tyb/s
Economic/Banking round-up, it's very busy
Goldman Sachs fined $45 million by UK watchdog for reporting failures
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s markets watchdog said on Thursday it had fined Goldman Sachs International a record 34.3 million pounds ($45 million) for failing to provide accurate reporting of transactions over a decade.
“These were serious and prolonged failures,” said Mark Steward, the Financial Conduct Authority’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight.
Goldman agreed to resolve the case speedily, thus qualifying for a 30 percent discount to avoid a fine of 49 million pounds.
(this is in no way close to the damage caused by trillions of dollars thrown at the markets-Think 1MDB malaysia)
MARKET SNAPSHOT: U.S. Stock Futures Struggle For Direction After GDP Report Shows Slowing Growth
What's driving the market ?
Investors were focused Thursday morning on the government's final reading of GDP growth in the last three months of 2018, which was initially estimated at a 2.6% annualized rate from the previous quarter, but which was cut to a rate of 2.2%, helping confirm a trend of slowing U.S. economic growth.
The downward revision was sparked by slower consumer spending and subdued business investment, and left GDP growth for the full year of 2018 at 2.9%, tieing 2015 for the fastest annual growth rate since the Great Recession.
The GDP report follows heightened anxieties about sluggish growth in China and Europe that Wall Street investors fear has already begun to wash up on U.S. shores, reflected in falling yields of government debt, which fall as prices of Treasurys rise.
https://www.marketscreener.com/news/MARKET-SNAPSHOT-U-S-Stock-Futures-Struggle-For-Direction-After-GDP-Report-Shows-Slowing-Growth–28253648/
Ex-Barclays Euribor trader Moryoussef convicted in absentia in Britain
LONDON (Reuters) - A French former trader with Barclays (BARC.L), tried in his absence by a London court, has been convicted of helping to mastermind a five-year plot to rig global interest rates.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-euribor-verdict-idUSKBN1K2263
Swedbank : Swedish minister 'outraged' over Swedbank handling of money laundering allegations
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden’s financial markets minister on Thursday expressed outrage over how Swedbank had handled money laundering allegations against it, saying separately it could put confidence in the financial system at risk.
“I am outraged over how badly Swedbank has handled this matter,” Financial Markets Minister Per Bolund told Swedish TV4 in an interview. Swedbank earlier on Thursday sacked its CEO Birgitte Bonnesen.
Bolund told DiTV in a separate interview that firing Bonnesen was not enough.
“They should have cooperated with authorities and instead they have done the complete opposite and that is completely unacceptable. It puts both confidence in Swedbank and the whole financial system at risk - and Sweden’s reputation,” he said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-moneylaundering-swedbank-minis-idUSKCN1R91KQ
IMF's Lagarde urges euro zone to agree deposit insurance scheme
PARIS (Reuters) - Euro zone countries must set aside national concerns about exposure to risks from other countries’ banks and build a shared bank deposit insurance system, said IMF chief Christine Lagarde.
Even though euro zone countries have shared a common currency for two decades, their financial systems remain fragmented, Lagarde told a conference at the Bank of France.
While euro zone banks now have a common regulatory supervisor and a single resolution scheme, many still choose to lend and invest locally rather than across borders, she added.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-imf-lagarde-idUSKCN1R91KX
cake not going to cut it this time either
>>5940454 Trump administration charges Facebook with 'discriminatory' housing advertising practices
Notable
updated about 10min ago
Baker can you change the economics to GDP Report/Banking news round-up.
UK report blasts Huawei for network security incompetence
The latest report by a UK oversight body set up to evaluation Chinese networking giant Huawei’s approach to security has dialled up pressure on the company, giving a damning assessment of what it describes as “serious and systematic defects” in its software engineering and cyber security competence.
Although the report falls short of calling for an outright ban on Huawei equipment in domestic networks — an option U.S. president Trump continues dangling across the pond.
The report, prepared for the National Security Advisor of the UK by the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC) Oversight Board, also identifies new “significant technical issues” which it says lead to new risks for UK telecommunications networks using Huawei kit.
The HCSEC was set up by Huawei in 2010, under what the oversight board couches as “a set of arrangements with the UK government”, to provide information to state agencies on its products and strategies in order that security risks could be evaluated.
And last year, under pressure from UK security agencies concerned about technical deficiencies in its products, Huawei pledged to spend $2BN to try to address long-running concerns about its products in the country.
But the report throws doubt on its ability to address UK concerns — with the board writing that it has “not yet seen anything to give it confidence in Huawei’s capacity to successfully complete the elements of its transformation programme that it has proposed as a means of addressing these underlying defects”.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/28/uk-report-blasts-huawei-for-network-security-incompetence/