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Correction: SoftBank ups Banco Inter stake; Galicia creating new finance firm

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Correction: SoftBank ups Banco Inter stake; Galicia creating new finance firm

Editors Note: An earlier version of this Daily Dose included a reference regarding Grupo Supervielle SA's decision to place its full-year earnings guidance under review. The company originally disclosed that decision in mid-August.

* Japan's SoftBank Group Corp. has increased its stake in Brazil's Banco Inter SA to 14.94% from 8.10%, according to a filing. The stake purchase allows the Japanese firm to secure a seat on Banco Inter's board following an agreement with the controlling shareholders.

* Argentina's central bank has approved plans by Grupo Financiero Galicia SA's card subsidiary Tarjetas Regionales SA to establish a finance company called Naranja Digital Compañía Financiera SAU which will be based in Buenos Aires.

MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA

* Optimistic expectations for GDP growth and revenues in Mexico's 2020 budget proposal present risks to the country's primary surplus target, Fitch Ratings said. Mexico's GDP growth forecast is at about 2% next year, higher than Fitch's latest forecast of 1.8%.

* Panama's GDP grew 2.9% year over year in the second quarter of 2019, El Capital Financiero reported, citing data from the Inec national statistics agency. Growth was at 3.0% in the first half of the year.

* Panamanian President Laurentino Cortizo said the government would pay $420 million next month to the country's banks as compensation for offering the so-called preferential interest rate, El Capital Financiero reported. Some of the country's banks have reportedly stopped offering preferential interest rate products due to the delay in payment.

BRAZIL

* Grupo XP, the holding company of Brazilian brokerage company XP Investimentos Corretora de Câmbio Títulos e Valores Mobiliários SA, has changed its name to XP Inc. amid reports of an initial public offering in the U.S. The new branding reflects XP Inc.'s "diversity of initiatives," according to Fernando Vasconcellos, the group's partner and chief marketing officer.

* Economists surveyed by Brazil's central bank have trimmed their forecast for the Selic rate at the end of 2020 to 5.0%, down from 5.25% in the last survey, Reuters reported. The rate is also expected to end at 5.0% this year.

* Two of the founders of Brazilian payment start-up Moip, which was sold to Germany's Wirecard in 2016, have launched a new venture called Cora, a wholly digital bank focused on small-scale entrepreneurs, Valor Econômico reported.

ANDEAN

* Peru's Credicorp Ltd. has invested $1 million in local fintech firm Independencia, an online consumer loan platform that raised a total of about $5 million in a recent investment round, SEMANAeconómica reported. Credicorp maintained an option to invest additional capital in the company in future funding rounds.

* Peruvian mobile payment platform Yape plans to start offering its transfer services to non-customers of Banco de Crédito del Perú for the first time, SEMANAeconómica reported, citing Yape leader Luis Alfonso Carrera. He said that the platform aims to have 10 million users by 2021, up from 1.5 million currently.

* Corporate lending in Colombia which was stagnant at the start of the year increased for a fifth month in July, rising 0.58% year on year to take the total commercial portfolio to 252.603 trillion pesos, La República reported, citing data from the country's financial superintendent.

SOUTHERN CONE

* Argentina's central bank reserves dipped below $50 billion, their lowest level since December 2018 just before the disbursement of a tranche of IMF funds, El Cronista reported. The country's debt repayments this year have depleted the international reserves to the tune of $23.39 billion.

* Chile's Sernac consumer protection service has demanded that the Correos de Chile postal service take responsibility for a massive data leak in 2018 that involved details of some 14,500 credit cards, Diario Financiero reported. Sernac said the state company should beef up security measures and compensate victims of the data leak after a probe traced the source of the leak to the company's Miami post office box.

PAN LATIN AMERICA

* Several Latin American economies are vulnerable to disruptions in global trade and could be impacted by rising trade tensions between the U.S. and China, Moody's said in a report. Chile and Peru are the most exposed among those with China as a trading partner, given their high dependence on commodity exports. China accounts for 34% of Chile's exports and 25% of Peru's.

IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD

* Asia-Pacific: ADB head may quit soon; Moody's downgrades Hong Kong

* Middle East & Africa: StanChart to meet with Dubai regulators; CGD to sell stake in Cape Verde unit

* Europe: StanChart to review 8,000 accounts; UniCredit lines up chairman candidates

Helen Popper contributed to this article.

The Daily Dose has an editorial deadline of 8:00 a.m. São Paulo time, and scans news sources published in English, Portuguese and Spanish. Some external links may require a subscription. Links are current as of publication time, and we are not responsible if those links are unavailable later.