Pittsburgh Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby is easing the burden for many Pennsylvania families struggling during the COVID-19 virus.

FSI Briefs No 5, April 2020. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, governments have launched guarantee programmes to support bank lending to companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises. This is essential to avoid a sharp contraction in bank credit that would exacerbate the pandemic's adverse impact. The design of such programmes needs to strike a difficult balance between responding promptly to the pandemic and maintaining a sufficient level of prudence. Key features of a sample of programmes (eg target beneficiaries, coverage of the guarantee, loan terms, length of the programme) reflect this tension. Incentives were created for the banks to join these programmes by exploiting flexibility in existing prudential requirements, while central banks have often provided liquidity support. Programmes are, however, subject to operational challenges and, ultimately, fiscal capacity limits.

Banks globally entered the Covid-19 crisis with roughly US$ 5 trillion of capital above their Pillar 1 regulatory requirements. The amount of additional lending will depend on how hard banks' capital is hit by the crisis, on their willingness to use the buffers and on other policy support. In an adverse stress scenario such as the savings and loan crisis, banks' usable buffers would decline to US$ 800 billion, which could support US$ 5 trillion of additional loans (6% of total loans outstanding). Yet in a severely adverse scenario, similar to the Great Financial Crisis, the corresponding figures would be only US$ 270 billion and US$ 1 trillion (1.3% of total loans).

FSI Briefs No 6, May 2020. Regulatory actions in the current circumstances need to focus on preserving banks' lending activity without jeopardising their solvency. This means that flexibility in capital requirements, including through the use of regulatory buffers, and capital conservation should go hand in hand. Basel III provides for automatic distribution constraints when capital falls below specific thresholds. In the current context, this may disincentivise firms from following authorities' recommendations to use capital buffers. Blanket distribution restrictions imposed through supervisory action may help address these disincentives to the extent that they are not linked to firms' individual capital positions and thus remove any possible stigma effect. Most authorities have undertaken initiatives in relation to banks' distribution policies in the Covid-19 pandemic environment. However, practices across jurisdictions diverge markedly as regards scope and stringency.

Introductory remarks (by videoconference) by Mr Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the European Central Bank, to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament, Frankfurt am Main, 7 May 2020.

Daily data on monetary policy rates have been updated. This covers 38 central banks with the earliest data starting in 1946.

Banks' performance on equity and debt markets since the Covid-19 outbreak has been on a par with that experienced after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. During the initial phase, the market sell-off swept over all banks, which underperformed significantly relative to other sectors. Still, markets showed some differentiation by bank nationality, and credit default swap (CDS) spreads rose the most for those banks that had entered the crisis with the highest level of credit risk. The subsequent stabilisation, brought about by forceful policy measures since mid-March, has favoured banks with higher profitability and healthier balance sheets. Less profitable banks saw their long-term rating outlooks revised to negative. And the CDS spreads of the riskiest banks continued increasing even through the stabilisation phase.

Are financial intermediaries inherently unstable and, if so, why? To address this, we analyse whether model economies with financial intermediation are particularly prone to multiple, cyclic or stochastic equilibria.

Bank of Italy Working Papers by Giorgio Albareto, Andrea Cardillo, Andrea Hamaui and Giuseppe Marinelli

Netherlands Bank DNB Occasional Studies by Peter Wierts and Harro Boven

The Bank of England says the UK faces its worst slump in 300 years, but on Thursday held off from any moves on rates or bond buying.

The Reserve Bank bought R11.4 billion worth of government bonds from the secondary market during April, as part of its measures to introduce liquidity to the market.

NEATEBOX, the Scottish technology firm which specialises in improving accessibility for people with disabilities, has been accepted into an accelerator programme run by Royal Bank of Scotland.

Framed prints of Steven Camley's cartoons are available by calling 0141 302 6210

The heads of Deutsche Bank and Siemens, two of Germany’s biggest companies, are among a dwindling number of high-profile delegates still scheduled to attend an investment conference in Saudi Arabia following the disappearance of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The founder and chief of his eponymous investment bank traveled to Riyadh to extol the virtues of friendship. He stood out as many of the titans of U.S. finance sat out the kingdom’s signature investment summit amid international outrage over the killing of government critic Jamal Khashoggi.

