Banking News

The UK Treasury today introduced a draft Order to further strengthen the attraction of London as a centre for Islamic finance, with a measure designed to improve the conditions for the issue of sukuk.

With effect from this month, Malaysian banks are required to change the way they account for and report non-performing loans.

At the beginning of 2009, the USA's Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said that it "insures deposits at the nation's 8,384 banks and savings associations." At the beginning of 2010, the figure had dropped to 8099.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has taken the unusual step of urging caution to banks providing margin financing on the listing of United Company Rusal Limited, following on from a similar warning yesterday by the Securities and Futures Commission.

Usually, if you want to buy a bank, you read the small-ads where some dodgy dealer will sell you a dubious banking licence for a huge sum of money, or you look in the property pages and see if there's a branch you can convert into a wine bar or something. But with the FDIC auctions, you can buy all the really important stuff - everything you need to physically set up a bank except the customers.

If Gordon Brown's latest armful of your pay packet is the last straw, here are some ideas of places to go.

Gordon Brown has had his little pet next door announce a 50% tax on some (but not all) discretionary bonuses in the banking sector. But he has placed a limitation on it, designed to allow him to attack his rivals - and probable successors in the forthcoming general election.

Today's Times reports that at a meeting yesterday between the UK Treasury and several large banks, Chancellor Alistair Darling misled himself, and therefore risks misleading the public, over the state of the banking sector.

1997 is a long time ago, so it's helpful to be reminded that, when Blair, Brown and the New Labour party swept to power in a massive landslide, they inherited a stable country with few problems, none of them economic. In fact, the economy was so strong that Brown had nothing to do for more than three years except crow how prudent he was and how the country was doing well under his stewardship. Under that, a deviously planted rot was setting in.

Yesterday, bank shares in the UK tanked as the import of the statement, late Wednesday, by Dubai World that it would seek to defer repayments on its huge debt for six months as a prelude to a restructuring. But yesterday, there was little information available. How are things going today as more becomes known?