Seoul - Britains's HSBC Holdings Plc said Friday it has withdrawn from a deal to buy a 51 per cent stake in Korea Exchange Bank (KEB), due to falling asset values amid the global credit crisis.

"Taking into account all relevant factors including current asset values in world financial markets... HSBC Asia exercised its right to terminate the acquisition agreement with immediate effect," the bank said in a statement.

A year ago HSBC agreed to buy KEB, Korea's fifth largest lender, for 6.3 million dollars from US buyout fund Lone Star Funds, but the deal has been stalled over legal disputes stemming from the Lone Star's 2003 purchase of KEB.

Berlin  - The German government's own bank, KfW, suspended two top executive officers from their duties Thursday after blunders that lost KfW 770 million dollars in the Lehman Brothers failure.

In the worst blunder, KfW deposited 350 million euros with Lehman on Monday, just hours before Lehmann declared itself insolvent, although the Lehman failure had been Sunday's top world news story.

London  - Britain's Lloyds TSB Bank agreed Thursday to take over ailing mortgage lender HBOS in a giant merger sparked by the escalating market turmoil following the collapse of US Lehman Brothers this week.

The mammoth deal, backed by the government, is widely seen as a rescue operation for HBOS, Britain's biggest mortgage lender, and comes amid a near-unprecedented week of financial turmoil which saw a run on the group's shares.

Paris - Buoyed by the intervention of major central

Frankfurt - Six major central banks pumped billions of US dollars of extra short-term credit into the world's financial markets Thursday, amid fears that this week's crisis was drying up liquidity.

European share prices steadied after the joint operation, which was triggered by the growing reluctance of commercial banks to lend one another money in a week where one financial institution after another has succumbed.

Frankfurt  - German bank Commerzbank affirmed Thursday its plans to take over Dresdner Bank, rejecting speculation that earlier hit the Commerzbank share price.

Insurance group Allianz, the current owner of Dresdner, also said the deal was still intact.

"There has been no change to the plan," an Allianz spokeswoman told the dpa-AFX financial news wire in Germany. A Commerzbank spokesman said the merger would proceed "as planned."

Allianz stock was trading at 92.35 euros, down 2.4 per cent, just after noon on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Commerzbank bounced back from the morning speculation, trading at 14.17 euros, up 5.1 per cent.