Aurelia Butler

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden nominated former Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) CEO Ajay Banga to lead the World Bank, betting the India-born executive’s ties to the private sector and emerging markets will jump-start the 77-year-old institution’s overhaul to better address climate change.Biden’s nomination on Thursday of Banga, 63, now a U.S. citizen, all but assures he will assume a job that oversees billions of dollars of funding, as it races to help developing countries address climate change.The World Bank (WB) on Wednesday said it expects to select a new president by early May to replace David Malpass, who announced his resignation last week after months of controversy sparked by his initial refusal to say if he accepted the scientific consensus on climate change, and pressure by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for him to adopt “bolder” reforms.”I think the speed of the nomination, less than 48 hours after the WB board launched the process, reflects a desire to discourage any challengers and wrap it up quickly,” said Scott Morris, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and a former U.S. Treasury official.Biden noted Banga’s decades of experience building global companies and public-private partnerships to fund responses to climate change and migration and said he had a proven track record working with global leaders.”Ajay is uniquely equipped to lead the World Bank at this critical moment in history,” Biden said in a statement, hailing the business executive’s Indian roots and knowledge of the challenges facing developing countries and ability to mobilize private capital to tackle big problems.Banga’s work in India and other emerging markets, his “obsession” with expanding financial inclusion, and his deep knowledge of new technologies could help bridge the divide between rich countries and emerging markets, said Luis Alberto Moreno, who worked closely with Banga while serving as president of the Inter-American Development Bank.”He can really be a force for change,” Moreno said, noting that Banga enjoyed the trust of financial markets. India was expected to support Banga’s candidacy, according to Krishnamurthy Subramanian, the former top economic adviser to the Indian government who now serves as India’s executive director at the International Monetary Fund. “It’s an elegant solution.”DIVERSITYThe bank has historically been headed by someone from the United States, its largest shareholder, while a European heads the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but developing countries and emerging markets have pushed to widen those choices.Banga’s nomination is the first to be made public, but the bank will accept nominations from other member countries through March 29. Germany, another major shareholder, this week said the job should go to a woman since the bank has never been headed by a woman.A senior U.S. administration official said they did not know if other countries would nominate candidates for the post.Asked about Washington’s decision not to nominate a woman, the official said Banga had “a personal conviction and excellent track record promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in the work that he does” and would bring that view to the bank.But Jeff Hauser, who heads the progressive Revolving Door Project, demanded Biden retract the nomination of a top official from a “rapacious international private equity firm” who had previously worked only in private sector firms.”Neither private equity, nor MasterCard, nor Citigroup (NYSE:C), nor PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP), nor Nestlé, nor Dow promote shared prosperity. They all do vastly more to exacerbate inequality than to fight it,” he said in a statement. Oxfam International said the next bank president should be chosen through a transparent global process. “The World Bank is not a U.S. bank, a commercial bank, or a private equity firm. For a job of this stature, we need more than a tap on the shoulder from President Biden.”Banga is vice chair of General Atlantic, a U.S. private equity firm that administration officials said has invested over $800 million in EV charging solutions, solar power and sustainable farming.He retired in December 2021 after 12 years at the helm of Mastercard, where administration officials noted that he helped 500 million unbanked people join the digital economy, averted layoffs of the bank’s 19,000 employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, and led work on climate, gender and sustainable agriculture.Vice President Kamala Harris said Banga brought “great insight, energy and persistence” to his role as co-chair of the Partnership for Central America, which has mobilized $4.2 billion in public, private and nonprofit funds to advance economic opportunity in northern Central America. More

