© Seb Jarnot I arrive at La Méditerranée, a traditional fish restaurant in a literary quarter of the Left Bank, Paris, at 7pm to find its blue doors firmly bolted. Charlotte Rampling has just confirmed our reservation, but our dining slot appears to have fallen foul of that particularly French timetable that decrees that no civilised person would ever want to eat before 8pm. In a panic, […]
Feb 13, 2017 11:59 am IST An earnest band of Indian activists is asking rich people to boycott money, so there’s more for the needy. A motley mix of bankers, Bollywood stars and bikers have pledged their support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s November move to ban almost 90% of Indian currency to fight counterfeiting, tax evasion and terrorism. A story from The Wall Street Journal investigated […]
PANAMA CITY — The co-founder of the law firm at the center of the Panama Papers scandal says the fallout has set off a “thriving” boom in the creation of tax shelters in the United States. Juergen Mossack, who partnered with Ramon Fonseca to create the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca, said in a document obtained Thursday by AFP that after the Panama Papers leak a year ago, […]
OTTAWA The Bank of Canada may not be known for its humor but it marked the nation’s 150th anniversary with a bit of whimsy, embedding a computer code in its website that lets users unlock a digital celebration. Though Governor Stephen Poloz unveiled a commemorative C$10 banknote at a live ceremony last week, the central bank’s Web team had a nerdier take on the event. The team […]
By Kate Holton and William Schomberg | NEWTON FERRERS, England/LONDON NEWTON FERRERS, England/LONDON Before last year’s Brexit vote, Scott McCready was struggling to fill his holiday cabins on the coast of southwest England. Now the site is fully booked with British tourists avoiding more expensive foreign trips following a plunge in the pound. This turnaround in the 10 months since Britons decided to leave the European Union […]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise announcement that he was cancelling 86% of the country’s cash overnight triggered weeks of panic and long lines of people trying to exchange or deposit their old notes. The meandering lines have disappeared but India’s cash-driven emerging market is still suffering as the new bills haven’t reached every corner of the economy and consumers and companies are still struggling to shift more of their transactions […]
The pound was last worth $1.30 on September 30, a day when lawyers were lining up to derail Brexit in the courts, a resilient consumer was challenging economists’ dire post-referendum predictions and carmaker Nissan was demanding compensation for staying in the UK. Investors have become familiar with such Brexit unpredictability. Yet few of them could have guessed how sterling, tweeted by Nordea analyst Martin Enlund as “the […]
President Donald Trump has tried to ban people from certain Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. and has begun deportation raids, following through on his campaign promise to creating a more cautious, less open America. Recent migrants to the country are starting to worry how far the measures will go and some Indians are worried that the skilled-worker visas they use to enter the country could become […]
It isn’t the first time that imprisoned Palestinian activist Marwan Barghouti has written a controversial comment-article for a major newspaper in the United States. In fact, it isn’t even the first time that, in giving him a platform in the western media, an American newspaper has glossed over some details of the life of a man who is now 13 years into five life sentences handed down […]
US mortgage group Ocwen has lost more than half its market value after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued it over “systemic” misconduct, a reminder of the power wielded by the Washington regulator that Republicans have vowed to rein in. Several states are also taking action as they prepare to revoke operating licenses for the New York-listed company, which was founded in 1988 and employs more than […]
By David Lawder | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON World financial leaders gathered in Washington on Thursday with pledges to work with U.S. President Donald Trump to fix lingering trade problems while vowing to keep their commitments to free trade and global integration. Worries over Trump’s approach to trade, taxes, financial regulation and climate change clouded the start of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings, even amid […]
Underwriting profitability for listed insurers in the UAE has returned in 2016 but is still borderline, according to S&P Global Ratings. The average combined ratio improved to 99 percent in 2016, from its peak of 105 percent in 2015, which marks the return of technical profitability for the market. “While the overall market results look profitable, 15 out of 29 listed insurers still posted combined ratios above […]
