Washington - The Treasury Department was expected to announced later Tuesday that it will buy stakes worth a total of 250 billion dollars in nine major US banks in a further effort to stabilize financial markets.

Numerous reports citing both banking industry sources and government officials had an announcement expected before Tuesday's US stock market opening on Wall Street.

European governments on Monday announced plans to take similar bank stakes.

The partial ownership of top banks would reverse an earlier position of US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who last month rejected any de facto partial nationalization of banks.

A 700-billion-dollar plan to buy up mortgage securities and other troubled assets was signed into law on October 3, but the programme has yet to get underway. (dpa)