By Hyunjoo Jin and Greg Bensinger

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Forget about famed boxing bouts like the Rumble in the Jungle or the Thrilla in Manila — billionaire social media moguls Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have been egging each other into a mixed martial arts cage match in Las Vegas.

In recent days, Twitter owner Musk and Facebook parent Meta CEO Zuckerberg – whose social media platforms duke it out daily for advertising dollars – have been trading bluster about going mano a mano.

The brouhaha began Tuesday when Musk tweeted he was “up for a cage match” with Zuckerberg, who’s trained in jiujitsu.

On Wednesday, Zuckerberg, 39 who has posted pictures of matches he’s won on his company’s Instagram platform, asked Musk, 51, to “send location” for the proposed throwdown.

“Vegas Octagon,” Musk tweeted, referring to an events center where mixed martial arts (MMA) championship bouts are held.

“If this is for real, I will do it,” the Tesla chief tweeted.

He later said on Twitter that he had “this great move that I call ‘The Walrus,’ where I just lie on top of my opponent & do nothing.”

The odds that such a fight will really take place appear slim, though. The two CEOs have a history of drawing attention to themselves: In 2021, Zuckerberg rode a motorized surfboard while waving an American flag; Musk has generated headlines with his controversial tweets.

Asked about Zuckerberg’s post on Wednesday, a Meta spokesperson said, “The story speaks for itself.”

Musk did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comments.

After he bought Twitter for $44 billion last October, its value plummeted as it faced an exodus of advertisers.

Musk in recent months has stepped up criticism of Zuckerberg and his companies, and has mocked reported plans by Meta for a platform to rival Twitter.

“I’m sure Earth can’t wait to be exclusively under Zuck’s thumb with no other options,” he said in the Twitter thread where he proposed fighting Zuckerberg.

Some betting experts differ on which CEO would prevail in a Fracas in Vegas.

SportsBetting.ag gives better odds for Zuckerberg, who is 12 years younger than Musk. However, Owain Flanders, news editor at VegasSlotsOnline.com, put odds at 3-to-2 in favor of Musk.

“Musk’s training for potential space travel and his notorious work ethic make him a formidable opponent,” Flanders said.

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and Greg Bensinger; editing by David Gaffen and Jonathan Oatis)

MADRID (Reuters) – Recent interest rate hikes by the European Central Bank should be fully transmitted to savers and reflected in higher deposit rates, ECB Vice-President Luis de Guindos said on Thursday.

“A full transmission (of monetary policy) requires the remuneration of savings,” De Guindos told a financial event in the northern Spanish city of Santander.

“It is very important that monetary policy is… reflected in all assets and liabilities of a bank”, he said.

De Guindos did not specifically comment on the situation in Spain, where banks offer the lowest household deposit rates among the euro zone’s large economies.

Banks in Spain offered on average a return on one-year deposits of 1.33% in April, compared to 2.27% in the euro zone as a whole.

Last week the ECB raised its key interest rate by another quarter of a percentage point, increasing the cost of variable mortgage loans, which make up the vast majority of contracts in Spain.

Spanish banks on Tuesday however pushed back against a government call to start paying higher rates on deposits.

Lenders maintain that a lower deposit rate is partly the result of excess liquidity in the sector and deny claims of a lack of competition in Spain’s relatively concentrated banking sector.

Ratings agency DBRS said this month that Spanish banks would be pressured to raise deposit rates in the coming quarters as liquidity would deteriorate after the bulk of lenders repaid their outstanding cheap funding lines, known as TLTROs, in June.

The six Madrid-listed banks which took up on more than 265 billion euros in TLTROs-III are now planning to repay or let expire around 42 billion euros at the next central bank window on June 28, sources with knowledge of the matter have told Reuters.

This would leave them with around 40 billion euros of those funding lines at the ECB.

(Reporting by Jesús Aguado; Editing by Jan Harvey)

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to advance a tax treaty with Chile, paving the way for final approval of a pact seen as crucial for ensuring access for U.S. companies to lithium, a mineral essential for electric vehicle batteries.

