WASHINGTON: Bank of America agreed yesterday to a record nearly $17 billion deal with US authorities to settle claims it sold risky mortgage securities as safe investments ahead of the 2008 financial crisis, reports AFP.

Under the settlement with the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other authorities including individual states, the bank will pay out $9.65 billion in cash and provide $7.0 billion in relief to consumers affected by losses tied to those securities.

The long-negotiated deal resolves a number of civil investigations against the bank and subsidiaries Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch, which it took over during the crisis.

“We believe this settlement, which resolves significant remaining mortgage- related exposures, is in the best interests of our shareholders, and allows us to continue to focus on the future,” the bank’s chief executive Brian Moynihan said in a statement.

But the deal does not resolve potential criminal cases, especially involving Countrywide, once the country’s largest home-loan issuer, and Countrywide officials.

According to media reports Thursday, prosecutors are building a case against Angelo Mozilo, who in the 2000s built Countrywide into one of the most powerful forces in the US mortgage industry.

Countrywide, acquired by Bank of America in late 2008, is accused of massive issuance of poorly documented, highly risky “subprime” loans that went into default en masse amid the housing market crash.

The settlement took aim at hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of low- quality home mortgages issued and pooled into securities that were sold to investors by the bank, Merrill Lynch and Countrywide as high-quality investments.

Authorities pointed out how the residential mortgage-backed

securities (RMBS) plummeted in value as the housing market bubble burst in 2006- 2007, and many of the mortgages in the bonds, often more than half, soured, causing investors huge losses.

News:Daily Sun/23-Aug-2014

 Prime Bank Limited signed an agreement with MJL Bangladesh Limited aiming at availing cash discounts on different products of Mobil-I for the bank’s clients and employees.

Md Ehsan Khasru, Managing Director and CEO of Prime Bank, and Kh Md Sanaul Haque, CEO of MJL Bangladesh, signed an agreement on behalf of their respective organisations at the bank’s head office in Dhaka on Wednesday, said a press release.

As per the agreement, MJL Bangladesh provided 20,000 discount coupons worth Taka sixty lakh to distribute among the clients and employees of Prime Bank Limited.

The coupon holders will get cash discount of Tk 300 for purchasing 4 litres can of Mobil-I, 5W-50 silver and golden products of MJL Bangladesh. 

News:Daily Sun/22-Aug-2014

NEW DELHI: The World Bank’s private sector financing arm said yesterday it would raise $2.5 billion in Indian rupee- denominated bonds to fund much-needed infrastructure projects across the country, reports AFP.

The debt sale by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the largest global development institution focused on the private sector, marks one of India’s biggest-ever financing offers.

The proceeds of the bond sale will be used to help finance India’s ambitious infrastructure programme to overhaul its shabby roads, ports and airports among other projects.

India requires big investment to carry out the planned infrastructure programme, expected to cost around $1 trillion in the five years to 2017.

But a shallow bond market and lack of other longterm financing have hampered efforts to raise the necessary money.

Leading Indian financial daily, The Economic Times, called the bumper debt sale a “vote of confidence in the Indian economy” under the country’s new right-wing premier Narendra Modi.

News:Daily Sun/22-Aug-2014

 City Bank Limited recently signed agreements with some banks and financial institutions on issuing Coupon-Bearing Subordinated Bond worth Tk 3 billion.

IDLC Finance Limited is the arranger of the issue, said a press release issued on Thursday.

The issue will enhance Tier-II capital of The City Bank Limited following “Guideline of Risk-Based Capital Adequacy” of Bangladesh Bank and therefore ultimately increase issuer’s Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), the press release said.

Mercantile Bank, Brac Bank, Meghna Bank, IDLC Finance, NRB Bank, NRB Commercial Bank, Pubali Bank, SABINCO, Dhaka Bank and United Leasing Company are the subscribers of the bond.

Fauk M. Ahmed, Acting Managing Director of The City Bank Limited, Selim R. F. Hussain, CEO and Managing Director of IDLC Finance Ltd and senior executives of subscriber banks and financial institutions signed the agreements on behalf of their organisations.

News:Daily Sun/22-Aug-2014

BASIC Bank disbursed more than Tk4,500 crore in loans