
Weekly Global News Wrap Up: Goldman Sachs, Bank of America report increased profits for Q1; Wells Fargo tests Facebook chatbot
And find out how regulators risk putting banks on a fast track out of London.
According to BBC, profits at Bank of America were $4.35bn (£3.44bn), up 44% from the same period in 2016, with gains across its major divisions. Goldman Sachs profits rose 80% from a year earlier to $2.2bn. But the firm disappointed analysts with a decline in revenues from institutional investors. Read more here.
Reuters reports that Wells Fargo & Company is testing a "chatbot", an automated program that can communicate with the bank's customers on Facebook's messaging platform to give them information on their accounts and help them reset their passwords. The U.S. bank said on Tuesday that it is piloting the virtual assistant with several hundred employees, and plans to extend testing to a few thousand customers later this spring. Read more here.
Regulators risk putting banks on a fast track out of London by demanding they make detailed plans for a worst-case Brexit scenario, Bloomberg reports. John Glover and Richard Partington of Bloomberg report on Tuesday how finance executives are concerned that demands from the Bank of England and European Central Bank for full contingency plans may accelerate the relocation of activities from London to the continent. Read more here.