Banking News

ASB performed well in the first quarter but operating conditions remain difficult in New Zealand, parent Commonwealth Bank of Australia said today.

SOUTH Korea's state-funded KDB Financial Group Inc is seeking to buy Southeast Asian banks, instead of merging with Korea Exchange Bank , as the market expected, the group's chief said on Sunday.

First Financial Bancorp's third-quarter earnings took a $219.5 million jump thanks to the acquisition of two failed banks.

MB Financial, Inc. , today announced that it will present at the Sandler O'Neill + Partners, L.P. East Coast Financial Services Conference to be held in Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday, November 12, 2009.

FUND manager Fat Prophets Australia Fund warns that there is an air of false euphoria after the share market recovery of recent months, given there are still large debts which aren't matched by the underlying assets.

Nov. 6 -- James Shugg, senior economist at Westpac Banking Corp., talks with Bloomberg's Scarlet Fu about the outlook for U.S. jobs.

Mumbai, Nov 6 : Bringing cheer to home loan seekers, the State Bank of India today announced extension of its My Home Campaign offering lower interest rates till March 31, 2009.

The bank extends 8% home loan scheme till March. The country's biggest lender, State Bank of India , today slashed interest rates on domestic term deposits by 25-50 basis points across maturities to reduce cost of funds.

John S. Reed , who helped engineer the merger that created Citigroup Inc. , apologized for his role in building a company that has taken $45 billion in direct U.S. aid and said banks that big should be divided into separate parts.

Toppled by loan losses and misstated financial reports, San Francisco's United Commercial Bank was shut down by regulators Friday night and immediately sold to Pasadena's East West Bancorp, creating by far the largest U.S. bank focused on the Chinese American market.

CF Industries Holdings Inc. rejected rival fertilizer producer Agrium Inc.a s increased $4.52 billion takeover offer, saying it a oesubstantiallya undervalues the company.

Nov. 6 - Retailers and delivery giants have thousands of job openings for temporary workers during the holidays.

The Alabama National Guard has identified the soldier who was injured in the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas.

A Florida yacht broker is asking a judge for probation on a tax conviction because of his assistance in the U.S. investigation of secret accounts at Swiss bank UBS AG.

Bank of America Corp. on Thursday reiterated that the current credit environment will remain difficult into next year, as unemployment is likely to continue to rise.

Citigroup Inc. filed plans for an initial public offering of its Primerica Inc. life insurance unit late Thursday, and said it will sell the rest of the unit after it goes public.

This April 16, 2009 file photo, shows a sign at the Citigroup Center in New York.

Nov. 5 -- Michael Morris, an analyst with UBS AG, talks with Bloomberg's Carol Massar, Adam Johnson and Jon Erlichman about the outlook for CBS Corp.'s earnings.

Canadian fertilizer giant Agrium Inc. has made what it calls a "best and final" offer for U.S. competitor CF Industries Holdings Inc.

NEWARK -- Park National Corp., based in Newark, regularly sends out press releases about what its 13 community bank divisions and two specialty finance companies are doing.