News
Greece not looking to bond markets for now: debt chief
Greece’s new head of public debt management says the country will not rush to tap sovereign debt markets; austerity package with extra cuts sends yields plummeting
Nigeria slashes deposit rate to ease lending
Central Bank of Nigeria knocks 100 bps off deposit rate and extends quantitative easing programme to promote lending to the real sector
Fernández’s central bank raid finally succeeds
Hours after admitting defeat on emergency decree, President Fernández plunders central banks reserves through new measures
China moots legalising some private lenders
A director-general of the People’s Bank of China says the central bank is in favour of lifting rate caps and legalising some micro-lenders
Philadelphia Fed appoints new VPs
Central bank shifts roles after senior vice president Richard Lang announces decision to step down
Australia hikes on further evidence of recovery
Reserve Bank of Australia raises cash rate to 4% as Stevens says economy in the clear
NY Fed welcomes fresh round of OTC targets
Dealers promise to clear vast majority of credit and interest-rate derivatives centrally
Kohn to leave Fed in June
Federal Reserve’s Don Kohn to depart once his term as vice chairman ends
Argentine president drops efforts to plunder reserves
President Fernández abandons plans to raid central bank’s coffers to repay national debt for now
Last survivor of Bretton Woods dies
IMF managing director calls Jacques Polak an “iconic figure”
UK FSA’s penalties policy could see enforcement fines treble
British regulator’s announces new structure for penalty-setting
NZ makes credit ratings mandatory for non-banks
Governor Alan Bollard deems ratings useful for investors
IMF should have come to emerging markets’ rescue: DSK
International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn says it should have been the Fund, not the Fed and other central banks, which provided swap lines to emerging markets in the crisis
Macklem named Canadian senior deputy
Tiff Macklem to move back to central bank to take on role vacated by Paul Jenkins
High debt heralds new rate policy: UK shadow chancellor
George Osborne says high level of public debt will prompt reappraisal monetary policy
Singapore moots expanding deposit guarantees
Monetary Authority of Singapore proposes extending scope and limit of deposit protection as it nears exit from an emergency guarantee adopted at the height of the crisis
Bulgaria relaxes capital adequacy rules
Bulgarian National Bank announces adoption of further countercyclical capital measures, reducing risk weights on retail and real estate exposures by 25 and 15 percentage points
Shogo Ishii to head IMF’s Asia office
Current head Akira Ariyoshi to take up academic post in Hitotsubashi University
ECB’s Stark rejects calls for higher inflation target
Senior European Central Bank official pans IMF chief economist’s suggestions of a higher inflation target
Fed is investigating Goldman, hedge funds: Bernanke
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke says the central bank is looking into cross-currency swaps carried out by Goldman Sachs alleged to have helped Greece hide the extent of its debt
Argentine court blocks debt repayment fund
Appeals court thwarts Argentine president Cristina Fernández’s decree by upholding injunction against the forced transfer of central bank reserves to bondholder repayment fund
FT Fed watcher to head NY Fed communications
Financial Times’s Krishna Guha to succeed Calvin Mitchell as executive vice president for communications
Brazil jacks reserve ratio up by 200 bps
Central Bank of Brazil lifts reserve requirement ratio back to pre-crisis level, move is expected to withdraw more than 70% of liquidity provided during crisis
Discount hike was to discourage reliance on Fed: Bernanke
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke reiterates the central bank’s stance that its recent discount rate hike was in no way a policy tightening, flags term deposit facility