Berlin - Deutsche Bank is to pay up to 2.7 billion euros (3.8 billion dollars) for a stake of almost 30 per cent in Deutsche Postbank, valuing it at some 9 billion euros, according to reports in Friday's German press.

According to information received by Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, Deutsche Post, Postbank's parent company, would receive "more than 2.5 billion euros" for 29.75 per cent of the shares.

The Bank of Rajasthan (BoR) has exposed that it has clinched a memorandum of

Maputo  - Mozambique's government announced this week incentives for banks to expand their services into rural areas where millions of people have yet to open a bank account.

Mozambique's President Armando Guebuza made the announcement Wednesday at the inauguration of Banco Terra, a new donor-backed bank focusing on agriculture.

Guebuza said the move to extend the banking network was in response to a boost in economic activity in rural areas as a result of increased agricultural production and productivity.

More and more cash is circulating in around the countryside but only 36 out of 128 Mozambican districts have access to the banking network.

Wellington  - New Zealand's central bank cut its benchmark interest rate from 8 per cent to 7.5 per cent on Thursday, its second drop in seven weeks after making no reductions for five years.

The Reserve Bank had cut its Official Cash Rate (OCR) to 8 per cent on July 24 after keeping it at 8.25 per cent - one of the highest in the developed world - for 12 months, in a bid to contain inflation within its target range of 1 to 3 per cent.

New York - The US fourth-largest investment bank Lehman Brothers announced Wednesday in New York a preliminary third-quarter loss of a 3.9 billion dollars, in a continuation of the company's financial woes.

The loss compares to an 877 million-dollar profit in the same quarter in 2007.

The company also announced a radical restructuring plan that would include drastic reduction of its annual dividend payment and the selling of its majority stake in its investment management business in order to acquire billions of urgently-needed capital.

Job losses are also on the table, it said.

Frankfurt - Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, stuck Wednesday to his optimistic prediction that the world financial crisis will be over soon.

His remarks at a conference in Frankfurt contrasted with the more pessimistic Eurozone outlook the same day in Brussels from European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet.

Ackermann told a gathering organized by the German newspaper Handelsblatt that the end of the downturn was becoming more tangible: "We see a stabilization.