Business: Financial/Banking Industry

SYDNEY, Australia - St. George Bank Ltd., Australia's fifth-largest bank, agreed to a revised 17.3 billion Australian dollar ($14.4 billion) takeover proposal by larger rival Westpac Banking Corp. on Monday, in what would be the biggest banking acquisition in Australian history.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Shares in Asian banks soared on Monday after the U.S. government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , reassuring investors worried about exposure to the mortgage giants' bonds and the value of other risky debt assets.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Paulson & Co, a prominent New York hedge fund, will weigh buying shares or convertible bonds in banks and other financial institutions that need capital, the Financial Times reported on its website on Sunday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Financial stocks may rise on Monday after the U.S. government took over troubled mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , but this may be only a temporary reprieve given the long list of woes banks are currently battling.

WASHINGTON - Regulators on Friday shut down Silver State Bank, saying the Nevada bank failed because of losses on soured loans, mainly in commercial real estate and land development.

WASHINGTON - Bank of America Corp. said Friday it is ready to settle federal and state investigations into sales of risky auction-rate securities, joining eight other big investment banks that have agreed to buy back a total of more than $50 billion of the securities.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp , said it is ready to settle federal and state probes into the marketing of auction-rate securities, joining eight other companies that reached agreements.

(Reuters) - Columbia Bancorp , the holding company for Columbia River Bank, said it plans to close its mortgage banking division, affecting about 39 jobs, as it strives to cut costs amid a difficult mortgage market.

ACCRA (AFP) - World Bank president Robert Zoellick on Thursday called for sweeping reforms in the way international aid is managed if the current food crisis is to be effectively tackled.

LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England left interest rates on hold at 5.0 percent for a fifth month running on Thursday, but expectations are rising that recession worries could prompt a cut before the end the year.

BANGALORE (Reuters) - Wachovia Capital Markets said the third quarter will be a "quarter to forget" for Wall Street investment banks and slashed its estimates for Goldman Sachs , Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley .

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Commerzbank outlined its plans to cut 9,000 jobs and shrink investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort to a rump after buying Dresdner Bank, but investors were unhappy about the $14.5 billion deal.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing the now-bankrupt mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp Inc of inflating the appraised values of homes and misleading borrowers into paying higher closing and financing costs.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of troubled U.S. banks rose 30 percent to 117 in the second quarter, the highest level in five years, and a top regulator warned that conditions will worsen as the housing slump and credit crisis continues to pound profitability.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The number of US banks on a "problem list" grew to 117 in the second quarter from 90 in the first three months of the year, the banking industry regulator said Tuesday.

WASHINGTON - The number of troubled U.S. banks leaped to the highest level in about five years and bank profits plunged by 86 percent in the second quarter, as slumps in the housing and credit markets continued.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co wants to buy insurance distribution and wealth management companies but it's "highly unlikely" it will bid for a large banking rival, Chief Executive John Stumpf told the Financial Times in an interview.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - The Danish central bank said Monday it has taken over the nation's 10th largest bank, a 124-year-old institution which had been struggling amid global financial turmoil and mounting losses on mortgage loans as housing prices fell in Denmark.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California will not investigate claims by former employees of IndyMac Bancorp Inc that a New York senator triggered the bank's collapse by releasing confidential information, the attorney general's office said on Friday.

Shortly after graduating from Harvard University in 1988, Lydia Icke dived into a high-powered career as an investment banker at Citibank . An ambitious undergraduate, she snapped up one of the hardest jobs she could find, she said.

NEW YORK - Freddie Mac talked to investors this week about possibly buying its stock to raise much-needed capital but billionaire investor Warren Buffett said he passed on an opportunity to help the troubled mortgage giant.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Wall St bank Lehman Brothers said on Friday it tapped a veteran of larger rival Goldman Sachs as managing director and co-head of its financial institutions group for Asia-Pacific excluding Japan.

BANGKOK (AFP) - Political turmoil and a shortage of skilled labour has dimmed Thailand's appeal to investors in recent years, according to a World Bank survey Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - California's attorney general is reviewing a request by former employees of IndyMac Bancorp Inc to investigate whether a New York senator triggered the bank's collapse by releasing confidential information.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The worst of the global financial crisis is yet to come and a large U.S. bank will fail in the next few months as the world's biggest economy hits further troubles, former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff said on Tuesday.

TOKYO - Japan's central bank chief said Tuesday he expects the world's second-largest economy to stay stagnant for the time being but denied it was headed toward the sort of deep slump that crippled the country in the 1990s.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's huge state banks are poised to report strong profit growth for the first half in 2008, thanks to wider margins and strong fee income, but funding costs are expected to rise in the second half, eroding growth.