Keywords:

“Making the renminbi convertible would go a long way toward solving the liquidity problem and addressing inflation.”
Vikram Pandit, CEO, Citigroup. 

The following are notes from our Monday morning meeting.

Four of Canada’s largest banks—TD, Scotiabank, CIBC and National Bank—formed a consortium with several local pension funds to outbid the LSE’s offer for Canada’s largest exchange.

Russia’s largest lender Sberbank is in talks with France’s BNP Paribas to buy its retail banking arm there, where it is the 7th-largest consumer lender.

Barclays is moving its African regional HQ back to South Africa after being in Dubai for the past four years.

Mashreq has signed a deal with Bank of China to co-manage a China desk in the UAE for corporate banking deals.

Japan’s Mizuho and SMFG both saw 75% profit growth for the year ending March 2011 on bond gains, but had Q4 losses on stocks; they may also be asked to forgive loans to crisis-hit electric utility TEPCO.

A disgruntled former employee threw a bomb into a branch of Tianzhu County Credit Cooperative in China’s Gansu province, injuring 49.

Hong Kong’s securities regulator is fining Bank of America $386,000 for inadequately assessing client risk appetite and not providing enough information in the sale of two index-linked notes to 40 clients in 2007.

Singapore added coverage of insurance policies to its deposit insurance scheme, following the model of Korea, Malaysia and the UK.

Muhamad Yunus lost his Bangladesh supreme court case to stay on as MD of Grameen Bank and has resigned; the government appointed deputy managing director Nurjahan Begum to succeed him.

Ted Evans, chairman of Australia’s Westpac, will retire on December 14th, to be replaced by board member Lindsay Maxsted, the CEO of KPMG in Australia from 2001 to 2007.