Joe Biden has nominated former Mastercard chief executive Ajay Banga as World Bank president, picking a Wall Street veteran raised in India to oversee the institution’s biggest mission change in a generation. Banga’s nomination, a week after sitting president David Malpass abruptly resigned, comes as the US and other shareholder nations seek to expand the bank’s development remit to include the fight against global warming. The US president said Banga had a grasp of the challenges facing developing countries and “critical experience” in mobilising private money to “tackle the most urgent challenges of our time, including climate change”. While the US, the bank’s largest shareholder, has traditionally chosen the World Bank president, it requires backing by other member countries. China, Japan, Germany, France and the UK are also main shareholders. The nomination of the 63-year-old, who once described himself as a “totally made in India guy”, may help win the support of developing nations, some of which are uneasy about a shift in the bank’s focus from poverty to climate change.Five more stories in the news1. Chinese bank executive in line to take the helm at PBoC Zhu Hexin, one of China’s most senior commercial bankers, is among the frontrunners to take over as the governor of the central bank as Beijing prepares to overhaul the leadership of its most important financial regulatory institutions next month.2. Alibaba ekes out sales growth Alibaba achieved sales growth of 2 per cent in the final quarter of last year, despite zero-Covid lockdowns paralysing much of China during the period. The Chinese ecommerce giant reported adjusted net income rose 12 per cent from a year earlier to Rmb50bn ($7.2bn) on the back of Rmb248bn of revenue, above analysts’ estimates.3. 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Hacker group targets thousands of networks A mysterious and unidentified group of hackers dubbed the Nevada Group has sought to paralyse the computer networks of almost 5,000 victims across the US and Europe, in one of the most widespread ransomware attacks on record. Authorities have yet to identify the perpetrators, suspected to be from Russia and China.How well did you keep up with the news this week? Take our quiz.The days aheadJapan inflation data Consumer Price Index data for January will be released today. See how your country compares on rising prices with our global inflation tracker.Malaysia national budget Prime minister Anwar Ibrahim is set to unveil the national budget today, with the goal of addressing slowing growth and rising cost of living. (The Straits Times)Apec meetings continue in California The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation will hold its Economic Committee Meeting and its Finance and Central Bank Deputies’ meetings in Palm Springs, California this weekend. (Apec) What else we’re reading China tries to play peacemaker in Ukraine war China’s peace plan for Ukraine, which is timed to coincide with the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, is the most ambitious gambit in Beijing’s uneasy balancing act to present itself as one of the few large powers that is not aligned in the conflict and therefore best placed to broker a resolution.The insular decision-making that led to Putin’s invasion The FT spoke to longtime confidants of Vladimir Putin as well as people involved in Moscow’s war effort for this account of how the Russian president blundered his way into the invasion of Ukraine — and then intensified his efforts rather than admit his mistake. Since the war began, Putin has become even more isolated, consulting only a small circle of advisers.‘As long as it takes’: US president Joe Biden’s impassioned speech in Poland vowing to stand by Ukraine may not play as well at home, writes Felicia Schwartz.Adani’s ties with Modi spur scrutiny of overseas deals Gautam Adani, who has longstanding ties with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, has in recent years clinched deals in countries from Myanmar to Israel as part of an ambitious overseas expansion. Following a short seller’s allegations of fraud at the Adani Group, which the Indian conglomerate has denied, the opposition in India is now scrutinising Modi.Wall Street set to lose out as China secures grip on IPO pipeline Bankers and lawyers say China’s new rules on proposed offshore listings, which are set to take effect at the end of March, will favour Hong Kong and domestic Chinese markets over Wall Street. The cost of that lost business is likely to be measured in billions of dollars.Opinion: The case against rewriting Roald Dahl Should you edit the work of dead authors, even if you have the legal right over their books, when it is impossible to gain the author’s consent to these changes? What are the consequences of a more censorial culture? Is it even necessary? Nilanjana Roy asks as she examines the new editions of some of Dahl’s most popular books. Take a break from the newsDavid Bowie’s vast collection of personal items — including flamboyant Ziggy Stardust costumes, handwritten lyrics and the Stylophone used in “Space Oddity” — has been donated to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

David Bowie during the Ziggy Stardust Tour in 1972-73 © Jeffrey Mayer/Alamy More