The agreement cleared a Senate procedural hurdle by 97-2, comfortably over the two-thirds supermajority required to approve treaties in the 100-member chamber.

Business interests have been pushing for the tax agreement for years. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce called it an urgent priority. Without it, taxes on U.S. companies with Chilean operations could climb to more than 44%, the business group said.

There was no immediate indication of when the Senate would have a final vote. Lawmakers are due to leave Washington later this week for a two-week Independence Day recess.

Final approval would send the treaty to the White House, where President Joe Biden must sign the papers necessary for ratification.

Chile’s Congress approved the treaty in 2015.

U.S. companies have a strong presence in mining, finance and other industries in Chile. In urging approval, the Senate’s Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said the treaty was crucial to ensuring continued U.S. access to lithium.

Chile announced a plan to expand lithium mining in the country in April in an attempt to regain its position as the world’s top lithium producer.

Backers of the agreement also said its failure could hobble the U.S. transition to clean energy.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Alistair Bell)

By Pete Schroeder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. banks are pushing to soften a major regulatory proposal to hike bank capital requirements, worried it could prove too onerous, especially for lenders still reeling from the March banking crisis, according to six people briefed on the matter.

Bank regulators led by the U.S. Federal Reserve are finalizing the proposal which would implement international capital standards agreed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in the aftermath of the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

Bankers are particularly concerned by an aspect of the draft proposal that would apply higher capital charges on non-interest revenue, such as the fees lenders charge on credit cards or investment banking services.

That capital charge is part of the package agreed by the Basel Committee in 2017, but the industry says it overstates the risk for banks that have a high proportion of non-interest income and had hoped U.S. regulators would mitigate its impact, the people said.

Bank groups are pushing for regulators to cap the proportion of assets on which such charges would apply, said three people, but it was unclear if the agencies would take that approach.

Non-interest services income has been a key focus of many lenders’ growth strategies in recent years, one industry official noted.

American Express, Morgan Stanley and the U.S. units of UBS, Deutsche Bank and Barclays are among banks with a high proportion of non-interest income, according to a 2022 blog by Washington group the Bank Policy Institute.

Barclays, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley declined to comment. UBS and American Express did not immediately provide comment.

On Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell told Congress it was critical banks have strong capital, but regulators must be mindful of the tradeoffs.

WALL STREET CRACKDOWN

While the Basel rules were agreed years ago, the U.S. regulations to comply with them are being drafted in the wake of this year’s banking crisis in which deposit runs caused Silicon Valley Bank and two other lenders to fail. The proposal is the first major rule led by Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr, who has launched a sweeping review of capital rules and is expected to be tough on Wall Street.

“The baseline has shifted to an assumption that the scale and scope of the proposal is going to be far more punitive than anyone expected at the end of last year,” said Isaac Boltansky, director of policy research for brokerage BTIG.

Industry executives argue the bank failures were caused by mismanagement and liquidity issues, and that system-wide capital is already ample.

The proposal is also expected to apply stiffer capital rules to smaller lenders with over $100 billion in assets, which would include some that experienced liquidity problems this year, three sources said.

Given investor jitters over the health of the industry and the broader economy, bankers say, hiking capital now could backfire, putting pressure on banks and hurting lending.

Republican officials at the agencies have flagged similar concerns, two people said, while Republican lawmakers on Wednesday also raised worries over capital rules with Powell.

“It’s extremely important for the agencies to be mindful of the economic costs at a time of great uncertainty,” said Kevin Fromer, CEO of the Financial Services Forum whose members, the country’s largest eight banks, have roughly $900 billion in common equity capital.

“It’s not in the interest of the U.S. economy to raise capital requirements on institutions that are already well-capitalized.”

The Fed is drafting the Basel rules with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC). Regulators had hoped to unveil the proposal this month but staff are still working on the draft and the timeline has slipped to later in July, five people said.

