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☆ Beijing Signals Two-Year Internet Crackdown May Be Coming to an End
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Weilun Soon | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

SINGAPORE—A top Chinese official said authorities have wrapped up investigations into the financial businesses of several internet companies, another strong signal that a two-year regulatory crackdown on China’s homegrown technology giants may be winding down. Guo Shuqing , chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, told state media that the government had concluded a campaign to “rectify the financial businesses of 14 platform companies,” with only minor problems left to be resolved. Mr. Guo, also the party secretary of the People’s Bank of China, added in the interview published Saturday that officials would look to provide more support to tech companies and work toward making supervision of the tech sector more predictable going forward.

☆ China's crackdown on Ant and other tech giants is 'basically' over, top official says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Laura He | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Hong Kong CNN —China’s heavy-handed crackdown on tech giants is coming to an end and the country’s economic growth is expected to be back on track soon, according to a top central bank official. “Next, we’ll promote healthy development of internet platforms,” said Guo, who is also chairman of China’s Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission. Mark Schiefelbein/APChina’s crackdown on its biggest tech companies began in 2020 with new regulations on fintech, which forced Ma’s Ant Group to suspend its $37 billion IPO days before its launch. Regulators then targeted the online financial service units of 13 other tech giants, including Tencent, Baidu, JD.com, Bytedance, Meituan, and Didi. Ant Group’s restructuringMajor tech companies in China have struggled under a sweeping regulatory crackdown for months now.

☆ Premarket stocks: Bonds are back, but for how long?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

New York CNN —Stocks soared on Friday to their best day in more than a month. But the big turnaround story during the short first week of the year isn’t just about equities, it’s also about bonds. Bonds are particularly sensitive to those increases — as rates are hiked, the price of existing bonds falls as investors prefer the new debt that will soon be issued with those higher interest payouts. This time around, investors are scooping up bonds as they anticipate the pace of Fed interest rate hikes will soon ease. Core bonds, or US investment grade debt, tend to perform well during Fed rate hike pauses.

☆ China Props Up Belt-and-Road Borrowers Via Unusual Channel
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( Jason Douglas | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Hungry for foreign currency to shore up their dwindling reserves, some troubled countries have in recent years turned to an unusual source of funds: The People’s Bank of China. China’s central bank has funneled billions over the past decade to around 20 countries, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Argentina and Laos, via swap lines that allow overseas central banks to exchange their domestic currencies for Chinese yuan.

☆ China will use timely RRR cuts to keep liquidity ample -state media cites cabinet
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Reuters Staff | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

BEIJING (Reuters) -China will use timely cuts in banks’ reserve requirement ratio (RRR), alongside other monetary policy tools, to keep liquidity reasonably ample, state media on Wednesday quoted a cabinet meeting as saying. Chinese Yuan banknotes are seen in this illustration taken February 10, 2020. The cabinet will send officials to provinces this month to check the implementation of policy measures that have been rolled out this year, state media said. The cabinet also called for speeding up investment and construction of major infrastructure projects, and called for stabilising and expanding consumption and vowed to support sound development of the platform economy, state media said. Deputy PBOC governor Pan Gongsheng said the bank would provide 200 billion yuan ($27.93 billion) in loans to six commercial banks for housing completions, state media Economic Daily said on Monday.

China’s technology sector has taken a pounding since watchdogs cancelled Ant’s $37 billion stock market debut at the last minute in 2020. The Hang Seng Tech index (.HSTECH), which includes social media giant Tencent (0700.HK) and JD, has fallen another 38% this year. China's powerful market regulator proposed amendments on Tuesday to a law on unfair competition. The e-commerce giant intends, in addition, to allocate at least 10 billion yuan to offer employees interest-free loans to buy a house. The benefits include plans to allocate 10 billion yuan ($1.40 billion) to a fund to assist employees of JD and recently acquired courier firm Deppon Logistics with buying homes.

☆ Yellen Meets China’s Central Bank Governor as U.S. Seeks to Repair Ties With Beijing
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Andrew Duehren | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

NUSA DUA, Indonesia—Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen held her first meeting with a top Chinese economic official since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s visit to Taiwan, as the Biden administration works to restore communication lines and prevent a spiraling economic conflict with the world’s second-largest economy. Ms. Yellen met with People’s Bank of China Gov. Yi Gang for more than two hours on Wednesday on the sidelines of a summit of the Group of 20 major economies in Bali, Indonesia. They discussed the volatility in energy and commodity markets and the economic outlook for the two countries, according to a U.S. readout of the meeting. The People’s Bank of China called the exchange broad and constructive, but didn’t offer any further details.

☆ China Investigates Central Bank Deputy Governor in First Major Probe Since Party Congress
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( Sha Hua | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

SINGAPORE—China’s top anticorruption agency is investigating a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, in a move that signals tighter scrutiny of China’s central bank after the conclusion of a Communist Party conclave last month where Xi Jinping secured a norm-breaking third term as leader. The investigation into Fan Yifei for “suspected serious violations of laws and discipline” was announced in a single-sentence statement published Saturday by the anticorruption agency, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Fan was taken from his workplace on Friday afternoon, according to the Securities Times, a state-owned newspaper.

