London  - Shares in leading British banks made a come-back Monday after a nine-day losing streak prompted by fears over the extent of losses and undeclared so-called bad debt.

Barclays led the recovery with a 73-per-cent rise in its share price which closed at 88.7 pence on the London Stock Exchange Monday, compared with 51 pence Friday.

Shares in Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and HSBC all rose Monday, after being dragged down last week by the revelation that Edinburgh-based RBS was expecting record losses for for 2008.

Union Bank has revealed that it aims to open 500 new branches over the coming six months. According to sources, the rapid growth of the bank has led to opportunities in career progression within the bank.

The sources further added that the lender has proposals to employ 1600 officers, of which 800 will be through campus recruitment and the bank has short listed 25 institutes, including some of the top management schools to conduct the process.

India's major public sector lender State Bank of India (SBI) has reported a 37% surge in its standalone net profit for the three month period ended December 31, 2008.

The bank has posted a net profit of Rs 2,478.42 crore as compared to Rs 1,808.64 crore for the same quarter year-ago (Dec 2007).

In a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange, SBI informed that its total income for the quarter ended December 31, 2008 zoomed to Rs 21,255.90 crore as compared to Rs
15,364 crore during the corresponding quarter of the last year.

New York  - After crushing quarterly losses of 15.4 billion dollars, John Thain, the one-time head of Merrill Lynch, Thursday stepped down from head of the brokerage that was rescued by Bank of America in 2008.

Bank of America named Brian Moynihan to replace him, a top manager for the bank.

Thain negotiated Merrill's 50-billion-dollar sale to Bank of America in September, amidst the dizzying and urgent efforts to keep US financial institutions afloat amidst the plunging mortgage crisis.

A decline by 64% in the net profit of Kotak Mahindra Bank to Rs 130.9 crore for the quarter ended December 2008 compared to the year-ago period was reported by the bank today.

Due to weak liquidity and lower advances, the quarter registered fall in the total income of the bank. Total income fell by 32.14 per cent to Rs 1,684.75 crore during the quarter under consideration, from Rs 2,482.72 crore in the same period.

Housing finance giant, HDFC announced financial results for the third quarter of the current financial year. It reported 15 per cent rise in net profit which stands at Rs 542 crore as compared to Rs 471.9 crore in the same quarter last year.

It should be recalled that gain made through the sale of shares in HDFC Standard Life in Q3 of the previous fiscal has not been included while calculating net profit.