YCLOAK

Equifax Inc promised to make it easier for consumers to control access to their credit records in the wake of the company’s massive breach after the top U.S. consumer financial watchdog called on the industry to introduce such a system.

Equifax’s interim chief executive officer, Paulino do Rego Barros Jr., vowed to introduce a free service by Jan. 31 that will let consumers control access to their own credit records.

Barros, who was named interim CEO on Tuesday as Richard Smith stepped down from the post amid mounting criticism over the handling of the cyber attack, also apologized for providing inadequate support to consumers seeking information after the breach was disclosed on Sept. 7. He promised to add call-center representatives and bolster a breach-response website.

“I have heard the frustration and fear. I know we have to do a better job of helping you,” Barros said in a statement published in The Wall Street Journal.

Equifax announced the free credit freeze service after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) director, Richard Cordray, told CNBC earlier in the day that the agency would beef up oversight of Equifax and its rivals.

“The old days of just doing what they want and being subject to lawsuits now and then are over,” Cordray said.

He also called for implementing a scheme of preventive credit monitoring.

“They are going to have to accept that. They are going to have to welcome it. They are going to have to be very forthcoming,” Cordray said.

The Equifax hack compromised sensitive data of up to 143 million Americans and prompted investigations by lawmakers and regulators, including the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS), which issued a subpoena to Equifax demanding more information about the breach.

Federal laws give the CFPB the power to supervise and examine large credit-reporting firms to ensure the quality of information they provide. In January, the CFPB fined TransUnion and Equifax $5.5 million in total for deceiving customers about the usefulness and cost of their credit scores.

Cordray called for expanded powers to cover data security to prevent breaches and suggested placing monitors inside credit reporting firms, borrowing a tactic from the regulatory regime for banks.

The CFPB is working with the Federal Trade Commission and New York’s DFS on a new regulatory framework, Cordray said. He also called for Congress to tighten oversight of the industry.

TransUnion said in a statement that it had “long been subject to regulatory oversight from state and federal regulators including the CFPB.”

Experian did not respond to requests for comment.
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Saudi Arabia’s decision to lift its ban on women driving cars may help to restore sales growth in an auto market dented by the economic fallout from weak oil prices, handing an opportunity to importers of luxury cars and sport utility vehicles.

Carmakers joined governments in welcoming the order by Saudi Arabia’s King Salman that new rules allowing women to drive be drawn up within 30 days and implemented by June 2018, removing a stain on the country’s international image.

“Congratulations to all Saudi women who will now be able to drive,” Nissan said in a Twitter post depicting a license plate bearing the registration “2018 GRL.” BMW, whose X5 SUV is the group’s Middle East top-seller, also saluted the move.

WATCH: Activists: Driving Augurs Further Expansion of Saudi Women’s Rights

Midrange brands dominate the Saudi market, with Toyota, Hyundai-Kia and Nissan together commanding a 71 percent share of sales.

Market had shrunk

That market has shrunk by about a quarter from a peak of 858,000 light vehicles in 2015 to an expected 644,000 this year, reflecting the broader economic slowdown. But the rule change adds almost 9 million potential drivers, including 2.7 million resident non-Saudi women, Merrill Lynch has calculated.

“We expect demand to rise again on news that women will be allowed to drive,” said a senior executive at Jeddah-based auto distributor Naghi Motors, whose brand portfolio includes BMW, Mini, Hyundai, Rolls Royce and Jaguar Land Rover models.

The arrival of women drivers could lift Saudi car sales by 15-20 percent annually, leading forecaster LMC Automotive predicts, as the kingdom’s “car density” of 220 vehicles per 1,000 adults rises to about 300 in 2025, closing the gap with the neighboring United Arab Emirates.

A middle- to upper-class Saudi family typically has two vehicles, one driven by the man of the house and a second car in which a full-time chauffeur transports his wife and children.

The rule change could spell bad news for some of the 1.3 million men employed as chauffeurs in the kingdom, including a large share of its migrant workforce, while boosting upscale car sales as households upgrade for their new drivers.

