A bank is a business that borrows from its customers on current accounts repayable to its customer's cheques and collects cheques for its customers' accounts. Banks may also issue bank notes, and lend money to customers on currenct account(called overdraft), accept term deposits and make term loans and provide other financial services. Banks that issue notes are called Banks of Issue.

Currently in most jurisdictions the business of banking is regulated and banks require a licence. Banking licenses are granted by bank regulatory authorities and provide rights to conduct the most fundamental banking services such as accepting deposits and making loans. There are also financial institutions that provide certain banking services without meeting the legal definition of a bank, a so called non-banking financial company.

Banks have a long history, and have influenced economies and politics for centuries.

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The Economist: Banking

Europe's corporate credit crunch: Muck in the fuel pipe
Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:59:12 -0000
Europe’s banks will struggle to lend their clients a hand when demand revivesMECHANICS checking for a blockage in a car’s fuel pipes know to floor the accelerator, for a splutter then indicates a problem that may not show up when the engine is idling. The mechanics of the financial system are wondering whether the same rule applies to the world economy and whether its recovery will be choked by a lack of credit to companies just as demand starts picking up.In late summer, as Europe’s economies barely ticked over, bankers across Europe seemed ready to ease their grip on the purse strings. A survey of banks’ loan officers in euro-area countries in late September led the European Central Bank (ECB) to conclude that a “turning-point” had been reached and that banks would probably soon start to relax credit standards. In Britain, a survey for the Bank of England (BoE) at about the same time showed an increased willingness by banks to lend to companies (even if they were holding back on lending to households). ...
Bankers' pay: Cui bono?
Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:59:12 -0000
Who benefits from a one-off levy on bankers’ bonuses?COME April 6th 2010, it will be business as usual. Until then, banking firms with employees in Britain will have to be ultra-creative to get around measures announced in the pre-budget report (see previous story) to impose a 50% payroll tax at source on those dishing out bonuses of more than GBP25,000 ($40,750). As The Economist went to press there were rumours that France might follow suit.The intention is to catch cash benefits paid between now and April 5th, the end of the tax year, including loans against shares deposited in trusts, and other such tax-avoidance dodges. No firm engaged in banking activity, British or foreign, with employees taxable in Britain will be spared. Bonuses contractually guaranteed before December 9th, however, will slip through the net. So will incentive schemes awarding shares or share options. Banks that have hiked salaries at the expense of bonuses may escape the full fury. ...
Banking in Venezuela: Fall of the Boligarchs
Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:59:12 -0000
Hugo Chavez cracks down on allies“BEING rich is bad,” Hugo Chavez is wont to remark. But in the decade in which he has been Venezuela’s president, some people with close ties to his regime have made fortunes. Now he seems to have lost patience with them. Over the past fortnight the government has shut down seven small banks and an insurance company and arrested several of their owners, accusing them of fraud and mismanagement. The president says this is part of a drive to root out corruption. Yet the scandal would seem to lead to the upper echelons of his government.Mr Chavez has nationalised many other businesses, so the takeovers at first caused mild panic in financial markets. But the banks involved account for less than 10% of total deposits. Mr Chavez assured the big private banks that they were not incompatible with his ideology of “21st-century socialism”. ...
Banks and sovereign-wealth funds: Falling knives
Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:59:11 -0000
The smart and the not-so-smartYOUR phone rings at 3am. It’s a senior American banker sounding desperate. An unidentified heavy-breather—the treasury secretary?—is also on the line. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime, the banker swears: the chance to buy a multibillion-dollar stake in a big Wall Street firm. By the way, he adds breezily, any chance of an answer right away?Most sovereign-wealth funds (SWFs) got an invitation of this sort between November 2007 and January 2008. Within a few weeks some $40 billion was poured into distressed Western lenders, among them Citigroup, UBS, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch. Now SWFs are selling out. This month the Kuwait Investment Authority, the oldest SWF, sold a $4 billion stake in Citigroup, claiming a $1.1 billion profit. In September one of Singapore’s two investment vehicles, GIC, sold part of its stake in Citi, realising a $1.6 billion profit. ...
Banks and small businesses: For want of a loan
Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:59:11 -0000
America’s best job creators are being hit by a credit crunchIT IS basically a second stimulus, though no one wants to call it that. On December 8th President Barack Obama announced a set of proposals to address unemployment and made it clear that he wanted to use some of the unspent TARP funds (money set aside to support failing banks) to help pay for them. No precise figure was given. Some $50 billion will be spent on infrastructure projects; there will also be new rebates for home insulation and other energy-saving incentives. But the linchpin of the administration’s effort is a broad push to support small businesses. That sounds reasonable. Small businesses (firms employing 500 workers or fewer) have accounted for 64% of net new job creation over the past 15 years, according to the Small Business Administration (SBA), an independent government agency. And a recent economic study found that cities with more small firms have done better at creating jobs over the past 20 years. But America’s most recent recession has hit small businesses hard. The very small, with fewer than 50 workers—employing almost one-third of working Americans—have suffered around 45% of the job losses of the downturn. ...
The restructuring of Rusal: Saving the oligarchs
Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:55:30 -0000
The Kremlin is bailing out the business tycoons it was once expected to curbANYONE watching Russian television this summer could have been forgiven for thinking that Oleg Deripaska, one of the country’s richest tycoons and the boss of Rusal, the world’s largest aluminium company, was finished. The closure of three factories, one of them owned by Mr Deripaska, in Pikalevo, a small cement-producing town near St Petersburg, had left workers without pay. In protest they had blocked the road and called for help from Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, who appeared on June 4th like a superhero in a sports jacket, with a penitent Mr Deripaska in tow. “I wanted the authors of what happened here to see it with their own eyes,” Mr Putin thundered, in a tirade beamed across Russia by state television. “You have made thousands of residents hostage to your ambition, your lack of professionalism and perhaps your greed.”“Come here and sign,” Mr Putin instructed Mr Deripaska, pointing to an agreement to restart the factory and holding out a pen. Mr Deripaska signed. “My pen—give it back,” Mr Putin then snapped. In the inflamed imagination of Russia’s disgruntled citizens, Mr Deripaska was about to share the fate of other disgraced oligarchs such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former boss of Yukos, a dismembered oil firm, who has languished in prison for more than six years. ...

