Keywords:

“This is an issue of leverage—it’s not a euro issue.”
Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup, who is confident that the Eurozone will remain intact.

 

The following are notes from our Monday morning meeting.


The European Commission wants to tax stock and bond trades at 10 bps and derivative trades at 1 bp by 2014, which could raise $78b per year.

Bank of America introduced a 5$ monthly fee for US debit card holders to encourage credit card use, while Citi will charge for checking accounts with low balances.

HSBC is selling its retail operations in Chile to Brazil’s Itau-Unibanco, even as it prepares to divest its general insurance business in Latin America, Hong Kong, Singapore and France.
 
The heads of Iran’s Bank Melli and Bank Saderat resigned for allegedly helping businessman Amir Mansour Khosravi use forged letters of credit to secure loans to buy SOEs.

Japan’s SMFG will launch a tender to buy the 79% of struggling unsecured lender Promise that it does not already own, at a cost of about $2.6b; Promise is likely to post a $2b 1H loss.

Citic Securities, China’s largest brokerage firm, has raised through its Hong Kong IPO $1.7b to fund overseas expansion and cross-border businesses.

Taiwan's Mega International Commercial Bank launched its first branch in Cambodia.

Vietnam’s Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam is selling a 15% stake to Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group for $560 million.

Malaysia’s RHB Capital wants to merge with OSK Investment Bank in an $870m deal.

Bangladesh Bank released new rules on mobile banking to boost financial inclusion; 15% of Bangladeshis have bank accounts, while 50% have mobile phones.

Australia’s central bank shifted interchange fees for transactions over $15 to retailers from consumers, with banks like CBA that want to curry favour with SMEs absorbing them now.