Regional/ International

BAML is planning to reduce its 10.23% stake worth $17 billion in China Construction Bank to less than 5%.

Standard Chartered is in discussions with Iraq’s Warka Bank to acquire the privately-owned private bank. This is in line with the Central Bank of Iraq’s strategy to reduce the number of local banks and attract foreign investment into the country’s banking sector.

Credit Agricole will be moving its Gulf headquarters out of Bahrain following unrest in the kingdom. BNP Paribas is also following suit by moving some of its back-office operations out of the country to nearby Gulf states.

Middle East

Central bank of Oman has issued an Islamic banking license to Bank Al Izz, a new bank in the country.

International Bank of Qatar has sold its Islamic retail unit to Barwa Bank, in compliance with Qatar Central Bank’s directive that bars conventional banks from providing Islamic banking services.

Bahrain Islamic Bank and Al Salam Bank are in merger discussions. The proposed merger would result in the formation of Bahrain’s largest Islamic bank with combined assets totalling $4.5 billion.

Central Bank of the UAE, the country’s financial regulator, will be reviewing its regulations concerning retail lending in a bid to restrict excessive bank charges to customers.

Indochina

State Bank of Vietnam has given VietinBank approval to increase its registered capital to $946.7 million, from $902.8 million.

Lao Viet Bank, a venture between Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam and Banque Pour Le Commerce de Laos, will be raising its registered capital to $65 million in two phases by 2012.

South Asia

The Reserve Bank of India is planning to separate the positions of chairman and CEO in state-owned banks. Both positions are currently held by a single person with the joint title of chairman and MD. The central bank is also reviewing the possibility of giving bank licenses to corporations in the country.

CIMB Securities International has partnered with Alex Lovell and Reshani Dangalia to establish an investment banking advisory joint venture in Sri Lanka.  The joint venture company will offer investment banking services including general advisory on mergers and acquisitions and corporate restructuring and capital management.

The Reserve Bank of Pakistan, the country’s central bank, has granted permission to ICBC to commence operations in the country, the first Chinese bank to do so. ICBC has already opened two branches in Karachi and Islamabad.

Australia/New Zealand

ANZ Banking Group is planning to raise about $780 million via hybrid capital issue.

Australia’s BOQ has appointed Stuart Grimshaw as its new MD and CEO. Grismhaw previously served as NAB (Britain) CEO and Commonwealth Bank’s Chief Financial Officer.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia has opened two more rural branches in Henan, China.  The branches will provide lending, deposit and fee-based services to small- and medium-sized enterprises and business owners.

China

China Construction Bank has made a bid to acquire Bank Maspion Indonesia. Shareholders of the bank, which is valued at about $200 million, plan to sell more than 50% of the lender. The bank is also planning to open a branch in Russia with a start-up investment capital of $150 million.

ICBC is planning to start a retail banking franchise in the UAE to capitalize on the growing trade between China and UAE.

CBRC, the country’s banking regulator, has published new regulations concerning banks’ capital requirements. The regulations require systematically important Chinese banks to have a minimum capital adequacy ratio of 11.5% while other banks must have a minimum capital requirement of 10.5%. 

Hong Kong

Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the country’s financial regulator, will soon publish the guidelines for the remittance of offshore renminbi back to China. The guidelines are expected to increase the issuance of renminbi-denominated bonds and bank loans in the city-state.

A Hong Kong court has sentenced two former ICBC executives for accepting bribes and gifts amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Both executives worked at the bank’s Hong Kong division.

Indonesia

Bank Danamon has received approval from its shareholders to sell 1.16 billion new shares via a rights schedule, and expects to raise about $58 million to provide loans to small-to-medium enterprises and to the automotive sector. 

Japan

Nomura Holdings has bought so-called 'good bank' assets of failed lender South Canterbury Finance (SCF) for an undisclosed sum. The loan book, made up of SCF's consumer, business and rural loan portfolios, had an aggregate value of $123 million.

The Japan Bank for International Cooperation is expected to extend an emergency loan of about $1.3 billion to Chubu Electric Power, which faces increased costs after the utility shut down its Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture in May.

Korea, South

Four Deutsche Bank employees and its South Korean brokerage house face a trial at a South Korean court after they were charged by prosecutors with causing a one-day rout in stocks in November that wiped out $27 billion in value.

Financial Supervisory Service governor Kwon Hyouk-se has urged commercial banks to resume their suspended household loans, following Nonghyup’s halt in selling of all household lending products, and several banks including Shinhan Bank suspending some products for several weeks for risk management.

Export-Import Bank of Korea has signed an initial agreement with Kazakhstan Petrochemical Industries and Korea Trade Insurance to help finance a $4 billion project to build a petrochemical plant in Kazakhstan.

Malaysia

An extravagant party held by Public Bank to mark its 45^th anniversary as well as honour its ageing founder has sparked ridicule online, with some comparing it to the type of event held in North Korea to praise leader Kim Jong Il.

The board of Kuwait Finance House (KFIN) Malaysia, a unit of Kuwait’s biggest Islamic bank, has elected Nabeel al-Mannae as chairman for the next three years.

Maybank, Malaysia's biggest lender, will consider buying a retail bank in Thailand to expand its operations in Southeast Asia. CEO Abdul Wahid Omar has said that "it will involve an acquisition at the right time, right price, and right circumstances".

The Philippines

A unit of Malaysian banking giant Malayan Banking has completed the takeover of a controlling stake in local financial conglomerate Kim Eng Financial through the purchase of shares held by Filipino partners.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is reviewing the business model used by banks in determining savings deposit rates and time deposit rates following the first two surveys conducted throughout the country to identify locations which show banks in the area relying "excessively" on high-cost deposits.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is set to decide on sanctions to be imposed on the Metropolitan Bank & Trust after one of its branches allegedly engaged in unsafe and unsound practices that led to over $1.4 million in losses for one of its corporate clients.

Singapore

Bank of Singapore, a private bank and a subsidiary of OCBC Bank, has appointed Terence Seow, a private banker with more than 15 years of experience as part of the expansion of its Southeast Asian team.

The Singapore government via the Economic Development Board will team up with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking to attract Japanese companies keen to expand into fast-growing Asian markets.

Taiwan

Hua Nan Commercial Bank has been authorised to operate in Macau, becoming the third Taiwanese bank to open a branch in the city.

Taiwan Cooperative Bank, a government-linked bank, has applied to the cabinet-level Financial Supervisory Commission for permission to set up a financial holding firm.

Fubon Bank has become the first Taiwanese-invested bank capable of investing in mainland China’s interbank bond market, as it is included in a new list of five offshore financial institutions allowed to make such investment, publicized by the People’s Bank of China.

Thailand

Small and Medium Enterprise Development Bank of Thailand (SME Bank) is joining with nine life insurers to offer bancassurance to cushion its customers against possible financial risks and help reduce non-performing loans.