World Bank/IMF

The IDB—50 Years, Zero Reflection

Who Will Determine the Future of Capitalism?

Norway finds Canada's largest publicly-traded company, Barrick Gold, unethical
Norway's Ministry of Finance announced Friday that it would exclude mining giant Barrick Gold and U.S. weapons producer Textron Inc from the country's pension fund for ethical reasons. This is an especially significant judgment for Canada, as Barrick Gold is currently Canada's largest publicly traded company.

ING Latest Press Releases

16/12/09 - ING completes rump offering at EUR 6.68 per share
Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:47:00 +0100

16/12/09 - ING announces rights issue take up of 97.0%
Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:31:00 +0100

11/12/09 - ING to repay Dutch State EUR 5 bn Core Tier 1 securities on 21 Dec.
Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:49:00 +0100
ING announced today that it has notified the Dutch State that it will exercise its option to early repurchase EUR 5 billion of the Core Tier 1 securities.
30/11/09 - ING closes sale of Australian and New Zealand Insurance business
Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:49:00 +0100
ING announced today that it has closed the sale of its life insurance and wealth management venture in Australia and New Zealand to ANZ, its joint venture partner.
27/11/09 - ING sets terms for its EUR 7.5 billion 6 for 7 rights issue
Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:16:00 +0100

25/11/09 - ING shareholders approve strategic decisions and rights issue
Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:49:00 +0100


