The US government and JPMorgan Chase have agreed a record $13bn settlement over the company’s sales of low quality mortgage-backed securities that collapsed in value during the financial crisis, a source close to the talks has said.

A KEY question confronts the four presidents of the European Commission, the European Council, the European Central Bank, and the Eurogroup as they prepare their report on how to reform the common currency: Does the eurozone need its own budget?

Here’s an idea for improving the regulation of banks: Treat them more like restaurants.

Imagine if I told you I could reduce my own body weight by 80%, on paper, through a series of calculations utilising my own proprietary mathematical models, so complex and prized that I could not divulge them.

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke says new regulations will be unveiled this summer to protect the US economy from another meltdown of the nation’s largest banks and financial companies.

Regulators have shut down small banks in Florida and Texas, boosting to 18 the number of American bank failures this year, following the 140 closures in 2009 in the worst financial climate in decades.

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said he had to “hold his nose” over last year’s taxpayer-funded bailouts of financial giants.

Wall Street got the news it wanted on the US economy's biggest problems - banks and housing - and responded with a rally that hurtled the Dow Jones industrials up nearly 500 points.

President Barack Obama’s closest economic advisors are signalling that the financial crisis will require more money and more US government intervention to correct.

Leading US politicians said they were confident that an amended $700bn (€482bn) rescue package for the nation’s troubled economy would be passed in the US Senate tonight.

Nevada regulators have shut down Silver State Bank, in the 11th failure this year of a US government-insured bank.

BANKS and brokerage firms in New Orleans say they’re faring better than before Hurricane Katrina caused a record $80 billion (€62.5bn) of damages along America’s Gulf Coast a year ago.

Federal regulators closed a Chicago-area bank half-owned by the multi-billionaire Pritzker family that has been battered by huge losses on loans to high-risk borrowers.