Entire market likely to benefit

“The move to allow women to drive is set to benefit the entire market,” LMC analyst David Oakley said. “But we might expect to see a disproportionately positive impact on super-premium brands.”

Luxury brands including Lamborghini and Bentley are about to launch SUVs, a vehicle category that has proved popular among women and accounts for more than 1 in 5 cars sold in Saudi Arabia.

Welcoming the announcement, British-based Aston Martin said it was well timed for the arrival of the James Bond-associated sports car maker’s DBX model, due in 2019.

“The SUV crossover boom across all segments has been powered by women,” spokesman Simon Sproule said.
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President Donald Trump said on Wednesday a foreign leader told him at the United Nations last week that the country would soon announce plans to build or expand five automobile industry factories in the United States.

“I just left the United Nations last week and I was told by one of the most powerful leaders of the world that they are going to be announcing in the not too distant future five major factories in the United States, between increasing and new, five,” Trump said in a speech on tax reform in Indianapolis.

He added the factories were in the automotive industry.

He did not name the country. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Automakers in Japan and Germany have both announced investments in the United States this year, with companies coming under pressure from Trump’s bid to curb imports and hire more workers to build cars and trucks in the country.

Investments to expand U.S. vehicle production capacity also reflect intensified competition for market share in the world’s most profitable vehicle market. In August, Toyota Motor Corp said it would build a $1.6 billion U.S. assembly plant with Mazda Motor Corp.

Toyota also said this week it was investing nearly $375 million in five U.S. manufacturing plants to support U.S. production of hybrid powertrains.

Last week, German automaker Daimler AG said it would spend $1 billion to expand its Mercedes Benz operations near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to produce batteries and electric sport utility vehicles and create more than 600 jobs.

Rival German luxury automaker BMW AG said in June it would expand its U.S. factory in South Carolina, adding 1,000 jobs. And last month, Volkswagen AG’s brand president Herbert Diess said the company expected to bring electric SUV production to the United States and could add production at its Tennessee plant.
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The South American trade bloc Mercosur could seek trade deals with Canada, Australia and New Zealand this year, an Argentine official said Wednesday, as largest members Brazil and Argentina seek to open their economies.

Mercosur, which also includes Uruguay and Paraguay, is working with the European Union to finalize the political framework for a trade deal this year, at a time when the United States under President Donald Trump has been shying away from trade.

“There is a possibility that Mercosur starts negotiations with Canada, Australia and New Zealand this year,” Argentine Commerce Secretary Miguel Braun said at the Thomson Reuters Economic and Business forum in Buenos Aires.

“Integrating ourselves with these countries takes us in the direction we want to go,” he said, pointing to developed economies with high salaries. Argentina alone is seeking a trade agreement with Mexico, and Braun said it was also working on a trade agreement with Chile that would “deepen what we already have.”

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said in New York last week that Santiago was finishing a trade liberalization agreement with Buenos Aires to boost trade and open opportunities for investors.
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Weather extremes and air pollution from burning fossil fuels cost the United States $240 billion a year in the past decade, according to a report Wednesday that urged President Donald Trump to do more to combat climate change.

This year is likely to be the most expensive on record, with an estimated $300 billion in losses from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria and a spate of wildfires in Western states in the past two months, it said.

“The evidence is undeniable: The more fossil fuels we burn, the faster the climate continues to change,” leading scientists wrote in the study published by the nonprofit Universal Ecological Fund.

Costs to human health from air pollution caused by fossil fuels averaged $188 billion a year over the past decade, it estimated, while losses from weather extremes such as droughts, heat waves and floods averaged $52 billion.

Trump could curb the $240 billion cost, equivalent to 1.2 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, by revising his plans to promote the U.S. coal industry and to pull out of the 195-nation Paris climate agreement, it said.

“We are not saying that all [weather extremes] are due to human activity, but these are the sorts of events that seem to be increasing in intensity,” co-author Robert Watson, a former head of the U.N. panel of climate scientists, told Reuters.

Higher ocean temperatures, for instance, mean more moisture in the air that can fuel hurricanes.

