London - Britain's biggest mortgage lender Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) confirmed Wednesday that it was in "advanced merger talks" with leading bank Lloyds TSB.

Prague - German bank Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg (LBBW) said it has entered the Czech market Wednesday through a takeover of a subsidiary of Austria's BAWAG Bank in the Czech Republic.

Principal Mutual Fund has made announcement that the company has inked an alliance deal with United Bank of India, a leading public sector bank, for distribution of its products through the bank’s branch network.

Frankfurt  - The European Central Bank was joined by the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan in pumping more than 150 billion dollars into financial markets in attempts to stem the tide in the fallout from the US credit crunch.

The ECB on Tuesday pumped 70 billion euros (99.9 billion dollars) into financial institutions, in addition to the 30 billion euros that it provided on Monday.

Stockholm/Oslo  - The Oslo bourse on Tuesday afternoon hit an annual low before rebounding on the news that US Federal Reserve had injected 50 billion dollars of reserves into the banking system.

The Oslo index was down almost 9 per cent before clawing back, and with less than a half hour of the trading session was down 4.3 per cent.

Shares in oil companies including state-controlled Statoil Hydro were impacted as crude prices declined.

Taipei  - Taiwan on Tuesday suspended the operations of the local unit of the investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc and said it might help Taiwan investors seek damages from its US-based parent company.

On the order of the Financial Supervisory Commission, investigators went to Lehman Brothers' Taipei office to check the company's financial records.

The commission ordered the Taiwan office to suspend operations until the parent company's financial crisis is over.