Keywords:

“Ring-fence the retail banking activities of systemically-important institutions and require them to be capitalised on a standalone basis.”
Sir John Vickers, chairman of the UK’s Independent Commission on Banking, proposing in a recent speech a solution to the breakdown of business lending when a universal bank fails.

The following are notes from our Monday morning meeting.

China’s ICBC is buying a majority stake in the 13-branch US network of Hong Kong’s Bank of East Asia for $140m; it will likely buy the whole bank soon, as CEO David Li has failed to groom a successor.

Julius Baer client files, allegedly containing evidence of tax evasion, were turned over to Wikileaks by Rudolf Elmer, who had been fired in 2002 from the private bank’s Cayman Islands office.

Ethiopia's central bank limited the annual compensation of bank directors to $3,015, part of a plan to improve corporate governance and reduce corruption.

Turkey sentenced former Etibank owner Dinç Bilgin to nearly five years in jail for embezzling $375m in 2000, driving it to bankruptcy.

Katsunori Nagayasu, CEO of Japan’s MUFG, is looking to buy more non-core assets from European banks, or mid-size lenders as big as Union Bank, the bank with $80b in assets it owns in the US.

The IFC is in discussions to take a 10% stake in Cambodian microfinance company AMK.

Standard Chartered Bank intends to boost its Singapore staff 33% to 8,000 by the end of 2012.

India’s central bank proposed regulations for microfinance, including a 10%-12% interest margin cap.

The big four banks’ share of Australia’s deposit market rose to 76%, up from 70% a year ago, while their mortgage share grew to 84%, from 74.6%.