The FDIC and OCC declined to comment. In a speech on Thursday, FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg said regulators would propose the Basel rules soon but will likely not complete them before the middle of 2024.

Speaking to reporters last week, acting Comptroller Michael Hsu said banks had “not been shy about sharing their concerns” which regulators were taking into account.

(Reporting by Pete Schroeder; additional reporting by Niket Nishant, Lananh Nguyen, Tatiana Bautzer and Michelle Price; Editing by David Gregorio and Michelle Price)

By Ali Kucukgocmen and Can Sezer

ISTANBUL (Reuters) -Turkey’s central bank hiked its key rate by 650 basis points to 15% on Thursday and said it would go further in a reversal of President Tayyip Erdogan’s policy, although the post-election tightening missed expectations and the lira fell sharply.

In its first meeting under new Governor Hafize Gaye Erkan, the bank changed course after years of monetary easing in which the one-week repo rate had dropped to 8.5% from 19% in 2021 despite soaring inflation.

Analysts said the move suggested Erkan might have limited room to aggressively tackle inflation under Erdogan’s watch. The median estimate in a Reuters poll was for rates to rise to 21%.

Thirty minutes after the hike – Turkey’s first since early 2021 – the lira suddenly began to tumble and later touched an all-time low of 24.80 versus the dollar, some 5% weaker than Wednesday’s closing level.

The central bank’s policy committee said the tightening “will be further strengthened as much as needed in a timely and gradual manner until a significant improvement in the inflation outlook is achieved”.

Striking a more hawkish tone than a month earlier, it said it raised rates “in order to establish the disinflation course as soon as possible, to anchor inflation expectations, and to control the deterioration in pricing behaviour”.

Annual inflation was just below 40% in May after touching a 24-year high above 85% in October last year. The central bank said inflation will come under further pressure.

It added it will gradually “simplify and improve the existing micro- and macroprudential framework” to improve market mechanisms and stability – suggesting some of the dozens of regulations adopted since late 2021 could be rolled back, freeing up credit, forex and debt markets.

Erkan will meet with a group of bank executives on Friday, a banking source told Reuters on Thursday, after new Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek met with them last week and discussed the problems in the sector.

LIMITED ROOM FOR MANOEUVRE

A senior Turkish official said the rate hike was designed in part to avoid excessive market volatility and shows a determination to tighten policy, adding that such strong steps will continue in the future.

Erdogan had urged rate cuts over the last two years which sparked a late-2021 currency crisis and stoked prices. The lira lost 44% in 2021 and 30% last year, despite the central bank’s efforts to counter forex demand by using its forex reserves.

After his election victory last month, Erdogan signalled he was ready to backtrack on economic policy in appointing Simsek, who is highly regarded by markets, as finance minister and Erkan, a former Wall Street banker, as central bank chief.

Erdogan said last week he approved the steps Simsek would take, suggesting he had given the green light to rate hikes.

The policy decision could indicate that “Erkan has limited room for manoeuvre in restoring orthodoxy in monetary policy,” said Piotr Matys, senior FX analyst at InTouch Capital Markets.

“One could argue that it will take time to restore shattered confidence, but it would be more efficient to exceed expectations if Governor Erkan wants to convince investors that she is in charge of monetary policy and not President Erdogan,” he added.

Most economists in the Reuters poll expected further rate hikes this year, with the year-end forecast median at 30%. The central bank’s key rate remains below deposit rates that reach up to 40% and real rates are still deeply negative.

The bank’s net reserves fell to a record low of negative $5.7 billion last month before rebounding as Ankara loosened its grip on the forex market this month. The lira has shed 23% so far this year.

Turkey’s credit default swaps (CDS), the cost of insuring exposure to its debt, rose 21 basis points to 518 basis points after the smaller-than-expected rate hike.

Some analysts expressed doubt about Erdogan’s commitment to abandoning his unorthodoxy, citing examples of his previous shifts to orthodox policy only to quickly change his mind.

