Financial Regulatory Forum

LONDON, Jan 22 (Reuters) – The Bank of England said on Friday it had signed an agreement with the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to work more closely when resolving distressed banks with operations in the U.S. and the UK.

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BERLIN, Jan 19 (Reuters) – The German government is preparing new measures for the rescue of “systemically relevant” banks should they land in trouble, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Tuesday.

Schaeuble noted that the ruling parties in the centre-right government had said in their coalition agreement they would prepare such measures and added: “The government will present a corresponding set of instruments.”

He said the financial crisis had shown existing instruments to deal with struggling big banks were insufficient.

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BRUSSELS, Jan 18 (Reuters) – The European Commission said on Monday it was confident of issuing a positive decision on a Spanish government scheme to help crisis-hit banks avert any solvency problems.

Spain set up the 9-billion-euro ($13 billion) bank restructuring fund (FROB) in June last year, allowing lenders to borrow up to 90 billion euros, in a move that may spur consolidation among the country’s savings banks.

Three savings banks from northern Spain agreed last week to postpone plans to merge until the European Union’s executive Commission had ratified the FROB restructuring plan.

By Christian Gutlederer and Peter Maushagen

VIENNA/MUNICH, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Austria nationalised Hypo Group Alpe Adria on Monday to avoid a collapse that could have undermined trust in banks in eastern Europe and cast doubt over Austria’s and Germany’s backing of state-owned lenders.

Austria is taking full control of the ailing bank after a high-stakes gamble over the weekend that soured German-Austrian relations and required interventions by the presidents of the European Central Bank and the Bundesbank to be resolved.

German state bank BayernLB, Austrian insurer Grawe and the Austrian region of Carinthia are to give away their stakes for a nominal amount, while injecting around 1 billion euros ($1.5 billion) of capital, Finance Minister Josef Proell said.

   By Gilbert Kreijger and Ben Berkowitz
   AMSTERDAM, Oct 12 (Reuters) – The Dutch central bank seized control of the troubled DSB Bank on Monday after efforts to preserve it with a consortium of five larger banks failed.
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Sept 14 (Reuters) – The United States is exploring selling stock acquired in Citigroup Inc rescue, Bloomberg news reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The report said the Treasury Department and Citigroup have begun talks on how government could sell the 34 percent stake. The Treasury Department may start unloading the stake as soon as October, and complete the process within the next 6-8 months, the report said.