ABN AMRO

The CCS blocked a takeover for the first time because the deal would result in a "substantial lessening of competition."

Some economists said the impact of certain tax hikes a year ago could have led to the eurozone core figure dropping.

Brent is down roughly 9 percent this week, some 45 percent below its June peak above $115 per barrel.

U.S. stock futures edged higher on Thursday after falling steeply in the previous session.

The lender says the job reductions are part of efforts to restructure its retail division's head office and customer-facing positions remain.

Italy's Monte dei Paschi, the world's oldest bank, is accused of hiding huge losses from complex deals just before a massive government bailout.

The Australian judiciary delivered a crushing defeat to credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's this week that may have global repercussions

ING Groep N.V. (NYSE:ING) will sell its $26.5 billion UK operations to Barclays PLC (LON: BARC) at a discount.

Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE: DB), Germany's largest bank, is being investigated by U.S. officials over ties to Iran and Sudan.

Investors on Wednesday eagerly snatched up a new two-year German bond with a zero-percent coupon, meaning investors were willing to pay to loan money to Europe's strongest economy when expected inflation is factored in. The yield ended at 0.07 percent.

Stronger-than-expected growth in Germany helped the euro area avoid its second recession in three years at the start of 2012 but stagnation in France and contraction in southern Europe underlined the huge economic disparities across the single currency bloc.

The euro zone just avoided recession in early 2012, but the region's debt crisis sapped the life out of the French and Italian economies and widened a split with paymaster Germany.

The part-nationalized bank is expected to make the announcement on Friday during its first-quarter update, where it will also announce pre-tax losses of under £50 million, down from losses of £106 million this time last year.

The British government has been in talks with Abu Dhabi's cash-rich sovereign wealth funds to sell a large portion of its 82 percent holding of RBS for months, according to a report.

Dutch state-owned bank ABN AMRO said it expected bad loan costs to remain high this year due to the recession in the Netherlands, after a tripling of such costs in the fourth quarter pushed it into a loss.

Barclays Plc tapped the European Central Bank for 8.2 billion euros ($10.8 billion) of cheap funding this week, marking a U-turn for the bank as it had previously been worried about the risk of political interference if it took funds.

HSBC Holdings PLC is under investigation by a U.S. 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.

The volatility, panic, and the resulting tightening of investors' purses that dominated credit markets for much of 2011 is giving way to calm, creating a flood of cash from investors now confident enough to put their money back into corporate bonds. Somewhat surprisingly, crisis-exposed financial institutions, even in Europe, have been able to take advantage.

The United Arab Emirates, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter and home to gold trading hub Dubai, is rapidly becoming a force in trade of another highly valuable commodity: diamonds.

Two other major Dutch banks, ABN AMRO and Rabobank, have already unveiled significant job cuts.

Dutch financial services group ING is to cut 2,700 staff and contract jobs, it said on Thursday in announcing third-quarter results, slashing the headcount at its Dutch retail banking operations by 10 percent in the face of deteriorating markets.