Banks can be as powerful and valued as the big technology firms. Yes, those trillion-dollar titans.

Payments Association of South Africa has warned consumers to be cautious when sharing personal information which can be used by fraudsters to make unauthorised debit orders.

For bank account holders who have been victims of debit order fraud, the big four banks share their remedies.

Fin24 users speak of their frustrations with banks, calling for a crackdown on debit order fraud that sees payments they didn't authorise being deducted from their bank accounts each month.

Credit card fraud increased to 19.47% as at the end of March 2019, compared to 12.2% reported at the beginning of January 2019.

Allegations of maladministration by banks accounted for 39% of cases completed by the Ombudsman for Banking Services so far this year.

When a patient comes through the Penn State Hershey Medical Center drive-through COVID-19 testing site, they're asked if they are worried about running out of food during isolation. If they say yes, they drive away with a box full of 25 meals.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

With 1.6 million customers and 850 000 active accounts and counting, TymeBank's growth in the first year of its launch surpassed its own projections. But can the bank maintain this momentum as the novelty of trying new things wears off for digitally savvy early adopters?

The economic meltdown has seen the world's leading central bankers including the South African Reserve Bank come under pressure to bail out their respective economies in the form of interest rate cuts. They've been urged to fund governments, an idea that central bank governor, Lesetja Kganyago, says is tantamount to a client instructing their banker to do the same.

South African banks are holding off on any further layoffs as they prepare to help the shrinking economy survive a potential jobs bloodbath.

WILMINGTON (January 28, 2019) – Delaware State Housing Authority (DSHA) and Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh (FHLBank Pittsburgh) announced today $1.2 million in Home4Good funding awarded to programs across the state working to reduce homelessness. DSHA provided $500,000 toward the effort, and FHLBank Pittsburgh provided $700,000. The funding will be used to address four key […]

DOVER – Delaware State Housing Authority (DSHA) and Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh (FHLBank Pittsburgh) announced today $1.2 million in Home4Good funding awarded to programs across the state working to reduce homelessness. DSHA provided $500,000 toward the effort, and FHLBank Pittsburgh provided $700,000. The funding will be used to address four key areas: homelessness […]

With thousands of people out of work due to the COVID-19 crisis — and food banks working tirelessly to feed an ever-growing number of hungry families — Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences is doing its part to fill empty shelves and refrigerators.

Absa has relinquished the unenviable position as the country’s most expensive bank in Finweek’s annual bank charges study.

Nearly half of all Mzansi accounts, created in 2004 as a means of having more people bank, are dormant but SA’s top banks won’t abandon the system.

Investec's Value Fund has for the first time since 2000 ditched any exposure to big four banking stocks and major retail groups.

Lebanese banks are working on a national financial rescue plan that would preserve some of their capital rather than writing it all off as outlined in a government program, the banking association head said.

Tyre’s Court of Urgent Matters Judge Mohamad Mazeh issued an order Wednesday to prevent the chairman of Byblos Bank and some members of its board of directors from traveling abroad.

Bank Audi proposed using government assets as collateral to offset the losses of the Central Bank and commercial banks that were the result of lending to the state.

The chain will be shutting 300-350 stores as part of its global business overhaul.

Non-food credit fell Rs 67,910 crore to Rs 102.17 lakh crore, while food credit fell Rs 1,430 crore to Rs 52,643 crore.

Gross non-performing assets came in at 5.53% in the quarter ended March 31, as against 5.95% in the previous quarter.

A company whose owners fled the country with over Rs 400 crore in unpaid loans borrowed from the State Bank of India (SBI) and other banks has emerged as the latest example of a mega defaulter...

Moratorium under the Insolvency And Bankruptcy Code

 Prudential Guidelines on Restructuring of Advances by Banks <

 Permissible period for remittance of e-payments into Government account by Public Sector Banks

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