Stockholm  - Stockholm-based Carnegie Investment Bank AB on Monday unveiled plans to issue new shares worth 1.2 billion kronor (151 million dollars).

The announcement came shortly the board of the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) was to meet to decide on possible sanctions against Carnegie.

Carnegie has been under review after it disclosed a writedown of 1 billion kronor over "an individual credit commitment" in its recent third-quarter report.

The new issue consisted of two parts of which 400 million kronor was for a new shareholder and the rest to current owners, the investment bank said.

The new issue hinged on Carnegie keeping its licences to operate.

Riga - Latvia's largest

Riga - Latvia's largest indigenous bank, Parex Banka, confirmed that it was seeking government help in what amounts to a partial nationalization in a surprise move on Sunday morning.

Parex Banka is the second largest bank overall in the Baltic country. It posted profits of more than 12 million lats (22 million dollars) in the first nine months of 2008.

A statement released by Parex in the early hours of Sunday morning said, "In accordance with the terms of the agreement between the bank and the Latvian state, 51 per cent of Parex Banka's shares are being sold to the state."

New York  - Two more regional US banks - in California and Texas - have collapsed amidst the worst finance crisis since the Great Depression, bringing to 19 the total number of US banks that have gone under in this year alone.

More collapses are expected among the nation's 8,400 banks. The US mortgage crisis, which has seen more than 3 million homes foreclosed since the crisis began in late 2006, has crimped shut credit flow worldwide and prompted unprecedented global government interventions in the private sector.

The latest two victims were the Houston-based Franklin Bank and the smaller Los Angeles-based Security Pacific Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said.

Singapore  - DBS Group, Singapore's largest bank, announced 900 jobs cuts after it suffered a sharp drop in third quarter profit, a news report said Saturday.

About half of the retrenchments, which amount to 6 per cent of the company's total staff will affect its Singapore operations, a report by the Straits Times newspaper said. The cuts are to be carried out before Christmas, the report added.

DBS employs 7,600 staff in Singapore and 4,200 in Hong Kong, which will also be affected by the cuts.

The Bank of England’ s monetary policy group has slashed the official bank rate paid on commercial bank reserves by 1.5% points to 3%.