Business Banking & Trade Finance

Following the largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan and the devastating tsunami that followed it on Friday, fears over access to funding for businesses and the potential disruption of global supply chains as production and transport are wiped out, the Bank of Japan has today added another USD43,000 million to the vast sums it has ploughed into the economy since Monday.

Ronald MOK Wai Man, 45,has been convicted on 22charges and jailed for six years for stealing from a corporate customer of Standard Chartered Bank, Hong Kong, where he was employed.

A boatbuilder in Christchurch, New Zealand, has been convicted of making fraudulent representations to obtain working capital, as well as a raft of other offences.

Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has charged bankers and businessmen in a corruption case - and tagged on a money laundering charge, an unusual event.

The crisis in small commercial lenders is at the heart of FDIC's current activity - it's chairman mentioned, in a near-aside - in a speech in India. No one at home noticed..... but it confirms what Nigel Morris-Cotterill has been saying for almost a year: the commercial property lending sector is where stage 2 of the crisis is brewing.

Australia's ASIC has commenced proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia against two companies engaged in finance broking.

As the death toll for FDIC insured banks spectacularly breaches the milestone of 100 so far this year, there's another side to the business that is also under pressure. As Delaware-based Capmark Financial Group files for protection under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code (a form of administration) the deep wounds in the USA's commercial property sector are made plain. And so are the threats to small captive banks.