☆ China new bank lending nearly doubles after central bank help
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Judy Hua | Kevin Yao | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

FILE PHOTO: Paramilitary police officers stand guard in front of the headquarters of the People's Bank of China, the central bank (PBOC), in Beijing, China September 30, 2022. Analysts polled by Reuters had predicted new yuan loans would rise to 1.80 trillion yuan in September. New yuan loans totalled 18.08 trillion yuan in the first nine months, rising 1.36 trillion yuan from a year earlier, central bank data showed. Broad M2 money supply in September grew 12.1% from a year earlier, central bank data showed, in line with analysts’ forecasts in a Reuters poll. In September, TSF rose to 3.53 trillion yuan from 2.43 trillion yuan in August.

Hong Kong/Tokyo CNN Business —A quarter of a century ago, a major financial crisis ripped through Asia, shaking its economies to the core. “I do not expect a repeat of the [1997] Asian Financial Crisis this time,” said Khoon Goh, head of Asia research at ANZ Research. “Importantly, there is not the same build up of foreign denominated debt in recent years, which was one of the triggers of the Asian Financial Crisis,” Goh added. China and Japan have the world’s two biggest foreign exchange reserves, holding $3 trillion and $1.3 trillion respectively. “Asia’s resilience in the face of the current global storm is partly the result of reform that the Asian Financial Crisis prompted,” Neumann from HSBC said.

☆ China’s yuan hovers near record lows against the dollar despite central bank warning
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-29 | by ( Laura He | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Hong Kong CNN Business —China’s yuan hovered near record lows against the US dollar on the offshore market on Thursday, as major currencies around the world continue to tumble after the Federal Reserve’s aggressive hikes. The yuan — also known as the renminbi —has been declining for months despite interventions by China’s central bank. The fall comes despite People’s Bank of China warning traders on Wednesday not to bet on the currency’s continued depreciation. Vendors exchange Chinese yuan notes at a store on Sunday, July 17, 2022, in Beijing. Ng Han Guan/APThe PBOC, meanwhile, has urged traders not to “keep gambling.”“The foreign exchange market is a big deal.

☆ China’s Central Bank Moves Further to Bolster the Yuan
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( Rebecca Feng | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

China’s central bank took another step to shore up the yuan, making it more expensive for traders and institutions to bet against the currency after it weakened rapidly against the dollar. The People’s Bank of China said on Monday that financial institutions selling foreign-exchange forward contracts will be subject to a 20% risk-reserve ratio, up from zero currently. The change, which will kick in on Sept. 28, will make it costlier for banks—and correspondingly, their clients—to sell yuan to buy dollars in the derivatives markets.

☆ China's yuan ends at 28-month low despite fresh policy step, nears daily lower limit
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( Reuters Staff | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SHANGHAI (Reuters) -China’s yuan finished domestic trading session at a new 28-month low against the dollar on Monday, near its downside trading limit, despite the central bank taking steps to rein in the currency’s weakness. FILE PHOTO: Chinese yuan banknotes are seen in this illustration picture taken April 25, 2022. However, the midpoint continued to come in much stronger than market projections for the 23rd straight trading session, traders and analysts said. The official daily midpoint fixing limits the onshore yuan to trade in a narrow range of 2% above or below, and Monday’s guidance kept the range to between 6.8892 and 7.1704. The onshore yuan hit an intraday low of 7.1690, 14 pips away from the lower end of the trading band.

☆ Inflation is a global problem. Here’s how central banks are addressing it
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

In Turkey and Argentina, annual inflation rates are forecast to clock in at a whopping 80%. At least 75 have lifted their benchmark interest rates in the past year, increasing the price of credit across the world. In July, it instituted its second consecutive 0.75 percentage point interest rate increase, taking its benchmark rate to a range of 2.25% to 2.5%. The country is struggling with rampant inflation rate that rose to a 20-year high of nearly 80% in August. The country’s annual inflation rate slowed to 7% in August, below analyst forecasts of 7.3% and down from 7.6% in July.

☆ China leaves lending benchmarks unchanged amid global rates squeeze
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Reuters Staff | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

FILE PHOTO: People wearing face masks walk past the headquarters of Chinese central bank People's Bank of China (PBOC), April 4, 2020. The one-year loan prime rate (LPR) was kept at 3.65%, while the five-year LPR was unchanged at 4.30%. The steady LPR fixings came after the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) last week left its medium-term policy rate unchanged, while draining some liquidity from the banking system. China lending ratesThe borrowing cost of the medium-term lending facility (MLF) serves as a guide to the LPR, and markets usually use the medium-term rate as a precursor to any changes to the lending benchmarks. Marco Sun, chief financial market analyst at MUFG Bank (China), said economic indicators surprised on the upside in August.

☆ Bank of Japan needs to pick yen battles carefully
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-15 | by ( Jennifer Hughes | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Battling the Bank of Japan, however, has historically offered better odds. The People’s Bank of China has been fixing the yuan’s daily range at stronger rates than trading patterns have forecast. Yen weakness has not triggered intervention since the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterIf Japan is serious about reversing or at least slowing currency weakness, it would need to do more than buy yen. CONTEXT NEWSThe Bank of Japan checked currency rates with banks on Sept. 14, Reuters reported.

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