The Economist: The World Bank and the IMF

India's gold purchase: Adornment and investment
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:01:13 -0000
India is eager for the IMF’s bullionIF YOU count bangles, necklaces, anklets and other pieces of jewellery, India is the largest repository of gold in the world, according to the World Gold Council. Many Indians see gold as an investment as well as an adornment. India’s post office sells 24-carat gold coins, as small as 0.5 grams, to savers wary of fiat currencies or mutual funds. The latest big investor in the metal is the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). On November 3rd the central bank said it had bought 200 tonnes of gold from the IMF, a purchase that would have cost about $6.7 billion. The news pushed the price past $1,090 an ounce for the first time.The IMF’s gold holdings are less decorative than India’s, but also impressive: the third-biggest official stash in the world. Its sale to the RBI is part of a plan to offload 403.3 tonnes, or an eighth of its total. The proceeds will create an endowment to cover the fund’s operating expenses and help expand its lending. It is doing its best not to rock the market by selling first to central banks, in keeping with their agreement in August to sell no more than 2,000 tonnes over five years. But the gold market is now interested in how much central banks might buy, not how much they might sell. ...
The World Bank-IMF meetings: Money, votes and politics
Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:39:57 -0000
Battles over money and power at the World Bank and IMF“WE ARE into the world of politics”, said the World Bank’s president, Robert Zoellick, at the two-day annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, ending on Wednesday October 7th in Istanbul. Mr Zoellick was referring to the disagreements between richer and poorer countries over his institution’s pleas for more funding to cope with the aftermath of the financial crisis. But his statement held true for much of what went on at this year’s meetings. It was easy to reach broad agreement that it was too early for governments and central banks to begin winding down their big stimulus packages. But opinions diverged over the need to boost the funding of the world’s main financial institutions, and even more so when it came to discussing demands by big developing countries such as China and India for more voting power on their boards. ...
The role of emerging markets: Cosmetic surgery?
Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:04:22 -0000
The face of global economic governance is changingSYMBOLISM or substance? The G20 meeting in Pittsburgh secured the place of emerging markets at the top table of global economic policy. “Bretton Woods is being overhauled before our eyes,” declared Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank. The G20 leaders agreed to shift voting power substantially within the IMF towards “dynamic emerging markets and developing countries”, and endorsed similar reform at the World Bank. They also announced that the G20 itself will replace the G7, a rich-world club that will now concentrate mainly on security issues, as the primary forum for international economic co-operation. The Financial Stability Board, which is supposed to oversee the co-ordination of global financial regulation, has also expanded to include the G20’s emerging–market members. But how much clout the developing world will actually have remains unclear. ...

IEG

2009 Annual Review of Development Effectiveness: Achieving Sustainable Development
The global financial crisis has driven up demand for World Bank support to mitigate the effects of the crisis on the poor. At the same time, concern has intensified that every development dollar be used effectively and efficiently to meet development objectives. Although it has always been important for the Bank to demonstrate that its work is producing real results for people living in poverty, it is particularly critical to do so this year. The Annual Review of Development Effectiveness 2009 presents the World Bank’s record of performance in achieving outcomes from its projects and country programs and focuses on the Bank's contributions in supporting environmental sustainability.
Evaluation to Help Improve Development Results: A New Paper by the Director General of IEG
This new paper by IEG Director General Vinod Thomas addresses a twofold question on evaluation. First, it deals with the question of the "what" – the need for evaluation methods and institutional frameworks to respond to the growing uncertainties and complexity of development situations. The paper notes the lasting validity of some of the basics in evaluation, and the need to return to the basics. But it also suggests shifts needed to respond to emerging issues, such as growing interlinkages across sectors. Second, it discusses the "how." In particular, there are issues of capacity building, incentives, and organization that are necessary for an independent evaluation function to be effective within a country’s institutional architecture.
New Monitoring and Evaluation Resource: Mexico's M and E System: Scaling Up from the Sectoral to the National Level
This paper provides a brief review of Mexico's progressive movement from a sectoral to a governmentwide M and E system. It highlights the critical institutional reforms introduced, the policy decisions, and the most important operational steps that were taken, offering an account of the political context within which such changes and decisions were possible. The paper emphasizes the specific role of the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Policy (CONEVAL) as an innovative development, which furthered institutionalization of evaluation and a results focus at the federal government level through the implementation of the System for Performance Evaluation (SED). A quick review of the governmentwide system’s strengths and main challenges for the future is offered. Some lessons for other countries and conclusions follow.

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