Authorities hope foreign investors and hard currency will return after a years-long exodus, potentially reducing the central bank’s need to intervene to keep the lira stable.

(Reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun, Ali Kucukgocmen, Can Sezer, Jonathan Spicer, Orhan Coskun, Daren Butler and Ebru Tuncay;Additional reporting by Karin Strohecker, Libby George; Editing by Christina Fincher and Angus MacSwan)

By Tim Hepher, Valerie Insinna, Joanna Plucinska and Allison Lampert

PARIS (Reuters) – The first Paris Airshow in four years has clocked up billions of dollars in commercial jet orders and offered some respite for suppliers as air travel springs back sharply from the pandemic.

The industry returned to Le Bourget with high expectations of commercial orders and low expectations regarding the supply chain, but generated a more balanced picture on both fronts.

Announced orders reached near-record levels but were heavily dominated by two airlines leading the charge in India, the world’s fastest growing market: IndiGo and Air India.

Airbus and Boeing collectively unveiled orders or commitments for some 1,100 jets, with Airbus at around 830 jets, led by a 500-plane deal with IndiGo.

But these fell short of some market forecasts of 2,000 orders, to the relief of some analysts who noted a less brash and more business-like tone than previous shows, from an industry scarred by its near-collapse during COVID-19.

India’s economic growth and growing middle class have made it the latest frontier for aviation deals worth tens of billions of dollars, though exact prices were not disclosed.

“That market is going to feed a lot of players in our industry, and we’d like to be the first one there for a long time, barring unforeseen events,” Airbus Chief Commercial Officer Christian Scherer said.

FINANCING METHOD

A total of 970 orders from two Indian carriers showed airlines willing to lock in positions for the next decade and manufacturers building a foundation for rising output rates.

The IndiGo deal also highlighted the growing importance of the so-called sale-and-leaseback model, a popular aircraft financing method that requires a constant flow of new jets.

Under such deals, freshly delivered jets are sold by airlines to leasing companies, rented back and then operated for six years or more before being moved on to another operator.

For passengers, it means the fleet is kept young. For airlines it can mean a key source of extra profit on the sale.

Such financing now makes up 34% of all aircraft financing, Airbus said in a presentation to investors on Wednesday.

India’s leasing market is facing some pressure, however, after the bankruptcy of carrier GoFirst sparked a dispute over lessors’ rights. IndiGo Chief Executive Pieter Elbers said he was not concerned about an impact on the wider market.

The latest deals, coming after a number of mainly Boeing orders before the show, left the largest planemakers mostly sold out until the latter part of the decade.

A key focus of the show was how those planes will be produced after the pandemic disrupted supply chains. Another was hiring more workers: to be tackled in a special event on Friday.

As their biennial jamboree wound up under pouring rain on Thursday, delegates also had to absorb news of a strike at a Spirit Aero Systems factory that makes Boeing 737 fuselages. A lengthy stoppage would impact suppliers worldwide.

Several major companies said they had built up more buffer stocks and were seeing signs of improvement in supply chains.

The conflict in Ukraine brought a raft of air defence order announcements and a growing focus on Europe’s patchy growth in defence spending after years of budgets constraints.

For many, the show diverted attention from the plush chalets where planemakers keep count of orders to the crowded supplier halls where more of the industry’s risk now resides.

“It was the most interesting European air show for a decade,” Agency Partners analyst Sash Tusa said.

“The newsflow was much more balanced between defence and civil – and no longer just a counting competition.”

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Mark Potter)

BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazil’s Senate on Wednesday approved fiscal rules proposed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government, considered vital in preventing a surge in public debt.

The project received 57 votes in favor and 17 votes against.

Since the senators modified the text that Brazilian deputies approved, it will require another round of voting in the lower house.

During the plenary vote, the text was amended to allow the government to use an annual inflation estimate to expand its spending limit in the elaboration of the 2024 budget law, which needs to be presented to Congress by August.

The initially approved version in the lower house established a limit on real growth in public spending based on inflation in the 12 months to June of the previous year, plus up to 70% revenue growth.