Events on the rise

And, in a sign of increasing risks, there were 92 extreme weather events that caused damage exceeding $1 billion in the United States in the decade ending in 2016, compared with 38 in the 1990s and 21 in the 1980s.

The combined cost of extreme weather and pollution from fossil fuels would climb to $360 billion a year in the next decade, the study said. Trump’s pro-coal policies could mean more air pollution, reversing recent improvements in air quality.

Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency accused scientists who linked record extreme rainfall from Tropical Storm Harvey to man-made climate change as trying to “politicize an ongoing tragedy.”

Wednesday’s study has been in the works for months, said co-author James McCarthy, professor of oceanography at Harvard University. He said there was widening evidence that a shift from fossil fuels made economic sense.

“Why is Iowa, why is Oklahoma, why is Kansas, why is Texas investing in wind energy? Not because they are interested in sea level rise or ocean temperatures but because it’s economically sensible,” he told Reuters.
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Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy for a ninth straight year, the Geneva-based World Economic Forum said on Wednesday.

Since suffering a rare blip in 2008, when it was nudged into second place by the United States, the Swiss economy has maintained an efficient but unshakeable grip on the top spot in the WEF annual ranking.

WEF economist Thierry Geiger said Switzerland had a virtuous circle of infrastructure, institutions and education, but at the heart of its success was the way it created and used talent.

“That is really the secret of Switzerland, this ability to innovate, supported by a whole range of enabling factors,” he said.

However, after almost a decade at the top, Switzerland is at risk from complacency and populism. The ageing population could undermine the innovation miracle by shutting the door to foreign talent in one of the referendums that make Swiss law, he said.

“We see a proliferation of such referendums on everything, some of them are kind of dangerous, they could really endanger and jeopardize Switzerland’s prosperity,” Geiger said.

The World Economic Forum, the same organization that runs the Davos meeting of global powerbrokers each January, bases its rankings on a dozen drivers of competitiveness and a survey of business leaders.

“Global competitiveness will be more and more defined by the innovative capacity of a country,” Klaus Schwab, WEF founder and executive chairman, said in a statement.

Besides Switzerland, the top 10 remained the same as a year ago, although there was some shuffling of the order. The United States climbed over Singapore into second place, and Hong Kong jumped three places to sixth, leapfrogging Japan in ninth spot Britain slipped one place to eighth.

Britain has not yet dropped in the rankings because of its Brexit negotiations with the European Union but it is expected to do so, the WEF said.

China inched up one place to 27th, well ahead of 38th-ranked Russia and India, which was in 40th position.

The wooden spoon went to Yemen, a poor country further devastated by civil war, economic collapse, cholera and near-famine conditions, which was in 137th place.

Full List of Top 30 countries:

1. Switzerland

2. United States

3. Singapore

4. Netherlands

5. Germany

6. Hong Kong

7. Sweden

8. United Kingdom

9. Japan

10. Finland

11. Norway

12. Denmark

13. New Zealand

14. Canada

15. Taiwan

16. Israel

17. United Arab Emirates

18. Austria

19. Luxembourg

20. Belgium

21. Australia

22. France

23. Malaysia

24. Ireland

25. Qatar

26. South Korea

27. China

28. Iceland

29. Estonia

30. Saudi Arabia
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The Commerce Department slapped duties of nearly 220 percent on Canada’s Bombardier C Series aircraft Tuesday in a victory for Boeing that is likely to raise tensions between the United States and its allies Canada and Britain.

Commerce ruled that Montreal-based Bombardier used unfair government subsidies to sell jets at artificially low prices in the U.S.

“The U.S. values its relationships with Canada, but even our closest allies must play by the rules,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said.

Canada ‘strongly disagrees’

Canada responded by saying it “strongly disagrees” with the U.S. move.

“This is clearly aimed at eliminating Bombardier’s C Series aircraft from the U.S. market,” said Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s minister of foreign affairs.

Bombardier, meanwhile, called the decision “absurd … U.S. trade laws were never intended to be used in this manner, and Boeing is seeking to use a skewed process to stifle competition.”

