Financial leaders meet in Washington as 'crisis' rumours swirl

Tokyo

FINANCE ministers and central bank governors from the G20 group of advanced and emerging markets kicked off a meeting in Washington on Thursday, a day ahead of the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, even as speculation about possible dramatic new currency and financial-sector developments made the rounds.

Government ministers and senior financial officials went into the meetings deeply divided about issues such as negative interest rates, the competitive devaluation of currencies and the relative merits of fiscal and monetary stimulus as ways of getting the global economy out of its rut.

But looming larger over the Washington meetings was speculation that something big was afoot - such as the possibility of a crisis involving one or more global banking institutions or even a de-coupling of the Chinese renminbi (RMB) from the …