Bank Of America Closing Account

NEW YORK (AP) —Wall Street shot higher Tuesday, lifting the Dow Jones industrials nearly 320 points after reassuring news from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. quelled some of the market’s worst fears about the credit crisis and the economy. A plunge in the price of oil gave investors further incentive to buy.Goldman Sachs heartened investors with word that it didn’t expect a significant hit from the subprime mortgage turmoil. Goldman Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein, speaking at a conference held by Merrill Lynch & Co., said the bank has a short position in the subprime mortgage market and won’t be taking any significant charges to write off losses.Goldman’s news helped offset an announcement from Bank of America Corp., which joined other big financial companies including Citigroup Inc.

India moving to a more open capital account - Montek

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India is clearly heading towards a more open capital account and there was no question that more financial sector reforms are necessary, a top government official said in an interview published on Friday.

And while the pace of growth in recent years had surprised, average growth may only slightly increase to 9 percent over the next five years because of some cyclical correction, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the deputy chairman of India's Planning Commission, told the McKinsey Quarterly Review.

"We're clearly heading toward a more open capital account, but we're not doing it in one go," he said.

"There are people who argue that government should declare that it would remove all capital controls in a defined, relatively short period -- say, one or two years.

The hunt for the invisible man

In 1971 a man hijacked an airliner, demanded $200,000, and jumped out somewhere over Washington state — and straight into American folklore. The FBI investigated nearly 1,000 suspects and drew a blank. But now they may have finally cracked the case .

ICICI Bank to shrink retail lending share

The $79-billion ICICI Bank, the country's second-largest bank, is set to witness a significant shift in its business portfolio, as corporate lending sees an upswing and retail lending slows following a tightening of interest rates. Over the next two to three years, the bank will reduce the retail component from 70% to around 50%, or even lower. The retail portfolio of the bank grew from 0-70% in seven years.

In an exclusive interview with FE, ICICI Bank MD & CEO K Vaman Kamath said this shift would be accelerated on account of the sharp increase in corporate lending. Kamath said growth in retail lending was invariably set to be tempered owing chiefly to the higher base.

The subsequent hikes in interest rates have also had an effect on retail loans and Kamath said going forward, it was difficult to take a view of more than three to six months on the interest rate scenario.

(AFX UK Focus) 2007-11-18 10:49 GMT: G20 MEETING Mbeki urges substantial reforms of IMF, World Bank

KLEINMOND, South Africa (Thomson Financial) - Thabo Mbeki, the president of South Africa, put his weight behind efforts to reform the IMF and the World Bank substantially.

Addressing the G20 finance ministers and central bankers, Mbeki said the world's financial system, laid out in the Breton Woods arrangements after the war, have only served the minority interests of the world's leading economic powers.

"For a very long period we have had a multilateral system which in reality has been dominated of the many by the few," he said.

The world though, said Mbeki, needs this system to take into account the impact of globalisation, trade and investment openness and the appearance of some fast-growing emerging market economies.

Mbeki noted the 19 nations represented, plus the European Central Bank, represent nearly 90 pct of the global economy and two thirds of the world's population and trade, making the G20 the world's "pre-eminent global financial and economic forum".