Washington - Financial shares led a sharp drop Monday on Wall Street after news of the collapse of a small bank in Kansas fed continuing worries about bad loans still on the books of companies in the sector.

Columbian Bank & Trust Co, based in Kansas, became the ninth federally insured bank to fail this year in the United States, a symptom of the continuing repercussions of the US mortgage crisis, which has plagued Wall Street since the deflation of a housing price bubble last year.

Frankfurt  - Germany could be on the brink of a major shakeout in its fragmented banking industry with investors betting Monday on an announcement this week of an 8-billion-euro (12 billion-dollar) merger between two of the nation's leading banks.

Indeed, shares in Allianz SE jumped more than 1.0 per cent in early trading Monday on speculation that the German giant insurer could announce this week a deal to merge its troubled banking offshoot Frankfurt-based Dresdner with cross-town rival Commerzbank AG.

New-age private lender Yes Bank and networking giant Cisco have introduced ‘Yes touch phone-banking services’, a speech-enabled voice recognition facility for the first time in the Indian financial services sector.

With the latest facility, the bank's customers will now be able to access their accounts 24X7 that will support business-related queries and transactions.

Private sector lender IndusInd Bank has entered into a securitization deal in microfinance worth Rs 150 crore with SKS Microfinance, which will help the private sector bank to foray into agri-products as well as microfinance.

Under the transaction, SKS Microfinance offered a pool of assets to IndusInd Bank.

The deal would be executed in two phases. The first tranche of the Rs 100-crore was closed on July 29 and the second tranche is expected to conclude in February next year.

Stockholm - Swedish senior citizens have reacted angrily after a newspaper disclosed that several banks have upper age limits for loans or credit cards.