Keywords:

"We are very close to having inflation targeting in the US."
James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, on the Fed's decision to publish forecasts of its benchmark lending rate from this month.



The following are notes from our Monday morning meeting.


RBS will close its unprofitable cash equities unit, laying off 1,200 people, and merge its investment banking and transaction services divisions.

Citi has failed to find a buyer for its US consumer finance business after six months of talks.

The Central Bank of Nigeria launched in Lagos a programme to push electronic transactions, which includes buying 40,000 POS terminals, that will cost banks an estimated $15.4m.

Galia Maor, CEO of Israel's Bank Leumi, resigned and will leave the bank in Q2.

Japan's Mizuho will reportedly be spending $3.4b on an IT overhaul to modernise siloed systems that broke down in March.

China is planning to set up a centralised securities lending exchange to facilitate short-selling, in a bid to further develop its capital markets.

Taiwan's Hua Nan Financial Holdings is reportedly looking to acquire a 20% stake in China's Fujian Haixia Bank.

Over 400 customers of Singapore's DBS reportedly suffered unauthorised withdrawals totalling $386,000 from ATMs in Malaysia, after their cards were cloned at cash machines in Singapore.

India's finance ministry will inject State Bank of India with $926m-$1.1b to bring its Tier 1 capital to 9%, from around 7.7% now.

Australia's ANZ will sell its 9.6% stake in Vietnam's Sacombank to Eximbank for an undisclosed amount, returning to an organic growth strategy there.