Barcelona, Spain - A Spanish opponent of capitalism defrauded 39 banks of 492,000 euros (699,820 dollars) to "denounce the banking system," media reported Wednesday.

Enric Duran, 32, sought credits for buying a flat, a car or for investments by companies which only existed in name.

He gave false information about his profession and income without being discovered by the banks' security filters, the daily El Mundo reported.

Duran used the credits to launch a magazine called "Crisis. Free publication to survive economic turbulences," which was being distributed Wednesday in the Barcelona area.

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.