In April, Boeing charged that Bombardier had received at least $3 billion in subsidies from the governments of Britain, Canada and the province of Quebec. The Chicago-based aircraft manufacturer asked the Commerce Department and the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate the alleged “predatory pricing.”

Specifically, Boeing said that Bombardier last year sold Delta Air Lines 75 CS100 aircraft for less than it cost to build them.

“Subsidies enabled Bombardier to dump its product into the U.S. market, harming aerospace workers in the United States and throughout Boeing’s global supply chain,” Boeing said Tuesday.

Boeing upset with Delta deal

But Delta has said Boeing didn’t even make the 100-seat jets it needed.

“Boeing has no American-made product to offer because it canceled production of its only aircraft in this size range — the 717 — more than 10 years ago,” Delta said in a statement Tuesday.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to get tough on trade. He has repeatedly criticized Canada, saying it unfairly blocks U.S. dairy products and subsidizes its softwood lumber industry. Trump also has threatened to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement if he can’t negotiate a better version with Canada and Mexico.

Boeing’s complaint against Bombardier drew a backlash even before Tuesday’s decision. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau threatened this month to stop doing business with Boeing, which is in talks to sell Canada 18 Super Hornet jet fighters. British Prime Minister Theresa May has discussed the case with Trump. Her concern: Bombardier employs more than 4,000 workers in Northern Ireland.

Connecticut lawmakers concerned

Connecticut Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Christopher Murphy last week wrote a letter urging U.S. government officials to “refrain from taking action that will endanger the many jobs in Connecticut that depend upon Bombardier.” Engines for the C Series aircraft are made by Pratt & Whitney, based in East Hartford, Connecticut.

Commerce’s findings Tuesday aren’t the end of the matter. The department is expected to announce its findings in another case against Bombardier early next month. Then the International Trade Commission — an independent federal agency that rules on trade cases — will decide early next year whether to uphold Commerce’s duties.

Bombardier could appeal any sanctions to a U.S. court or to a dispute-resolution panel created under NAFTA. The Canadian government could also take the case to the World Trade Organization in Geneva.

 
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It is not quite going back to the horse, even if the bicycle was the first contraption to replace beasts as a means of personal transport.

This is a new two-wheeled animal, though, that millions of consumers in Beijing, Taipei, Singapore and cities across Asia are renting via phone apps to cover the last mile of journeys, leaving cars and motorcycles at home, and forgoing taxis.

The two-year bike-share boom has put over 16 million bikes in China alone, according to its Ministry of Transport, with more than 100 million riders registered, eating into car use and gasoline demand growth already expected to stagnate by 2025.

“I often use bike-sharing services because it’s very convenient. I can find it anywhere and will not worry about losing the bike,” said life-long Beijing native Wei Zhang, 36, who uses a shared bike several times a week on her commute, riding 5 km or more.

Analysts can’t keep up with bike numbers, let alone estimate how much gasoline consumption growth has dropped off due to the rapid rise in bike-sharing. But it is clear from industry estimates, government reports and a Reuters survey that bike services are resulting in fewer trips by motor vehicles.

“Bike-sharing has been crazy since late last year. … The general belief is that [it] boosts the utilization of public transport as shared bikes help to complete the journey,” said Harry Liu, downstream consultant with IHS Markit.

Even before the number of bike-share units began growing by multiples, analysts had already been saying greater fuel efficiency in autos and the rising use of electric cars meant gasoline’s big growth story was over.

China’s gasoline demand growth is expected to slow to nearly 4 percent this year, compared with 6.5 percent growth last year, said Sri Paravaikkarasu, head of East of Suez oil at FGE.

And Chinese demand for gasoline is expected to peak as early as 2025, according to state-owned China National Petroleum Corp.

“There used to be long queues of taxis waiting for customers outside train stations, but I don’t see them anymore,” said a Beijing analyst, who took part in a Reuters survey of bike-share users and wanted to be known only by her surname Wang.

Just in the past month, Chinese bike-sharing startup Mobike introduced its services in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Bangkok, Thailand, as well as in U.S. capital Washington, D.C. Mobike, which launched in April 2016, and China-owned rival Ofo have attracted combined funding of more than $2 billion from venture capital and private equity firms that include Temasek Holdings, Tencent Holdings, DST Global and Ant Financial.