Wall Street still exudes widespread optimism that 2017 will provide another year of solid if unspectacular economic growth and only gentle interest rate rises. With the S&P 500 up over 4.5 per cent for the year, here is a series of charts that will hearten investors of a more bearish persuasion. While there are good reasons why each chart should not be taken too seriously, together they […]
Feb 16, 2017 10:46 am IST The decision of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to do away with large-denomination notes in November led to a temporary cash shortage that slowed the economy and forced people to queue at banks to get money. New Delhi touted its move as an opportunity to make India’s economy less dependent on cash, saying it will help it shrink the black economy […]
Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) has announced a contribution of AED330 million ($89.8 million) to implement development projects and programmes in key sectors in Somalia, particularly infrastructure and transport. The funding underpins efforts to improve public services, create new job opportunities and ensure stability and social development, state news agency WAM reported on Wednesday. It said the contribution aims to help Somalia overcome the economic challenges […]
By Sarah White and Yann Le Guernigou | PARIS PARIS Hard-left presidential challenger Jean-Luc Melenchon and conservative Francois Fillon were neck-and-neck behind the frontrunners in an opinion poll on Thursday, as candidates made last-ditch appeals to undecided voters. Voters will cast their ballots on Sunday in the first round of what has transformed into the most unpredictable French election in living memory, with four candidates within reach […]
French telecom company Orange is launching a bank this Summer in France. Orange CEO Stéphane Richard listed some of the features behind Orange Bank this morning at a press conference. And let’s just say that it doesn’t sound as groundbreaking as the company thinks. Just like N26, Revolut and others, you’ll be able to control your payment card directly from your phone. Transactions will show up instantly […]
Poland’s NC Cyber director Juliusz Brzostek: “Our role is to secure national assets, which means that we protect key services.” Image: Bogdanski/NC Cyber With the NIS directive on protecting national network and systems in place since last year, EU countries are now having to streamline their cybersecurity efforts. The directive requires them to set up computer security incident response teams (CSIRTs) and computer emergency response teams, or […]
Thursday 08:00 BST What you need to know ● European bourses soft despite positive Asia session and as US futures steady● Energy shares under pressure as oil struggles to recover from sell-off ● Dollar soft as sterling and euro shrug off election concerns● Sovereign bond yields hold near recent lows ● Gold prices add 0.1 per cent to $1,281 an ounce——————- Hot topic Oil prices are steadier […]
Television fans and fashionistas alike have been eagerly awaiting Netflix’s latest TV show, Girlboss, which debuts on April 21. The 13-episode series is loosely based on the autobiography of fashion-industry phenomenon Sophia Amoruso. As noted in our preview, she is an unconventional figure in the fashion scene. After hitchhiking around America, working odd jobs in record and bookstores and resorting to shoplifting when money was tight, in […]
April 20, 2017 The UAE Banks Federation (UBF), a professional body representing 49 member banks operating in the UAE, today hosted a high-level delegation from SWIFT, the global provider of secure financial messaging services. The delegation – led by Mr. Alain Raes, Chief Executive for Europe, Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific for SWIFT – met with UBF’s executive management and chairmen of concerned technical committees […]
When India suddenly banned its largest bank notes in November, it led to confusion throughout the country and slowed down the cash-dependent economy. In big cities, the cash ban appears to be spurring digital payments, as the government had hoped. But in rural India, where internet access isn’t reliable, financial access through digital services is slow to take hold. The Wall Street Journal reported on how people […]
Last Friday, New York legislators agreed on a budget that includes funding for tuition-free education at public colleges and universities. That plan, the Excelsior Scholarship, maintains most of the features of a proposal Governor Andrew Cuomo introduced earlier this year, including tuition-free enrollment at the City University of New York and State University of New York systems to students of families earning up to $125,000 per year. […]
DOHA, 20 April, 2017 The annual Middle East Forum supports the worldwide movement to improve quality and safety in healthcare and will host healthcare improvement experts and innovators from around the globe during the three day conference from May 5 to 7 2017. The Ministry of Public Health, Primary Health Care Corporation, Sidra Medical and Research Center, World Innovation Summit for Health, and Qatar Biobank will be participating in […]
