European bank shares dropped significantly in August after a surprise announcement from the Italian government for a new tax. Stefano Montesi - Corbis | Corbis News | Getty Images Italy’s shock tax on banks continues to prove controversial, even as the government insists it can improve it. Europe’s main bank stock index fell almost 3% on Aug. 8, after the Italian government announced plans to impose a 40% windfall tax on banks’ profits. The move caught traders off guard and sent shockwaves...

watch now The European Central Bank has likely pressed pause on its rate hiking cycle, the chief financial officer of Commerzbank told CNBC on Friday. The ECB raised interest rates in July, completing a full year of rate increases. ECB President Christine Lagarde flagged that the central bank could continue or pause rate hikes at its next meeting in September, but definitely will not cut. The ECB’s main rate currently stands at 3.75%. related investing news European stocks are in for a big...

Kazuo Ueda, governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ). Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images The Bank of Japan announced Friday “greater flexibility” in its monetary policy — surprising global financial markets. The central bank loosened its yield curve control — or YCC — in an unexpected move with wide-ranging ramifications. It sent the yen whipsawing against the dollar, while Japanese stocks and government bond prices slid. Elsewhere, the Stoxx 600 in Europe opened lower and government bond yields...

The European Central Bank announced Thursday a new rate decision. Daniel Roland | Afp | Getty Images The European Central Bank on Thursday announced it is taking its main rate up by 25 basis points to 3.5%, diverging from a U.S. Federal Reserve decision to pause its own hikes on Wednesday. The central bank has raised rates since July 2022 in an attempt to bring down record-high inflation across the region. The latest inflation reading showed prices cooling down at a faster-than-expected pace,...

Andrea Orcel, chief executive officer of UniCredit. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images A top banking executive highlighted a possible divergence in fortunes for the finance sector in both Europe and the U.S., suggesting that more rescues of American regional lenders are likely. “In the U.S., it is about distressed banks being rescued, I don’t see any distressed bank being rescued in Europe,” Andrea Orcel, the CEO of UniCredit, told CNBC’s Joumanna Bercetche Wednesday. “I do think in the...