& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Bank burnout reaches new pitch

AFP, London
Bank distress levels hit a new pitch Thursday, with a record British corporate loss chalked up by RBS topping a list of disastrous results as governments tried new ways to beat the economic crisis.
The British government threw another 325 billion pounds at Royal Bank of Scotland in a fresh effort to neutralise toxic assets by means of an insurance scheme while RBS said it would retrench sharply to restore its base business.
RBS reported a net loss of 24.1 billion pounds (34 billion dollars, 27 billion euros) for 2008, the biggest ever for a British company but not as bad as the 28 billion pounds some analysts had feared.
Britain's Lloyds Banking Group, 43-percent state owned after an earlier bailout, said after the RBS announcement that it too was in talks to take part in the government scheme to ring-fence toxic assets.
Other European financial groups, Germany's Allianz and French specialist banks Dexia and Natixis all reported serious damage Thursday but Switzerland's biggest bank UBS, one of the hardest hit by the credit crisis, got a boost on the market from
a change of chief executive.
RBS, now 70-percent owned by the state after a massive government rescue, was up 22 percent at 28.20 pence in midday trade while London's FTSE index of leading shares gained 0.98 percent, off early highs.
In Frankfurt, the market gained 0.80 percent and Paris 0.72 percent.
In Asia earlier, Tokyo closed flat, Hong Kong fell 0.9 percent and Sydney gained 0.5 percent.
Commenting on the RBS figures, tire head of derivatives at GFT, Martin Slaney, said: "Net losses, whilst a blot on the UK landscape as a new record loss, were not as bad as expected, and participation in the asset protection scheme looks more favourable than initial estimates.”
Others were less forgiving.
"It's of little comfort reporting figures better than analysts expected when you have booked the biggest loss in UK corporate history!" ETX Capital senior trader Manoj Ladwa said.
"Although the share price is likely to rally ... a predominantly slate-owned bank that is having a fire sale on its assets gives investors little reason to buy," Ladwasaid.
In Washington meanwhile, the
authorities took a new tack in trying to relieve US banks of assets that are worthless or untradeable in current depressed markets, hoping thereby to get them len ding again.
US banks with assets of at least 100 billion dollars are now to be subjected to official "stress tests" to see how they may fare in coming months and if they need further capital, either from the government or private sector.
The USTreasury said the aim was "to give banks the incentive to replace (government) provided capital will) private capital or to redeem the (government) capital when conditions permit."
US regulators warned that economic conditions could yet be "more challenging than is currently anticipated" but the exercise should begin to make clearer what the true position of the banks is.
If there is greater transparency, it is argued, then the toxic assets can be more accurately valued and dealt with, allowing the banks to get their books straight after months of agony and massive losses.
Once that is achieved, the banking system should be in better shape to begin lending again to households and businesses in the hope of getting the economy back
on track from the bottom up.
The new strategies by the British and US authorities are set against a background of debate in Europe and the United States over nationalisation as a last resort for banks sinking under the weight of crippled balance sheets.
The chairman of the US Federal Reserve central bank Ben Bernanke told US lawmakers earlier this week the government was not seeking control of banks. "I don't think we want to do that," he said.
On the economic front, Thursday's news continued bleak or worse.
European consumer and business confidence dropped to a record low in February, undercutting early gains on the stock markets led by the banks.
Unemployment in Germany, Europe's biggest economy and the world's top exporter, rose to 8.5 percent in February from 8.3 percent in January and looks set to go much higher, analysts said.
Timo Klein at IHS Global Insight said "export and investment a. demand are both suffering mark- $ edly and will continue to do so for most of 2009. Unemployment will therefore now remain on a rising trend until well into 2010. "