Sydney - Australian banks Tuesday pulled the rug from under debt-laden local leveraged buy-out specialist Allco Finance Group.
Receivers were appointed for Allco and its shares placed in a trading halt after talks with the 12 banks failed to reach agreement on a repayment schedule for debts of 667 million Australian dollars (446 million US dollars).
The share price had tumbled from an all-time high of 13 Australian dollars in February 2007 to just 14 Australian cents.
Allco, one of the highest profile local victims of the credit crunch, two years ago was the leader of a failed leverage buy-out of national carrier Qantas Airways.
The cut in cash reserve ratio (CRR) and statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) by the RBI is seen by experts as a positive move while financial entities Goldman Sachs and Citigroup Global stated that more needs to be done. The reserve bank of India, on Saturday, cut mandatory cash deposits, banks need to keep with the RBI by 100 basis points (bps) and the short term lending rate by 50 basis points. 
Public sector lender UCO Bank has notified that it would cut prime lending rate by 50 basis points by next week.
US credit card and banking giant, American Express is likely to start retrenchment drive in India and other locations. It would retrench about 10 percent workforce, cutting around 7,000 jobs. The staff would be eliminated in all business units, including markets and staff groups. Some staff in its Indian operations is also likely to be laid off.
SBI Card would release a financial package for defaulting clients. SBI card is the joint venture company of State Bank of India and GE Money. SBI card intends to help those customers who have been good at repaying in the past, but have failed to repay following the turbulent global financial conditions. The company said that it would restructure its card-portfolio to check further defaults.
