Paris - Badly stung by the financial crisis, the French mutual banking group Banque Populaire said Thursday it had lost 468 million euros (598 million dollars) in 2008, its first loss in decades.

Turnover for Banque Populaire was down 17.8 per cent over 2007, to 1.1 billion euros, the bank said in a press statement.

Basel - Sarasin and Cie, a private Swiss bank, said Thursday its adjusted net profits in 2008 were 114.4 million Swiss francs (98.2 million dollars), down from 173.5 million the previous year.

The bank said it had an "impressive" new money inflow of 14.5 billion francs in 2008, a 30 per cent increase over 2007. Just over half of the new money came in during the later part of the year.

At the end of 2008, Sarasin managed client assets totalling 69.7 billion, a drop of 16 per cent compared to the previous year, attributed to overall market conditions.

ICICI Bank has seen a slight increase in demand for loans from the small and medium enterprise (SME) segment over the last few weeks. “The stimulus package could be a possible reason that SME lending is showing signs of revival. However, we will continue to be cautious in our lending to the segment,” said Sanjeev Mantri, general manager, ICICI Bank, on the sidelines of the nationwide ICICI SME CEOs Knowledge Series programme held in Bangalore on Wednesday. Mantri, however, refused to elaborate on the quantum of growth.

London  - The British government Thursday defended its renewed large-scale intervention to secure the survival of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) which has announced record losses of 24.1 billion pounds (34.7 billion dollars).

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said by offering a massive asset insurance scheme of 325 billion pounds to RBS, the government "recognized the fact that banks need to clean up their balance sheets."

Zurich - The embattled Swiss banking giant UBS announced Thursday it appointed a new chief executive officer to replace Marcel Rohner, who resigned, at the top of the company.

"This represents a further step to restore stakeholder confidence and to pave the way back to success," UBS said in a statement.

The bank's board of directors said it appointed Oswald J. Grubel to the position of CEO with immediate effect. Grubel for decades worked at Credit Suisse, the second largest Swiss bank behind UBS.

London - Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Thursday confirmed it had made record losses of 24.1 billion pounds (34.7 billion dollars) in 2008, believed to be the biggest in British corporate history.

RBS, which had to be bailed out by the government last year, also announced a major restructuring programme focussed on placing
325 billion pounds of so-called toxic assets into a scheme that offers insurance against any future losses.