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Britain's top two banks, HSBC and Barclays, signaled bad debts may be past their peak, with HSBC declaring on Tuesday the first drop in U.S. consumer finance impairments for three years.

Europe's biggest bank HSBC Holdings Plc said its underlying third-quarter profits were significantly ahead of a year ago and losses on U.S. consumer loans had shown their first fall in three years.

Barclays Plc said strong investment banking helped limit a fall in profit in the third quarter and it expects bad debts to peak earlier than it had previously expected.

Europe's biggest bank HSBC Holdings said its underlying third quarter profits were significantly ahead of a year ago and said losses on U.S. consumer loans had shown their first fall in three years.

Pay and venue were the focus of a jury's early deliberations on Monday in the trial of two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers accused of fraud over dealings in mortgage-backed securities early in the financial crisis.

JPMorgan Chase & Co is raising lending to small businesses by $4 billion this year and hiring more than 300 new bankers to cater to these businesses.

JPMorgan Chase & Co is lifting a salary freeze it put in place last year, according to an internal memo from human resources director John Donnelly.

The trial of two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers went to a jury on Monday, the first high-profile Wall Street executives criminally charged with fraud over subprime mortgage-backed securities that fueled the market meltdown.

Kraft Foods Incsaid on Monday it secured a $9.2 billion senior unsecured term loan to help finance its $16.4 billion hostile takeover bid for Britain's Cadbury Plc.

Shares of Revlon Inc jumped 35 percent to a new year-high on Monday, after the cosmetics maker said its consumer products unit received lender consents to amend its bank term-loan and revolver credit agreements to refinance its long-term debt .

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Working conditions must be improved for older people if governments and companies are to persuade them to continue contributing to economic growth into their old age, according to Swedish and British scientists.

Morgan Stanley is looking to sell its 34 percent stake in investment bank China International Capital Corp, the U.S. bank's China chief executive said on Monday.

Morgan Stanley is looking to sell its 34 percent stake in investment bank China International Capital Corp, the U.S. bank's China chief executive said on Monday.

The joint venture that borrowed heavily to buy Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in 2006 could be among the first to take advantage of changes in U.S. tax law that let borrowers seek payment relief, when it said last week that it could not keep paying interest on a $3 billion loan.

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman has agreed to sell its TASC consulting unit to two buyout firms, General Atlantic and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co , for $1.65 billion, the companies said on Sunday.

A Las Vegas casino company and a Chinese bank have set the price range for their upcoming Hong Kong stock offerings, hoping to raise up to $7.35 billion combined in what would be the world's fourth- and fifth-largest IPOs of the year.

Dollar May Be Under Pressure; Investors Eye Retail Sales; NBC Universal's Valuation

As unemployment in the United States edges above 10 percent, anxious investors will look to earnings reports from major retailers for signs of life in the beaten-up consumer.

The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, which has attracted widespread media attention over the size of its staff bonuses, believes banks serve a social purpose and are doing God's work.

Authorities in Britain and Australia have requested information from UBS after the Swiss bank agreed in August to disclose some 4,450 client names to settle a U.S. tax case, the bank confirmed on Sunday.