By Boris Groendahl (Reuters) The European Union needs to coordinate deposit guarantees and a possible system of bank rescue funds, European Central Bank governing council member Ewald Nowotny told Reuters in a phone interview on Thursday. Nowotny said he did not believe an EU-wide fund to support banks in trouble was a possible way to
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The European Central Bank kept interest rates unchanged on Thursday but discussed a cut as financial market turmoil and slowing economic growth has caused inflation risks to ease, ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said. "With the weakening of demand, upside risks to price stability have diminished somewhat, but they have not disappeared," Trichet told his monthly
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Nokia, the world's top mobile phone maker, will launch its free music package on Thursday, issuing a challenge to Apple's dominance of the digital music market. Nokia is expected to unveil more details of its "Comes with Music" package at an analyst and media event in London. The Finnish firm will also launch its first
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Reuters The fate of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan is now in the hands of the House of Representatives and leaders are cautiously hopeful that Congress can complete action on it this week. The Senate passed the bill by a 74-25 vote on Wednesday after adding provisions to make it more attractive to
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Cyta, which previously was short for Cyprus Telecommunications Authority is the new brand name of Cyprus’ state-owned telecom, which has relaunched itself with a new logo, identity and soon to come product range. Cyta Chairman Stavros Kremmos said the telecom giant is turning a new page in its history, promising to offer new products and
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Cyprus can easily and immediately make available up to EUR 2 bln in emergency funds to support the island’s banking system, if there is such a need, even though Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis insists that the banking system here is safe. “Having reduced public debt from 60% of GDP to 48% or by 10 basis
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Greece's largest toy retailer, Jumbo said sales for the fiscal first quarter to end-September were seen rising by about 20 percent, despite current market turmoil. Last month, Jumbo reported a 21.5 percent rise in net profit for its fiscal year to end-June to 82.5 million euros. Sales in the same period rose 17.9 percent to
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Greece's fourth largest lender, Bank of Piraeus will post "positive" results for the nine-month period, its president said. Michael Sallas also shot down media reports that the bank was facing liquidity problems in the wake of the global credit crunch, as the Greek banking sector was not exposed to so-called "toxic bonds." "Piraeus has high
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Marfin Investment Group (MIG) will not make a bid to buy Bank of Piraeus or Bank of Cyprus, MIG's Executive Vice-Chairman Andreas Vgenopoulos said on Wednesday. "At this point, there are two cases … that are out of reach (for a purchase by MIG): one is Bank of Cyprus, where the country's regulatory authority won't
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Hellenic Bank Public Company Ltd (HB.CY) announced that on 30 September 2008, letters regarding the option of reinvestment of dividends have been sent to shareholders who haven’t yet given directions related to the reinvestment of their dividends. According to the announcement, the additional shares from the reinvestment of dividends will be allocated with a discount
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