Business - Banking Industry

EDINBURGH, Scotland - Royal Bank of Scotland PLC Chief Executive Stephen Hester lashed out at "political interference" in the partly nationalized bank as shareholders met to approve its participation in a government asset protection program on Tuesday. Full Story »

NEW YORK - At least two analysts upgraded Wells Fargo & Co. Tuesday, a day after the national bank said it would repay $25 billion in bailout money. Full Story »

VIENNA - Austria's justice ministry says an investigation has been launched to clarify the circumstances surrounding the near demise of troubled financial institution Hypo Alpe Adria. Full Story »

NEW YORK - The last two major national banks are returning $45 billion in aid to taxpayers, marking the latest step toward recovery for the U.S. financial system. Full Story »

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc and Wells Fargo & Co said they were paying back funds to the U.S. government, in transactions that will end taxpayers' capital support of the biggest U.S. banks much sooner than had been expected just weeks ago. Full Story »

NEW YORK (AFP) - Citigroup and Wells Fargo struck deals to repay a total of 45 billion dollars in state aid, winding down a year-long US government effort to save the banking sector from wholesale collapse. Full Story »

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Plans from Wells Fargo & Co and Citigroup to repay taxpayer funds will put the U.S. government on track to reduce its bailout investments in banks by more than 75 percent, while earning a healthy profit for the U.S., Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Monday. Full Story »

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama implored top bankers Monday to help keep the fragile recovery from faltering by boosting lending to small businesses and getting behind an overhaul of financial regulation. "We rise and fall together," he declared. Full Story »

NEW YORK (AFP) - US banking giant Wells Fargo said Monday it had struck a deal to repay all of the 25-billion-dollar loan it received from the government last year during the financial meltdown. Full Story »

BALTIMORE - A federal judge suggested Monday that he might restrict the scope of a first-of-its kind lawsuit filed by the city of Baltimore against mortgage giant Wells Fargo Bank N.A. Full Story »

NEW YORK, Dec. 14 - NEW YORK, Dec. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Concetta F. Conkling of Moraga,  CA, retired Senior Vice President of Wells Fargo Bank, San Francisco, CA, has  been elected Chair of the Board of Trustees of the American Foundation for the  Blind (AFB) -- the nearly 90-year-old organization to which Helen Keller devoted  more than 40 years of her life. Headquartered in New  York with offices in San  Francisco,  Dallas,  Atlanta,  Washington, DC, and  Huntington, WV, AFB is dedicated to expanding  possibilities for people with vision loss. Full Story »

As the nation's largest financial institutions scramble to pay back their bailout money, some regional banks may be on the government dole until at least 2011. Lending for offices, malls, hotels, and similar properties averages more than a third of loans at 35 of the biggest regional players with federal funds, according to an analysis by Bloomberg BusinessWeek . By comparison, such debt averages 9.5% of loans at Citigroup and Wells Fargo . And with defaults at a 16-year high and rising, the worst may be yet to come. Full Story »

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Regulators have shut down banks in Florida, Arizona and Kansas, bringing to 133 the number of U.S. banks that have failed to hold up this year against the struggling economy and a cascade of loan defaults. Full Story »

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. regulators closed Republic Federal Bank, N.A., SolutionsBank and Valley Capital Bank on Friday, bringing the total number of bank failures so far this year to 133, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said. Full Story »

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Securities regulators are looking at what Bank of America disclosed to shareholders as it was acquiring Merrill Lynch, including the investment bank's mounting fourth-quarter losses that eventually topped $15 billion. Full Story »

WASHINGTON - The Securities and Exchange Commission has expanded its probe of Bank of America to include the bank's possible failure to disclose mounting losses at Merrill Lynch, a top agency official said Friday. Full Story »

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a win for the banking industry, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Friday to reject a measure that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to change the terms of mortgages for distressed homeowners. Full Story »

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - A federal judge in Florida declared a banker and lawyer from Switzerland who were indicted on fraud charges to be fugitives from justice. Full Story »