Texas Guaranty Bank had assets of $12 billion and deposits from customers of $11.5 billion. Texas Guaranty’s banking activities will be taken over by the second largest Spanish bank, BBVA, through its American subsidiary BBVA Compass for an unspecified amount.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), which administers the deposit-guarantee plan in the U.S., insures deposits of customers up to $250,000 per account.

Last year, 25 banks were closed by the U.S. government, compared to only three in 2007. The largest U.S. bank failure this year was Colonial Bank which closed on August 14. Colonial had assets of $25 billion.

In contrast to Sarkozy’s statement, the chief of France’s central bank, Christian Noyer, said that the package allocated by BNP for bonuses are within the guidelines for banks established by G20 nations in April.

A political conflict was triggered last week after opponents on the left said that the BNP Paribas bonus plan proves that Sarkozy and the govenment have not managed to bring the banking sector under control following the collapse of the credit markets.

G20 Reshaped the Culture of Bonuses

In April, leaders of the largest economies of the world came together to reform the so-called “culture of bonuses” of the banks considered to have generated a wave of risky transactions with derivatives that triggered the crisis on the credit markets worldwide. The G20 agreement states that multi-year guaranteed bonuses should be eliminated that that employee incentives should be closely linked to the overall performance of the bank.

“Today, the government paid 605 million dollars for Russian gas” stored in underground tanks, said Timosenko.

Last Friday, international financial institutions and the European Commission reached agreement with Ukraine to help this country to pay bills on Russian gas and to accumulate stocks, allowing avoiding a new gas crisis.

The agreement will allow funding of approximately 800 million dollars (570 million euro) from the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in October 2009, explained a spokesman of the EC.

In addition, the IMF unblocked 3.3 billion dollars, the third installment of a credit line of 16.4 billion dollars granted to Ukraine for two years. Part of these funds will be used to help Ukraine to buy gas for the accumulation of stocks.

Last year, during the same period, the company announced losses of 747 million dollars. MasterCard’s profit was generated by increasing fees on customer accounts and reducing internal costs.

In contrast to this year’s profit, MasterCard reported a loss of $5.7 billion for the first six months of last year.

This year, the company’s American group expenses decreased by 13%, reaching 722 million dollars. The company also reduced funds allocated for advertising and marketing by 36% and trimmed administrative and staff costs.

Higher commissions and increased use of credit cards by customers increased Mastercard’s revenue by 2.7%, reaching up to 1.3 billion dollars. Value of MasterCard transactions processed increased by 7.9% to 5.6 billion dollars.

As a result of the recession, many consumers are turning to prepaid credit cards.

British number that were rejected by traditional lenders will climb to 9 million next year or 15% more than at the end of last year, said Jonathan MacDonald, an analyst in Datamonitor.

Sub-lending market will grow by 11%, to 10.1 billion pounds (16.4 billion dollars), up to the end of this year, he said.

“Sub” Interest of 350% per year

Banks including Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland owned by the government which deal with losses, decline a growing number of consumers after tightening lending criteria. Instead, sub – customers are accepted by the lenders that charge interest of up to 350% per year.

“We are worried because people are forced to resort to more dangerous types of lending where interest rates are very high,” said Frances Walker, spokesperson of Consumer Credit Counseling Service.

HSBC, the biggest European bank, closed it British Beneficial Finance sub-division and announced its intention to close 100 of the 125 branches. In this way HSBC follows example of Deutsche Bank and Barclays, who have withdrawn from the sub market in 2007 and 2008 in the slowing condition of economic growth and increasing volume of bad loans.

“If we don’t exist, all clients should receive money from somewhere, may be appealing to illegal lenders, “said CEO Provident Peter Crook.

According to the publication mentioned, the state energy company of Ukraine, Nak Naftogaz Ukrainy, has no money to pay natural gas that must be delivered next month, till the deadline July seven. In these conditions the utility companies are afraid that the Russian Gazprom will close taps pipes which transit Ukraine.

Moreover, the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin threatened that in case Ukraine will not pay until July 7, Russia “reserves right to act according to contract”.

The European Commission will organize, at the end of this week, a meeting that will participate a series of international financial institutions and gas companies, in the hope that will be able to avoid the interruption of the deliveries in July.

Last days, European Commission President: Jos Manuel Barroso, called on the most vulnerable states to put in place emergency plans and prepare for the worst. In the next period Ukraine should buy about 19 billion cubic meters of natural gas, which will be stored to cover the consumption in the winter period, but funds awarded to Kiev under a loan agreement with the IMF have finished, and the government has recognized that cannot pay the gas bill for July.

At the beginning of the last week, right party from opposition of GERB, expected to win parliamentary elections from July 5, has announced that Bulgaria needs to conclude an agreement with the IMF and the current government, led by a socialist, would have to sign one up to this point to mitigate the risks arising from the threat of a high budget deficit.

“We do not have technical problems, and if in a moment the necessity of a future international credit, we can perform fast and effective discussions with the IMF and European financial institutions, “said Stanishev.

“Main idea is to solve the situation alone (impact of economic crisis) if it is possible. For now, Bulgaria is good to handle itself, “he added. Stanishev pointed out that a possible agreement with the IMF will depend on decisions that will take the new government.

GERB, which according to all opinion polls is declared the winner of highest number of votes, but not of a sufficient number to obtain a decisive majority in elections in July, announced that if he gets in power, will immediately begin discussions with the IMF.

President Barack Obama welcomed the decision, but declaring that this does not mean that “our financial problems are over”. Banks are eager to return the funds received to escape the restrictions imposed by government, such as limiting pay for executives.

The Treasury has not specified the name which banks will be allowed to return the money, but JPMorgan, American Express, Bank of New York Mellon, BB’T, Capital One Financial, Morgan Stanley, State Street, Goldman Sachs and U.S. Bancorp have confirmed that they received the cash.

They had good results in tests for stress. All the banks except Morgan Stanley and Northern Trust have passed stress tests conducted by the government in May, tests that tried to determine if banks have enough capital to face further losses if deterioration in Further economic conditions.

Northern Trust has not been subjected to tests, and Morgan Stanley announced that attracted additional funds. The return fund could recover TARP fund, can theoretically be given to other institutions with problems.

“The end of free fall of the world economy would help the ECB to no longer feel pressure, to act over the benchmark interest rate”, said Laurent Bilka , economist at Nomura International in London.

“Things are evolving in a good way”.

Efforts of the European Central Bank President Jean Claude Trichet to reconcile strategies of the bank divided because of the acquisition of assets, could be facilitated by signs that the world economy is recovering from crisis , writes Bloomberg.

Although the strategy had a number of divergences in terms of volume of assets that will be purchased, it is unlikely that the ECB to make acquisitions of secured bonds, more than 60 billion euro.

The proposals are part of a project in ten points that will be putted to analysis of Heads of State of the EU in the second half of June.

“Europe has gone immediately to action to meet economic and financial crisis, including the social dimension of it. Commission make a step towards joint commitment and coordinated action from the EU Member States and social partners to save and create jobs”, said today the European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso.

EU will accelerate the development provision of billion euros for vocational retraining through the European Social Fund. In addition, together with international financial institutions, especially with the group of the European Investment Bank, the EU will create a new feature of microcredit to 500 million euro to support entrepreneurs.