By Reuters Staff
2 Min Read
BUDAPEST, May 12 (Reuters) - The Hungarian Bank Association is in talks with the government about the future of a loan repayment moratorium which expires at the end of June, the General Secretary of the body told the national news agency MTI on Wednesday.
Levente Kovacs said banks welcomed some form of moratorium targeting the most vulnerable borrowers continuing, although there was no decision yet on how to transition from the current mass scheme, which covers both individuals and businesses.
Hungary’s economy went into freefall at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, contracting by more than 13 percent in the second quarter of 2020 and more than 5 percent in the year as a whole.
By Reuters Staff
1 Min Read
DUBAI, March 14 (Reuters) - The Qatari central bank governor said measures taken to deal the COVID-19 pandemic did not affect financing policy and domestic credit growth exceeded 1 trillion Qatari riyals at the end of 2020, the country’s state-news agency QNA reported on Sunday. (Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli, editing by Louise Heavens)
Half of Japan s regional banks see profit loss or incur red ink
More than half of 78 listed Japanese regional banking groups and banks saw a decline in their net profits or incurred red ink in the April-December period, hit by the coronavirus pandemic, an analysis of their earnings reports showed Saturday.
Also affected by the Bank of Japan s ultraeasy monetary policy, resulting in low lending interest rates, their combined net profit fell 18.4 percent to 603.3 billion yen ($5.75 billion) in the nine months from a year earlier, the analysis showed.
The Bank of Japan building. (Kyodo)
The central bank is maintaining short-term rates at minus 0.1 percent while guiding long-term rates at around zero percent in a bid to achieve its 2 percent inflation target. The government is also supporting companies reeling from the pandemic by providing them with interest-free loans without collateral.