News, Banks and internet banks

As it became known, Wells Fargo has expanded its ExpressSend remittance network in Mexico through an agreement with Houston-based Transnetwork Corporation. Thus far the company is adding over 4,000 payout locations in Mexico for a total of more than 9,000 locations. These additional outlets have significantly widened Wells Fargo's remittance payout network in Mexico. 

As it became known, Saturday, a systems glitch injured Barclays’ customers. So the majority of bank’s clients were left unable to access their accounts online or use cash machines. 

The Barclays’ computer systems failed early on Saturday hitting Internet and telephone banking customers as well as ATMs. However, the bank representatives claim point of sale transactions were not affected.

Monday, HSBC unveiled its plans to acquire South Africa's fourth-biggest bank Nedbank.

Thus far, Europe's biggest bank is currently in exclusive talks with Anglo-South African insurer Old Mutual to buy Nedbank.

Bank of America has introduced a new service dubbed as eBanking to allow customers to bank via electronic channels and receive statement on the Internet. Consumers who make deposits and withdrawals via eBanking as well as receive statements online will not have to pay monthly fee irrespective of their account balance or number of transactions in a given month. Otherwise, the customer pays for the value of the account through an $8.95 monthly maintenance fee.

In a move to resume lending to businesses across the nation the heads of six major banks in the UK have united to form a dedicated taskforce. In a letter to Chancellor George Osborne, BBA Chairman Stephen Green outlined a series of proposals aimed at stimulating private-sector recovery.

"We, like you, believe there is a real need to make sure that viable businesses are able to obtain the finance they need to support the recovery of the UK economy," Green wrote.

Two top European banks, HSBC and BNP Paribas, excel their earnings outlooks as bad debts fell sharply to make up for slowing investment banking growth.

As it became known on Friday, Goldman Sachs intends to adopt Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB), Slovenia's largest bank, 48% of which hold by government and its affiliated. 

Government would also approve a possible takeover of NLB by Belgian banking and insurance group KBC, according to the official resources.

Citi achieved the settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission under which Citigroup Inc will pay $75 million. The settlement comes after the SEC’s probe into the Citi’s failure to disclose subprime exposure to investors in 2007.

Apart from this SEC also charged Citi executive and a former chief financial officer of misrepresenting the bank's exposure, although not with intentional misconduct.

As it became known, Moody's, that revised its outlook on a number of major banks Tuesday, changed its forecast over Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo from stable to negative.

The credit ratings agency cut the positive outlook due to weakening government support for the institutions under new US regulations.

Barclays has launched an online game, 56 Sage Street, that sees players arrive in a virtual city broke and improve their status through work and sound money management, targeting to allure teenage customers.

 ATEbank was the only bank from 6 Greek banks that failed the European stress tests.  

According to the regulators under the most unfavorable conditions the ATEbank's Tier 1 ratio would drop to 4.36% at the end of 2011. It was also stated that the results of the stress test suggest a shortfall of 242.6 million euros.

The other 5 banks that were involved in the stress tests were National Bank of Greece, EFG Eurobank, Alpha Bank, Piraeus Bank and Postbank. These 6 banks resent more than 90% of the total assets in the Greek banking sector. 

Bank of Ireland is to refund a total of €3 million to 43,000 ATM users after glitch. 

The ATM glitch was caused by a problem with anti-fraud systems saw money incorrectly debited from their accounts.

The bank says it apologized for the error and has informed the country's Financial Regulator.

As showed the latest survey from Goldman Sachs 10 out of the 91 banks subjected to Europe's stress tests are anticipated to fail. 

U.S. Bank has announced launch of an online reporting tool, called ScoreBoard helping customers to monitor their own credit card spending by providing trending and reporting data. ScoreBoard is an application available to U.S. Bank’s small business credit cardholders and merchant customers who process credit, debit and electronic check transactions through U.S. Bank Merchant Services. 

Citigroup, Inc, a known global leader in financial sector has recruited a 62 years old George Friedlander, municipal bond strategist to the position of the bank’s senior U.S. municipal securities strategist in New York.  Previously Friedlander worked for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.