Banking on Mitigation

Although the Clean Water Act protects U.S. wetlands, every year thousands of acres of swamps and marshes are legally destroyed and converted into golf courses, shopping malls and other forms of dry, lucrative ground. Since 1989, the goal of wetlands policy has been to achieve "no net loss," but that remains an elusive target. Under current guidelines, developers whose projects will impinge on natural wetlands can receive permits allowing construction in return for agreeing to offset the damage through a process known as compensatory mitigation. The two most common forms of this practice are individual mitigation, in which developers build compensatory wetlands themselves, and mitigation banking, in which developers purchase credits from companies (mitigation banks) that have restored or created wetlands nearby.

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AIM-TO announces interface w/ Australian Investment Bank

HedgeCo.net -- New York, NY (January 17, 2007) AIM-TO announce a successful launch of a new version of their post-trade, operation reporting and risk management platform VerusHedge. The new version of the software has a specialized interface with Australia’s leading Prime Broker - Macquarie Bank. John Vaughan, President and Founder of AIM-TO responds: "Our Company has a "service excellence" culture. One of our emerging markets customers brought us a requirement to work closely with Australia’s leading prime broker, Macquarie Bank. Our team was able to leverage VerusHedge‘s advanced data messaging services and advanced security master to quickly adapt to the Australian bank’s systems" Stephen Casner, CEO of AIM-TO said, "While VerusHedge has always interacted with the largest and best prime brokers in the United States, it is exciting to see our clients ask us to interact with Austral-Asia investment banks. It is even better to watch our technology rapidly deliver those solutions with no interruption or disruption to our current client’s operations." About AIM-TO AIM-TO Inc, is a leading provider of Alternative Investment Management Technology Outsourcing solutions, offering the latest post trade operations and risk management system for specialized and multi-strategy Hedge Funds.

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Nanyang Commercial Bank applies to be incorporated in China

Feb. 2, 2007 (China Knowledge) – The Nanyang Commercial Bank, a subsidiary of the Bank of China (Hong Kong) Ltd., has submitted an application to locally incorporate in the China mainland. The bank is applying to transform its branches into locally incorporated banks registered in the mainland. If approved, the bank will mainly provide RMB retail services. The Bank of China (Hong Kong) Ltd., as an overseas-funded bank, will continue to focus on corporate banking in the Mainland. So far, nine banks have been approved by the authorities to incorporate in China. They are: HSBC, Citigroup, Standard Chartered Bank, Bank of East Asia Ltd., Hang Seng Bank Ltd., Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd., Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd., DBS Bank Ltd. and ABN Amro Bank NV. China has ruled that foreign banks that do not incorporate in China will face restrictions like being only allowed deal with single deposits less than RMB 1 million while the foreign banks incorporated in China with a registered capital of RMB 1 billion or more get to offer a full array of retail RMB services to the Chinese people.

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113 bribery cases uncovered in China's banking sector last year

A team of bank inspectors uncovered 113 cases of bribery in China's banking industry last year, involving 164 people and 26.08 million yuan (3.3 million U.S. dollars). The team, which was formed in February last year to clamp down briberies in the country's banking industry, said in its report on Tuesday. Most of the cases have been tried, said the team which was set up by the China Banking Regulatory Commission. A number of bank crimes have rocked the banking industry in recent years, as China reforms its state-owned banks, which had management loopholes and weak risk-control mechanisms. Last year the former president of China Construction Bank (CCB), Zhang Enzhao, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for taking bribes totaling more than four million yuan (500,000 U.S.

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Investment bank races apps around the grid

Banking giant Merrill Lynch is using grid technologies to boost the performance of its applications, with some now running four times faster than before. Juan Lando, director of the company's grid centre of expertise, said grid is a technology with "tremendous amounts of benefit" for the business. Grid allows companies to get more use out of their existing hardware. For example, a business might hit four or five peaks in demand for computing power in a day, and so would buy enough processing power - hardware - to make sure it could cope with those peaks. But that could mean a lot of spare capacity sits unused most of the time. Grid allows organisations to share that computing power - both in servers and desktops - and so reduce that waste. silicon.com Financial Services Get the latest financial services news straight to your inbox.

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Commercial Loan - Broker Or Bank?

There is an estimated 5.2 million commercial properties within the UK. The commercial property market expanded by over 32 per cent during 1990-2000 (according to the new products started) compared with the previous decade, in itself a decade of exceptional growth. Bank lending for commercial property deals rose by a record £7.7 billion in the first quarter of 2005, according to data provided by the Bank of England, and property experts believe the bulk of the new lending was for investment purchases. There has also been a substantial rise in the number of investors looking to buy commercial properties to put into Self Invested Personal Pension Schemes. Property investment funds received a boost as of late last year after the Government announced plans to allow them to be included in an ISA (Individual Savings Account) wrapper.

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Banking on bonds

Montgomery isn't the Big Apple when it comes to size but it can hold its own in the world of high finance. Every year investment banking firms in Montgomery underwrite billions of dollars in bonds to finance everything from road projects to school improvements, an immensely powerful industry that has deep roots in this city. "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money." Montgomery's investment bankers know well that quip of former Sen. Everett M. Dirksen. Their bond deals usually come in bite-sized pieces of $40 million to $100 million, a vast wealth for most but just another day at the office for these power bankers. Added together they total billions of dollars. Two Montgomery firms said they recorded all-time high sales last year, a sign that the area's investment banking sector continues to succeed in this highly competitive industry, even as local firms bump against the giants of Wall Street.

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