Amsterdam  - Dutch bank and insurance company ING Group suffered a loss of 3.7 billion euros (4.67 billion dollars) in 2008, the company said in its final Q4 report published on Wednesday.

Last year in the same period, ING still made a profit of 2.4 billion euros.

Net loss for all of 2008 amounted to 729 million euros, compared with a net profit of 9.2 billion euros for 2007.

Singapore  - Singapore's Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) on Wednesday posted a 30-per-cent drop in net profit for the fourth quarter of 2008.

Net profit from October to December fell to 301 million Singapore dollars (197 million US dollars) from 428 million Singapore dollars during the same period in 2007, the bank reported.

Stock market analysts have suggested investors to ‘sell’ SBI stock as there are full chances of a downward trend in this stock.

According to them, investors can sell the stock with a strict stop loss of Rs 1121 to achieve an intraday target of Rs 1082.

Analysts feel that SBI stock would remain under high pressure due to existing market condition. The stock also remained weak on Tuesday (Feb 17), closing below its 21-day moving average.

London - Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Tuesday announced a drastic cut in bonus payments to staff, following intensive talks with the government on the vexed issue of cash bonuses.

The Edinburgh-based bank, which is nearly 70-per-cent-owned by the taxpayer, said it would slash 2008 staff bonuses by more than 90 per cent to 175 million pounds (249 million dollars).

Last year, RBS paid out 2.5 billion in bonuses for work performed in 2007. For 2008, it had planned to award bonuses totalling around 1 billion pounds.

Amsterdam  - Dutch insurer Aegon suffered a loss of 1.2 billion euros (1.53 billion dollars) in the fourth quarter of 2009, the company said in its preliminary Q4 report released on Tuesday.

Financial analysts had expected a loss of 800 million euros.

Following the publication of the results, the share value of Aegon dropped by 3.1 per cent at the Amsterdam stock exchange and stood at 3.6 euros shortly after trading began on Tuesday.

Warsaw - Poland's National Bank warned on Monday against moving closer to adopting the euro, saying that at present there were few economic reasons to enter the precursory stage for adopting the euro.

It was "highly uncertain" that Poland could meet the criteria to stay in ERM-2, a pre-cursor program to joining the eurozone, said the report, released on Monday.

A qualifying country is required to spend at least two years in ERM-2 and run a budget deficit at no more than 3 per cent of the GDP.