trending Market Intelligence /marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/XRyHAypSil9ibYXWctJSZw2 content esgSubNav
In This List

Dexia CEO out; Comdirect ups profit guidance; Helaba, Deka tie-up talk

Podcast

Street Talk Episode 87

Blog

A New Dawn for European Bank M&A Top 5 Trends

Blog

Insight Weekly: US banks' loan growth; record share buybacks; utility M&A outlook

Blog

Banking Essentials Newsletter 2021: December Edition


Dexia CEO out; Comdirect ups profit guidance; Helaba, Deka tie-up talk

* A government source told BBC News that German Chancellor Angela Merkel made clear a Brexit deal was "overwhelmingly unlikely," following a phone conversation with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. A group of five British cabinet ministers, including Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan, have threatened to resign over a no-deal Brexit, according to The Times. Meanwhile the EU may offer to push the Brexit date to the summer of 2020 as negotiations remain in stalemate, The Guardian reported, citing diplomatic sources.

* José Manuel Campa, chair of the European Banking Authority, told Bloomberg News that banks should act quickly in moving employees to their new EU bases to avoid complications from a potential no-deal Brexit.

UK AND IRELAND

* Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said the central bank will be the first regulator to stress test its financial system against various climate pathways. The test is aimed at making the British financial industry more responsive to changes in climate and to the government's climate policies, Carney noted.

* The Bank of England is joining forces with VocaLink Holdings Ltd. in a bid to identify criminal money being moved around the financial system by money mules.

* Rothesay Life PLC concluded a £2.8 billion buy-in transaction with the National Grid UK Pension Scheme.

* A British prosecutor claimed that the three former Barclays PLC bankers, who are on trial over the lender's capital raising arrangements with Qatar in 2008, lied about the £322 million in commissions paid to the Gulf country and masked them as fees for separate, commercially valuable advisory services agreements, Reuters reported.

* The U.K. Payment Systems Regulator said it was concerned about Barclays' decision to stop customers from withdrawing cash from the Post Office for free and will closely monitor the bank to see what alternative steps it will take, Reuters wrote, citing a statement from the watchdog. Meanwhile Barclays promised not to shut down branches in remote areas, or places where there are no other banks apart from itself, until at least October 2021.

* Five shareholders of Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC told Reuters that incoming CEO Alison Rose should consider restructuring the lender's NatWest Markets PLC, which contributed 11% of total profits in the first half, and detail plans on how the group will tackle competition from digital banking.

* Meanwhile, RBS unit Ulster Bank Ireland DAC agreed to sell an €800 million portfolio of nonperforming mortgages to U.S. private equity firm CarVal Investors for an undisclosed sum, The Irish Times reported, citing the bank.

* German bad bank FMS Wertmanagement AöR mandated Barclays to search for a potential buyer for Ireland-based DEPFA BANK PLC, which has a book value of €900 million, insiders told Reuters. The Irish lender could be priced at between 0.6x and 0.8x its book value in a potential deal.

* Egypt-based African Export-Import Bank disclosed its intention to launch an IPO of its global depositary receipts, representing class D ordinary shares, on the London Stock Exchange.

GERMANY, SWITZERLAND AND AUSTRIA

* Comdirect bank AG, Commerzbank AG's digital bank, revised its full-year pretax earnings forecast to more than €185 million, up from €170 million.

* The German savings banks association DSGV is urging state-owned institutions Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen Girozentrale, or Helaba, and DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale to begin discussions over a potential merger, Reuters reported, citing a spokeswoman for the association. A possible deal could create an entity with €260 billion in assets and 11,000 staff, according to the Financial Times.

* Deutsche Bank AG is looking to implement nearly half of the 18,000 job cuts envisaged under its restructuring in its home market, with its retail banking business likely to take a hit, insiders told Bloomberg News. The German lender is expected to make a decision over its retail division before its investor day in December and would require clearance from regulators.

* Meanwhile, the ECB and Germany's BaFin are set to veto Jürg Zeltner's appointment as a supervisory board member at Deutsche Bank due to a conflict of interest with his other role as CEO of KBL European Private Bankers SA, insiders told the Financial Times. The regulators said they were not convinced Zeltner will act independently given that KBL is a direct competitor of the bank in the wealth management market.

* Credit Suisse Group AG is evaluating a return to U.S. private banking with a main focus on adding $15 billion of AUM at a new base in Miami that will cater to wealthy Latin American clients, sources told Bloomberg News. No final decision has been made yet and the discussions are at an initial stage.

* The Swiss National Bank in a cooperation with SIX Swiss Exchange Ltd. is examining whether and to what extent digital central bank money can be used for business activities between commercial banks based on distributed ledger technology, Tages-Anzeiger reported.

