The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Thursday that the flow of credit from scheduled commercial banks has increased between April and June 20 this year. The credit flow has increased by 25.4% during this period. The growth is slower than the corresponding period of last year.

The rise in credit is due to high demand from public sector oil firms. The oil firms are under-recovery due to subsidy on oil products. They are forced to sell petroleum products at the rate below the prevailing global rates.

Hong Kong - HSBC has lost a digital tape containing 25,000 recorded phone conversations with bank customers in Hong Kong, a news report said Friday.

The tape, containing calls made in April mostly about credit cards and internet banking, was one of 55 tapes sent by courier from HSBC's service centre in southern China to Hong Kong in June.

The tape was found to be missing two days later and an investigation has been launched into whether sensitive customer data has been compromised, the South China Morning Post reported.

The bank insisted the tape was encoded and access to its contents would require specialized hardware and software, making the list of customers' personal details being used for fraud low.

Vienna - The Austrian daughter of Italian bank UniCredit will cut 570 jobs over the next three years as part of a plan to reduce the group's total workforce by 9,000 by 2010, Bank Austria announced

Indian operations of Citi bank have doubled profit for the year ended March 31, 2008. The bank has gained 100% profit rise notwithstanding sub prime crisis.

Dusseldorf - Germany's IKB Industriebank AG, which has one of the nation's prominent casualties of the subprime crisis, reported Thursday a lower-than-expected loss as a tax benefit helped the gro