Russian central bank, helped insurer Ingosstrakh Insurance Co. Ltd. to reinsure risks of companies owned by Deripaska, according to Vedomosti. After the sanctions were introduced, Ingosstrakh began to fear that Western companies, in which the risks were previously reinsured, would refuse to pay compensation in case of potential insurance events affecting Deripaska's businesses.

* PAO Sberbank of Russia intends to curb its presence in Europe, but wants to expand operations in Kazakhstan and Belarus, news agency TASS reported, citing Sberbank CEO Herman Gref. The executive also said the lender still expects to sell its bank in Ukraine.

* Generali unit Generali CEE Holding BV will purchase a 100% stake in Adriatic Slovenica Zavarovalna druzba dd after entering into an agreement with KD Group financna družba dd. Generali is also set to purchase all of Polish life insurance company Concordia Capital SA and nonlife insurance company Concordia Polska TUW from Concordia Versicherung and Vereinigte Hagelversicherung.

IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD

Asia-Pacific: US regulator fines ICBC; SeaBank M&A gets nod; CBA taps Citi for unit stake sale

Middle East & Africa: Deutsche Bank to cut South Africa ops; 2 Omani banks to weigh potential merger

Latin America: Tanner looks to become Chile's largest fintech; Argentina holds key rate

North America: Independent Bank buying Guaranty for $1B; Far Point Acquisition to raise $400M

North America Insurance: American Equity eyeing sale; Q1 US annuity sales flat; insurtech investments up

NOW FEATURED ON S&P GLOBAL MARKET INTELLIGENCE

Analysts pour cold water on talk of Barclays tie-up with Standard Chartered: One analyst criticized Barclays' management for trying to "pull rabbit out of hat" rather than focusing on the basics of the business.

Spanish central bank urges lenders to tackle bad loans 'promptly': Spanish banks need to step up efforts to cut their stocks of problem loans in order to boost profits and give the economy a shot in the arm, according to the country's central bank.

Leo Magno, Ed Meza, Meike Wijers, Gerard O'Dwyer, Beata Fojcik, Heather O'Brian, Stephanie Salti, Praxilla Trabattoni and Mariana Aldano contributed to this report.

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