News
EIB's €240m props up Nigerian banks
Lamido Sanusi: welcomes EIB funding packageThe European Investment Bank (EIB) is providing €240m to three Nigerian banks for infrastructure projects, in a move that it is hoped will bolster confidence in the country's banking system.
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Ecobank has received a $6m grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to promote low-cost savings accounts in rural and poor neighbourhoods in a three-year pilot in Ghana and Liberia.
Deloitte estimates that the annual cost of implementing risk management and corporate governance frameworks at the top 100 global financial institutions will double from $50bn in 2006 to more than $100bn in 2012. This is due to enhanced regulation and firms' responses to the economic crisis.
The Philippine government is to launch $1bn-worth of yen-denominated samurai bonds to fund a record budget deficit. They will be partially guaranteed by state-owned Japan Bank for International Co-operation.
Credit Europe Bank is to acquire a 95% stake in Turkish-based Millennium Bank for €61.8m from Millennium BCP.
Société Générale (SG) has reached an agreement with its partner, Interros, to merge their Russian banking venture Rosbank and SG's other Russian banking subsidiaries into a single entity, which will be 81.5% owned by SG. The combined bank will become Russia's fifth-biggest by size of credit portfolio, with a network of 750 branches.
Mexico has led an initiative to create a regional organisation, which will eventually rival the 35-member Organisation of American States. The structure and remit are up for discussion but it is likely to solely focus on Latin American issues and will exclude both the US and Canada.