Ofo — which has more than 10 million bikes globally to Mobike’s 7 million — says it is on track to increase its global bike units to 20 million over the next three months.

The investments “demonstrate investors’ confidence in the global bike-sharing industry,” said Lawrence Cao, head of Asia Pacific business for Ofo.

Consultancy Roland Berger said the “unforeseeable” amounts of venture capital put into bike schemes made it almost impossible to estimate the growth potential of bike operators, particularly in China, over the last two years.

Taiwan, where the government backs a bike-sharing scheme, is aiming to have bikes account for a 12 percent share in trips to work by 2020, up from about 5 percent now.

The Taipei city government is expanding bike-sharing program Youbike — which uses docking stations — to have a bike station within a 10-minute walk of every citizen by 2018.

Singapore-owned Obike and U.S.-based VBikes — both free-range systems — are also operating in Taiwan.

Four wheels bad

A survey done by Mobike of 100,000 customers across 36 cities in China found that car trips among the respondents had more than halved since its service was introduced.

A report from the Transport Commission of Shenzhen, one of China’s richest cities, said more than 500,000 bike-share units there had replaced nearly 10 percent of travel by private car or 13 percent of gasoline consumption.

Bike-sharing could pose a risk to gasoline consumption “if a stronger state push to reduce carbon intensity and improve air quality translates to more drivers replacing shorter-distance driving with bike rides,” said Peter Lee, an oil and gas analyst at BMI research.

Chinese growth of passenger car sales, which grew an average annual rate of 10.1 percent over 2011 to 2016, is expected to slow to 2.5 percent over the next five years, said BMI’s Lee.

Still, mismanagement of bike numbers and misuse of some bicycles may attract legislation that could curb their use. New shared bikes were recently banned in some areas in the Chinese cities of Wuhan, Shanghai and Guangzhou, because of bicycles being discarded in public spaces.
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Despite concerns about low inflation in the United States, the head of the U.S. central bank says raising interest rates gradually would be the most appropriate policy stance for the Federal Reserve.

“It would be imprudent to keep monetary policy on hold until inflation is back to two percent,” Fed Chair Janet Yellen said Tuesday, while speaking to the National Association for Business Economists (NABE) in Cleveland, Ohio.

Inflation, a sustained increase in the price of goods and services, has remained consistently below the Fed’s target rate of 2 percent. But even with uncertainty about the possible reasons for the low rate of inflation — from misjudging the strength of the labor market to the impact of foreign competition on the global supply chain — Yellen said the Fed “should be wary of moving too gradually.”

The Federal Reserve has kept its benchmark lending rate near record lows since the 2008 financial crisis to stimulate the U.S. economy. It has raised its interest rate three times since last December. The federal funds rate, the interest rate the central bank charges banks on overnight loans, currently sits in a range between one and one-and-one-quarter percent.

Ellen Zentner, chief economist at Morgan Stanley, says her biggest takeaway from the Cleveland speech was Yellen’s confidence that “a strong U.S. labor market would ultimately drive inflation closer to the Fed’s two percent goal over the next few years.”

Equity markets, which have benefited from low borrowing costs, anticipate a fourth rate hike in December, and possibly three more next year. Starting next month, the Fed says it will begin the process of “unwinding,” or selling off, the massive holdings of bonds and securities it has acquired since 2008.

But Yellen’s longer-term goals may be subject to change. Her four-year term as the nation’s top banker ends in February. President Donald Trump has not said whether he plans to re-appoint Yellen or overhaul the central bank’s seven-member board of governors.

Zentner believes there is a 60 percent chance Yellen will be named to serve a second term. “The longer the president waits, the greater the probability that Yellen will be re-appointed,” the bank economist said.  

Yellen spoke in Cleveland as the Conference Board released a survey that showed consumer confidence declined in September. The global business research group reported consumers’ views about the strength of the U.S. labor market have weakened and home sales have dropped to an eight-month low due to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in the states of Texas and Florida. 
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