By Huw Jones LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England said on Friday it would review the test that borrowers must pass if they want a mortgage, raising the prospect of obtaining home loans more easily. The BoE introduced a tougher "affordability" test in 2014 to ensure that borrowers do not become a...
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(Bloomberg) -- Wall Street’s biggest banks are predicting the coronavirus-hit world economy will crawl through the early days of 2021 before bouncing back as vaccines and more fiscal stimulus flow into it.After a year which saw the unanticipated shock of the deepest recession since the Great Depression, economists are bracing for a shaky start to the new year as 2020 ends with a...
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By Francesco Canepa, Balazs Koranyi and Frank Siebelt FRANKFURT (Reuters) -European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde brokered a difficult compromise this week to secure backing for a new pandemic-fighting package of measures, but her battle to convince sceptics among her colleagues and investors has only just begun. The ECB unveiled plans to buy an additional half trillion euros worth of bonds and...
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(Reuters) - Britain's AstraZeneca said on Friday it would investigate combining its experimental COVID-19 vaccine with Russia's Sputnik V vaccine candidate, a move Russian scientists have suggested could sharply boost efficacy. The developers of Sputnik V suggested on Twitter last month that AstraZeneca try the combination. "Sputnik V is happy to share...
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(Bloomberg) -- Initial public offerings have been doing extremely well lately, bringing to mind the excesses of the tech bubble in the late 1990s. Shares in Chinese toymaker Pop Mart International Ltd. jumped as much as 112% in their debut Friday, after home-rental platform Airbnb Inc. closed 113% above its IPO price in New York. JD (NASDAQ:JD) Health International Inc. surged 56% in...
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By Kirstin Ridley LONDON (Reuters) -A 14 billion pound ($18.5 billion) class action against Mastercard (NYSE:MA) for allegedly overcharging more than 46 million people in Britain over a 15-year period was on Friday given the green light by the UK Supreme Court. The judgment dismisses an appeal by Mastercard, sets the scene for Britain's first mass consumer claim brought under a new...
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PARIS (Reuters) -The European Central Bank is targeting favourable financing conditions rather than pumping a given amount of liquidity into the economy with its latest stimulus decision, ECB policymaker Francois Villeroy de Galhau said on Friday. The ECB said on Thursday it was increasing the overall size of its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) by 500 billion euros to 1.85 trillion euros....
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By Sujata Rao European and U.S. equity futures are marked lower and Wall Street is looking set to snap a two-week winning streak. With a climbing global COVD-19 death toll, little sign of a desperately needed U.S. spending package and growing bets on a no-deal Brexit, it looks like a grim end to the week. Sterling is flat this morning but with betting...
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By David Milliken and Huw Jones LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England took steps on Friday to keep banks lending through 2021 as Britain deals with the COVID-19 pandemic and a big change in its trading relationship with the European Union. The central bank said the counter-cyclical capital buffer - extra money banks must set aside during economic good times -...
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(Reuters) - Holiday Inn-owner Intercontinental Hotels Group (LON:IHG) has struck an agreement with its creditors to extend waivers of its debt covenants through the end of 2022, the company said in a statement on Friday. The move by IHG to shore up its finances comes as the hotel industry faces a plunge in travel demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing...
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