Banks, Hsbc | featured news

HSBC Holdings Plc agreed to pay $249 million to end a case-by-case review of past foreclosures in the U.S., regulators announced on Friday.

HSBC, the British banking giant, will pay $1.9 billion to settle a money-laundering probe by federal and state authorities in the United States, a law enforcement official said Monday.

US prosecutors are looking into whether British bank HSBC was involved in laundering money for Mexican drug cartels and moving cash for Saudi Arabian banks with ties to terrorists, The New York Times reported Saturday.

A "pervasively polluted" culture at HSBC Holdings Plc allowed the bank to act as financier to clients seeking to route shadowy funds from the world's most dangerous and secretive corners, including Mexico, Iran,the Cayman Islands, Saudi Arabia and Syria, according to a scathing U.S. Senate report issued on Monday.

Moody's Investors Service lowered the credit ratings of 15 major banks Thursday, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, saying their long-term prospects for profitability and growth are shrinking. The ratings agency said it was especially concerned about banks with significant financial markets businesses because those markets have become so volatile. Some of the largest European banks were also downgraded, including Barclays, Deutsche Bank and HSBC.

HSBC Holdings PLC is under investigation by a Senate panel in a money-laundering inquiry, the latest step in a long-running U.S. effort to halt shadowy money flows through global banks, according to people familiar with the situation and a company securities filing.

Online banking services for HSBC customers in the UK have been hit by a problem and some ATMs are not working, the bank confirms.

British banking group HSBC said Monday it will cut 30,000 jobs worldwide by 2013 and sell almost half its retail bank branches in the U.S., part of a new strategy to focus on fast-growing emerging markets.

Banking group HSBC Holdings Plc may cut more than 10,000 jobs as part of its plan to slash costs by up to $3.5 billion a year, Sky News reported Thursday.

HSBC said that it is to cut around 700 jobs from its retail-banking operations in the U.K., ahead of major regulatory reforms that are set to affect the domestic industry's advisory business.