Financial Industry News 23 May 2013

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is urging the UK Treasury to accelerate its disposal of the £65 billion stakes in two of the UK's biggest banks. Currently, the UK taxpayer owns large stakes in both Lloyds and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and the IMF believes public ownership is no longer in the best interests... read more

Singapore's DBS Group, south east Asia's biggest bank, has been given approval to purchase a 40 per cent stake in Indonesia's Bank Danamon. The group launched a $6.8 billion takeover bid for full control of Danamon more than a year ago, although the deal was delayed after Indonesian regulators moved to limit foreign... read more

The chairman and chief executive of JP Morgan Jamie Dimon will keep both his jobs after shareholders voted in his favour. One group of investors were calling on Mr Dimon to relinquish one role as it felt the bank should have a separate chairman in order to defend itself against future trading problems. JP Morgan Chase suffered... read more

Nationwide, the UK's biggest customer-owned financial service, has posted a 56 per cent jump in annual underlying profit. The company said its financial position remains robust and the leap in profits was a result of people demanding an alternative to the traditional banks. According to Nationwide, it has seen a 58 per... read more

A CGI and Euro Banking Association (EBA)-sponsored payments survey carried out under the auspices of the Financial Services Club has questioned 422 participants from 47 countries and found that 79% of eurozone respondents are not yet ready for the single euro payments area (SEPA) end date of 1 Feb 2014, with 57% still in the planning... read more

EBA Clearing has issued a call for participation in its MyBank E-mandate Pilot to banks and service providers ahead of its planned start in October. Corporate treasuries and billers are keen to see a universal e-mandate solution that can be used to electronically collect single euro payments area (SEPA) Direct Debits (SDDs) from... read more

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Monday (20 May) the US was cutting too deep with its austerity measures. Unemployment in the US is currently very high, but the country is still on track to reduce its budget shortfall by the largest amount in almost 50 years. However, the IMF believes this is too much, with Carlo... read more

Goldman Sachs is to sell its remaining stake in Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) after making more than $7.3 billion for the investment bank, its private equity funds and some senior partners. The company has less than half a per cent stake in the Chinese bank, which is the world’s biggest by market value, and... read more

The Euro Banking Association (EBA) has published a guide to the European supply chain finance (SCF) market at its EBAday trade show in Berlin, Germany.   Entitled ‘Supply Chain Finance: EBA European Market Guide’, the guide was launched to the European payments community at the EBAday conference and exhibition... read more