How has the past year affected OTP Pension Funds’ performance? After a negative, pessimistic year in 2008 we achieved real success last year. In terms of investments, 2009 was also the most successful year of the Funds. Last year for instance we achieved a yield of 33.51 percent in our growth portfolio, having the highest risk-exposure in our Private Pension Fund. I believe everybody would love to make as high a yield as that on their own savings. However I must note with respect to these figures that in 2008 our yield was nearly at the same level, however with a negative sign. Last year nearly all portfolios outweighed the loss of 2008. La...
Italy’s Banco Popolare expects 2010 results to be in line with forecasts while possible sales of non-strategic assets could boost its capital ratios, its chief executive said recently. In La Stampa daily, Pier Francesco Saviotti also ruled out any merger with Italian cooperative bank peer Ubi Banca, speculation which regularly surfaces, and said there had never been any contacts on a tie-up. “I think there can only be marginal operations,” he said in the interview when asked about consolidation in the sector. This year’s results are “in line with the forecasts. We ought to close (the year) with a few million more profit than 2009”...
Specialising in market niches such as government banking, infrastructure projects, factoring to suppliers of government-owned firms, agribusiness, and fiduciary services, Banco Interacciones continues to strengthen its structure through good results and a 100 percent plough back net income policy. In 2009 the net income was 39 percent higher than the previous year, exceeding shareholders expectations. The institution has been named the Best Investment Bank in Mexico for 2010 by World Finance. Growth in a downturn The Institution managed not to be a part of crisis, acting proactively to take preventive measures anticipating the effects that th...
At present, without giving unnecessary specifics the whole foreign exchange market can be described in a few words: expanding, progressive, capacious, a kind of melting pot (as applied to the group and level of its participants). The last characteristics will be considered in details. Stability to different financial disasters (due to the principal of functioning), investment potential and efficient investment management, which is close to the absolute, made forex manna from heaven not only for traders but also for a great number of companies, specialised in various activities: from brokerage to educational courses, from Expert Advisors’ sa...
ICBC Macau was established by integrating the Macau Branch of ICBC (Macau Branch) with Seng Heng Bank (Seng Heng) in July 2009. Holding a full banking licence issued by the Monetary Authority of Macau (AMCM), ICBC Macau has 14 branches, three subsidiaries and 500 staff members in Macau. It is the biggest local bank in Macau and ranks second in terms of total assets – close to 55bn patacas ($6.8bn) – among the 27 banks in Macau. ICBC has transferred all the Macau Branch’s assets and liabilities as well as the rights and obligations of its businesses to Seng Heng. Accordingly, Seng Heng has been renamed as ICBC Macau and is 89.3 percent o...
Global trade will face lingering protectionism for up to two years, as the job market reels from the global financial crisis, World Trade Organisation Director-General Pascal Lamy said recently. “We are not out of the woods in coping with this protectionist tensions,” Lamy told reporters in the Chilean capital Santiago during a visit. “We on the trade side know by experience that we still have one or two years of stress to live and to cope with.” Lamy said the recovery in the global job market will lag that of the world economy by around 18 months....
The Bank of Japan could say this month that consumer prices will stop falling next fiscal year, sources say, but analysts said it would keep its easing bias as a full-fledged escape from deflation is still a distant goal. That would mark an upgrade to the BOJ’s current price forecast for the year to March 2012, sources familiar with central bank thinking said. Economists say that while this is achievable, price momentum won’t be strong enough to signal a decisive end to deflation given the large gap between supply and demand. The central bank has given slightly more positive views on the economy in recent weeks due to an export-driven rec...
Eurozone finance ministers approved a 30 billion euro emergency aid plan for debt-plagued Greece on April 11. Together with at least 10 billion euros expected from the IMF in the first year, it could add up to the biggest multilateral financial rescue ever attempted. “This has been a very important intervention,” Alessandro Profumo, the head of UniCredit , told Reuters Insider television. “In my opinion the contagion risk is dramatically lower today.” He also ruled out a spillover to eastern Europe, a region where UniCredit is a major player. “Today we are not seeing specific risk (in eastern Europe),” he said. “To talk of the...
“Borrowing for this year is even closed. There will be no more borrowing,” Geoffrey Mwau, economic secretary at the Finance Ministry, told reporters. Treasury wants an additional 27.62 billion shillings for recurrent expenditure and another 14.39 billion shillings for development programmes. The budget factored in domestic borrowing of 109.5 billion shillings but the government increased this by 15 billion. Mwau said the extra cash would go to the Interim Independent Elections Commission in the run-up towards a referendum on a proposed new constitution expected by July. A new charter is viewed as an important component for stability in ea...
Africa’s contribution to the global body of scientific research is very small and does little to benefit its own populations, according to a report from Thomson Reuters. Like India and China, Africa suffers from a “haemorrhage of talent”, the report said, with many of its best brains leaving to study abroad and failing to return. “The African diaspora provides powerful intellectual input to the research achievements of other countries, but returns less benefit to the countries of birth,” Jonathan Adams, director of research evaluation at Thomson Reuters, said in a statement as the report was published. Adams and colleagues, who use ...