Banking News

A financially ailing Ohio school district has joined the ranks of banks and automakers clamoring for a portion of the $700 billion economic bailout package.

NEW YORK - Citigroup Inc. said Tuesday it will raise $5.5 billion through a debt offering under the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s temporary guarantee program.

Profit was $315-million, or 28 cents a share, compared to $954-million, or 95 cents a share, in the same quarter last year.

Tuesday denied a report that U.S. authorities have widened a probe into offshore tax evasion to include the Swiss bank.

The mayor of Alabama's largest city was arrested Monday on charges of steering millions of dollars of bond work to a friend in exchange for more than $230,000 in bribes to pay for an expensive wardrobe and flashy jewelry.

The bond deals _ which funded years of work on a substandard county sewer system _ went sour and have helped push surrounding Jefferson County to the brink of filing the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

The charges stem from Mayor Larry Langford's time on the Jefferson County Commission, where he served four years as president. He is accused of telling Wall Street giants JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers that they had to include his friend's investment banking firm on the deal if they wanted to handle the county's bond work, which was worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Australia's central bank slashed interest rates by one percentage point Tuesday in the latest bold move by the country's top finance officials to stave off a recession.

The reduction is the fourth in a row by the Reserve Bank of Australia and takes the cash rate to 4.25 percent. It was larger than predicted by analysts, most of whom had expected a 0.75 percentage point cut.

The global financial crisis has taken Australia's economy from boom times to the verge of recession in a matter of months, and policymakers are throwing billions of dollars at the economy to try to stop it from tipping over the edge.

Analysis and Discussion with Jeffrey Palma of UBS AG

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. said Monday it will cut a total of 9,200 jobs at Washington Mutual, which it acquired Sept.

Timothy Geithner, President-elect Barack Obama's pick to be Treasury secretary, will soon step down from his current post as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.

'Expect fallout, expect foreclosures, expect horror stories,' California mortgage lender Paris Welch wrote to U.S. regulators in January 2006, about one year before the housing implosion cost her a job.

London Scottish Bank, which specializes in unsecured consumer lending and debt collection, said Monday it has gone into administration.

The British Treasury said it would protect all retail deposit savings held with the bank, even deposits of more than 50,000 pounds _ the limit the government has vowed to guarantee.

The bank said it had called in administrators after sustaining a shortfall in its capital reserves and being unable to find a buyer for the business.

Shares were suspended on the London Stock Exchange. They closed on Friday at 2.6 pence ($0.04).

PITTSBURGH : Given the economic downturn, even the most romantic might balk at the $86,609 price tag for the items in the carol, "The Twelve Days of Christmas." That's this year's cost, according to the annual ...

Whitney Holding Corp. says it's gotten approval to take part in the federal financial system bailout.

The eurozone is set for an unprecedented third interest rate cut in less than two months when European Central Bank governors meet this week in Brussels, with the key question being, by how much? With the ...

Europe's inflation rate fell by the most in almost two decades and unemployment increased, adding to pressure on the European Central Bank to continue cutting interest rates to battle the recession.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC will sell the government almost 20-billion pounds of stock and a majority stake after investors bought just 0.2% of shares offered in the U.K.'s biggest ... Royal Bank of ...

In a shortened trading sssion Friday the Dow Jones Industrials gained 102.43 points or 1.17% to close at 8,829.04. Financials led the way with Citigroup making the pace.

Struggling Citigroup Inc plans to sell NikkoCiti Trust and Banking Corp, its trust bank unit in Japan, as part of its global restructuring efforts, Japanese media reports said on Sunday.

Asian stock markets rose Friday as investors bought beaten-down shares on hopes that economy-boosting steps by governments around the world would help ward off a deep global recession. European shares opened lower.

Indian stocks gained after trading was suspended Thursday because of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the country's financial center, that left at least 143 people dead. The benchmark Sensex index opened lower but was up 0.8 percent in afternoon trading at 9,101.06.

Across the region, Mumbai attacks _ as well as the shutdown of Bangkok's airports by anti-government protesters, which entered its fourth day _ did little to dampen improving investor sentiment.

A congressman is set to ask the Treasury Department more about the sale of National City Corp.