* South Africa's Net 1 UEPS Technologies Inc. exercised its option to buy an additional 35% stake in Bank Frick & Co. AG for about $46.4 million. Net 1 will own 70% of the Liechtenstein-based bank following the deal.

* Avaloq group AG subsidiary Avaloq Outline AG and the banking services division of Zurich-based SIX Group AG entered a partnership to tap the market for electronic billing in Switzerland and jointly develop innovative digital invoicing products and processes.

* Landeskreditbank Baden-Württemberg – Förderbank, or L-Bank, has become the first lender to issue a bond whose interest rate is linked to the new euro overnight interest rate Ester, or European short-term rate, the successor to Eonia and Euribor, Börsen-Zeitung wrote.

FRANCE AND BENELUX

* Dexia SA CEO Wouter DeVriendt will leave the state-owned Franco-Belgian bank to lead the finance and control department of Italy's UniCredit SpA, De Tijd reported. DeVriendt will be temporarily succeeded by Bart Bronselaer, who has been a member of Dexia's board of directors since 2012

SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

* Spain's Banco Santander SA is looking to become the market leader in the bancassurance segment in Europe and Latin America, Expansión reports. The business is operated through a number of alliances with major insurance companies.

ITALY AND GREECE

* Italy's Treasury and the European Commission are now in the final stage of negotiations over a proposal for Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA to spin off €10 billion to €14 billion in bad loans, said Il Sole 24 Ore, with a decision expected by the end of the year.

* National Bank of Greece SA CEO Pavlos Mylonas told Bloomberg News that the Athens-based lender is looking to bring forward the securitization of its bad loans to 2020 from 2021 and will begin the search for a potential buyer for its insurance unit in the next two weeks.

NORDIC COUNTRIES

* Vestjysk Bank A/S has upgraded its expectations for profit after tax to between 420 million Danish kroner and 460 million kroner, up from 360 million kroner to 410 million kroner, driven by strong remortgaging activities.

* The banks that own the new payment platform P27 Nordic Payments Platform have agreed on plans for cross-border payments in the Nordic countries, Realtid reported. The owners, Danske Bank A/S, Svenska Handelsbanken AB (publ), Nordea Bank Abp, OP Financial Group, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB and Swedbank AB (publ), have signed a shareholder agreement, decided on a business plan and jointly supported a financial commitment totaling 500 million Swedish kronor. P27 will enable real-time payments, batch payments and cross-border payments, and will launch in 2021.

EASTERN EUROPE

* VTB Bank PJSC will no longer offer retail deposit products in euros, joining other large Russian banks that have already announced similar decisions, Kommersant reported. Russia's central bank recently said it does not want to introduce negative rates on foreign currency deposits from individuals, but it could consider the introduction of negative interest rates on foreign currency deposits from corporate clients.

* PKO Bank Polski SA will analyze the possibility of purchasing Commerzbank's Polish unit mBank SA, Parkiet reported, citing the lender's CEO Zbigniew Jagiełło. The executive noted, however, that no decisions have been made so far on whether PKO will participate in the acquisition process.

* Meanwhile fellow Polish lender Bank Pekao SA is also monitoring consolidation trends in the country's banking sector, PAP reported. However, it is currently concentrating on organic growth and operational transformation, which is part of the 2020 strategy.

IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD

Asia-Pacific: Hyundai Card sets IPO in motion; India's IDBI Bank to resume lending

Middle East & Africa: Saudi vets banks' Aramco exposure; Shuaa reshuffles ranks; KCB hunts defaulters

Latin America: Brazil economy chief denies resignation talk; potential tax reform for Mexico

North America: Wisconsin banks to merge; Trump tweets impact perceptions for Fed policy

NOW FEATURED ON S&P GLOBAL MARKET INTELLIGENCE

Lenders must set clear ESG targets under new UN responsible banking framework: A new framework to encourage banks to lend in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change will require lenders to set three long-term targets and assess the impact of their balance sheet.

Lloyd's insurers welcome risk exchange, want more detail on syndication overhaul: Underwriters are upbeat about the benefits of the risk exchange being introduced as part of the 330-year-old market's modernization plans, but uncertainty remains about proposals to modernize the market's risk syndication process, by which several syndicates underwrite a share of the same policy.

Bank of England joins forces with VocaLink to crack down on money mules: The BoE is in the early stages of a pilot project to use an anti-money laundering tool that tracks the movement of funds from account to account.

Ben Meggeson, Arno Maierbrugger, Danielle Rossingh, Esben Svendsen, Beata Fojcik, Heather O'Brian, Brian McCulloch, Praxilla Trabattoni and Mariana Aldano contributed to this report.

The Daily Dose has an editorial deadline of 7 a.m. London time. 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.

This S&P Global Market Intelligence news article may contain information about credit ratings issued by S&P Global Ratings. Descriptions in this news article were not prepared by S&P Global Ratings.