That there is an apparent slide in deposit rates has become all the more obvious with two of India’s leading public sector banks – State Bank of India (SBI) and IDBI Bank – slashing their deposit rates, with the revised rates taking effect from April 13. The state-owned IDBI Bank also intends cutting its yardstick prime lending rate (BPLR) from April 15 onwards.

Riga - The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) confirmed Tuesday that it will buy a quarter stake in nationalised Latvian bank Parex.

The EBRD said it would acquire "25 per cent plus 1" of ordinary shares of Parex Bank for 84.2 million euros (111 million dollars) and extend a "subordinated loan" of 22 million euros (29 million dollars).

In the statement, the EBRD said the deal was subject to "the conclusion of legal documentation."

London  - Britain's troubled Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Tuesday announced 9,000 job losses in addition to 2,700 staff cuts already planned for this year following its emergency bail-out by the government last October.

RBS, in which the state has a share of more than 70 per cent, said half of the new additional job cuts would be made in Britain over the next two years, affecting back office and technical staff.

Zurich  - The Swiss banking giant UBS was preventing some 1,000 of its wealth management personnel from leaving the country owing to legal concerns, local media reported Sunday.

Those advisers can longer visit their clients abroad and if a meeting is needed, it would have to take place in Switzerland.

Spokespersons for the bank said travel abroad to meet clients in the cross-border wealth management division had been suspended.

Zurich  - The embattled Swiss banking giant UBS completed Friday the transfer of its toxic assets to the Swiss National Bank. The bank would take a
300-million-dollar charge in the first quarter for the transfer.

The new transfer of 22.2 billion dollars of securities, loans and derivatives would give the stabilization fund, set up by the central bank as part of a bailout for UBS, a total volume of assets of 38.7 billion dollars.

Vienna  - Julius Meinl V, the owner of Austrian private bank Meinl Bank AG, was detained on charges of defrauding investors, Austrian media said Thursday.

Meinl, 49, was detained Wednesday evening after being interviewed by prosecutors over irregularities regarding three companies set up by the bank, Format, a weekly business magazine, reported.

"Julius Meinl was detained because of the danger of flight" Gerhard Jarosch, the spokesman of Vienna's prosecution office, was quoted as saying.