Due to lower inflation projected for the 12-month period ending in June this year, the Planning Ministry estimated that it would need to cut 32 billion to 40 billion reais ($6.6-8.3 billion) from next year’s budget. Inflation was lower due to tax cuts in 2022 on consumer items such as fuel and phone bills.

Now, the government will be authorized to produce an inflation estimate for the January-December period and use this difference to program expenses in next year’s budget, which will still be subject to the approval of additional credits by Congress later on.

“It will provide comfort so that I don’t ask the ministries to cut expenses,” Planning Minister Simone Tebet told journalists on Wednesday night.

The new fiscal framework is seen as essential in signaling a path toward sustainability of public accounts, particularly after Lula secured congressional approval for boosting social expenditures to assist the poorest people.

Under the proposal, government expenditures would not be allowed to rise by more than 70% of any increase in revenue, with spending growth also limited to between 0.6% and 2.5% per year above inflation.

If budget goals are not met, expenditure growth would be restricted to 50% of revenue increases.

The proposal’s progress in Congress has been praised by S&P, which last week upgraded Brazil’s credit rating outlook.

The sponsor of the bill, Senator Omar Aziz, has expanded a list of exceptions to the cap, including an education fund, a constitutional fund for the Federal District and expenditures related to science and technology.

(Reporting by Ricardo Brito and Maria Carolina Marcello; Editing by Sandra Maler, Chris Reese and Cynthia Osterman and David Gregorio)

By Shreyashi Sanyal and Bansari Mayur Kamdar

(Reuters) -European shares briefly hit their lowest level in nearly three months on Thursday, with London stocks falling after a bigger-than-expected rate hike by the Bank of England (BoE) .

The pan-European STOXX 600 index closed 0.5% lower, after falling as much as 1.3% earlier in the day, on fears of continued monetary policy tightening by major central banks.

Britain’s FTSE 100 index shed 0.8% after the BoE announced a jumbo half-point rate hike to 5%.

“Tackling inflation remains the firm commitment for the BoE, while consumers are getting squeezed from both ends of the spectrum – with the cost-of-living crisis at one end and higher mortgage premiums at the other end due to the rate rises,” said Richard Flax, chief investment officer at Moneyfarm.

Limiting losses on the UK benchmark index, Ocado Group soared 32.0% after The Times reported possible talk of bid interest in the company.

Meanwhile, the Swiss National Bank and Norges Bank also hiked their benchmark rates, underscoring fears about global inflation, while Powell, in his second day of testimony to lawmakers, said interest rate cuts must wait until he was confident inflation was moving down to 2%.

Some European Central Banks’ (ECB) policymakers echoed the sentiment on Wednesday, saying euro zone inflation is stubborn and may require a protracted period of high interest rates to contain, partly due to an exceptionally tight labour market.

Bank stocks tumbled 1.9%, eying their worst session in nearly a month.

“One of the things to consider with banks is the inverted yield curve,” Flax said.

“If they’re being forced to effectively borrow short and lend long, that inverted curve makes life harder for them.”

Real estate stocks extended losses for fourth consecutive day, down 1.3%.

The STOXX 600 is now on track for a lacklustre end to June, losing momentum from the first quarter of the year as high-interest rates catch up, investor preferences moves away from value-oriented stocks, and a disappointing China recovery.

The European auto sector slid 1.2%.

U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday urged the Federal Trade Commission to finalise new consumer protections for car buyers despite objections from auto dealers who argue the rules would actually raise the cost of buying a car.

SES SA rose 7.8% after it said it ceased merger talks with Intelsat.

Novo Nordisk slipped 0.7% as it said the European Union’s drug watchdog last month raised a thyroid cancer safety signal for several of its drugs.

Deutsche Bank is drawing up plans to cut 10% of its 17,000 German retail jobs over the next few years as part of cost savings, a person with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday. Shares of the company slid 1.4%.

(Reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal and Bansari Mayur Kamdar in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman and Angus MacSwan)