Governor Zhou Xiaochuan, the leader of the People’s Bank of China, has personally headed the Disaster Relief Working Group in its work providing relief in the aftermath of the earthquake that struck Sichuan Province recently. Governor Zhou has inspected the Chonqing Operations Office, and directed the efforts of the group. At the Chonqing Office a [...]
Sameer Nath has been appointed by Citigroup to serve as the bank’s mergers and acquisitions manager for its Indian investment banking unit. He brings with him six years of experience in the technology investment banking sector, working with Indian and US clients. Nath will report directly to Pramit Jhaveri and Steve Wallace, Citigroup’s Indian global [...]
Yesterday, the World Bank Group declared it would be supporting the worldwide efforts to stem the ever-rising price of food and alleviate the global food shortage through the creation of a financing facility of over a billion dollars aimed at meeting the world’s immediate needs. In addition to the $1.2bn facility, the World Bank Group [...]
On Tuesday a trio of projects aimed at bolstering China’s energy efficiency were approved by the World Bank. The three projects will receive loans of $441m, approximately a third of the World Bank’s lending to China this year. David Dollar, the organisation’s country director, explained that through greater efficiency and less pollution, not only would [...]
A new report from credit agency, Experian, reveals a 66% increase in identity theft cases. Last year, 6,000 consumers who had fallen victim to the crime contacted the company’s fraud team, compared with 3,500 in 2006. Experian has used data gathered from 10,000 victims to produce an identity fraud propensity model that pinpoints the types [...]
JPMorgan Chase has announced the appointment of Peter L. Scher to the post of executive vice president of Global Government Relations and Public Policy. Scher’s appointment is effective from 16 June, and will see him responsible for supervision of State, Federal and International Government Relations. In his capacity serving the Executive Committee he will report [...]
The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), which resolves disputes between consumers and financial firms, recorded a 30% rise in complaints in the 12 months to March 2008. Disgruntled consumers made 123,089 complains and 794,648 enquiries. The mortgage and banking sector generated a three-fold increase, while insurance disputes doubled. However complaints about mortgage endowments fell during the [...]
Soprano Design, which provides infrastructure and applications for mobile enterprise messaging, has announced that it is to form a partnership with mobile messaging services provider TynTec in order to offer mobile finance services on a worldwide basis. Together the two firms will introduce the world market to a combined text transmission service and mobile banking [...]
Latest figures from the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) show a sharp rise in deposits during April. UK consumers invested a record £5.8 billion in personal bank accounts during the month, up from £2.8 billion in March and well ahead of the six month average of £2.4 billion. The credit crisis has left banks keen to [...]
The much delayed Faster Payments Service, which promises to speed up cash transfers has become operative from today. Once fully rolled out, payment made by Internet or telephone should arrive at their destinations within hours while regular standing order payments made on bank working days will be dealt with in 24 hours. The system has [...]
UBS, the Swiss investment bank that has been hard hit by the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, has warned that it could be facing further losses in property markets outside the US. So far the bank has written down around $38 billion in relation to the US crisis and is now in the process of raising [...]
The coming week will see the European Investment Bank dispatch an important delegation to Brazil. The delegates will be engaged in discussions aimed at considering ways in which the EIB’s activities within the country can be expanded. Both state and federal level representatives of the Brazilian authorities will be meeting the EIB’s party, with an [...]
High Street banks are set to delay the outcome of the High Court case brought by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to establish the legality of their charges for unauthorised overdrafts. Consumer group Which? has reported that Mr Justice Andrew Smith, who is hearing the case, has accepted that the banks have a right [...]
Deutsche Bank has announced a number of key hires in its North American Foreign Exchange business. Greg Fiori joins the firm from JP Morgan, and assumes the roles of director and spot trader, with responsibility for Australia and New Zealand spot business. Fiori, whose role is New York-based, will report directly to Greg Knight, director [...]
Nationwide, the UK’s largest building society, has reported that new mortgage lending dropped by 40% in the twelve months to the beginning of April, to £6.7 billion. Despite this dramatic fall, underlying pre-tax profits rose 17% to £781.1 million The year saw customer deposits increase threefold, to £9.1 billion, as worried savers transferred cash from [...]
HBOS could be leading the way out of the credit crisis. The bank, which is the owner of Halifax, and is the UK’s largest mortgage lender, has sold mortgage backed bonds worth £500 million. The deal has become headline news because it is the first sale of its kind by a UK bank since the [...]
