Weekly Global News Wrap Up: UBS Q2 profit hits five-year-high; BofAML shells out $40m fine: report

And Spain’s Banco Santander finds refuge in the Americas.

From CNBC:

UBS saw its net profit inch up 8.52% YoY to $1.4b from $1.29b in the same period a year ago. The Swiss lender announced that this is the highest second-quarter net profit since 2010. The profit boost comes in despite declines in both its investment bank and wealth management divisions.

UBS, however, saw a decline in its global wealth management business compared to a year ago. The bank reported an operating profit of $886 million compared to over $1 billion in the second quarter of 2018.

From CNBC:

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has paid a hefty $40 million to settle “churning” allegations involving a former broker, according to filings and sources familiar with the case. 

The recipient of the settlement is Robert Levine, co-founder of one-time network equipment maker Cabletron Systems, according to the sources. The complaint was filed in March 2018 for allegations of “unsuitable investment recommendations, excessive trading and misrepresentation from February 2012 until December 2017,” a practice commonly called churning.

From Bloomberg:

Banco Santander SA’s surging business in the Americas is helping compensate for a lackluster performance in Europe. Underlying profit at the Madrid-based lender rose 5% to $2.4b (EUR2.1b) in the three months through June, the best quarterly performance in eight years, according to Chairman Ana Botin. 

The results highlight the diverging fortunes of the bank’s business as North and South America account for a rising share of underlying profit with Brazil, the bank’s main profit driver, rising 19%. The bank’s US unit, long mired in regulatory issues, has shown signs of improvement, rising to fifth in the table of the largest contributors to group profit.