Central bank

A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is the entity responsible for the monetary policy of a country or of a group of member states. Its primary responsibility is to maintain the stability of the national currency and money supply, but more active duties include controlling subsidized-loan interest rates, and acting as a lender of last resort to the banking sector during times of financial crisis (private banks often being integral to the national financial system). It may also have supervisory powers, to ensure that banks and other financial institutions do not behave recklessly or fraudulently.

Most richer countries today have an "independent" central bank, that is, one which operates under rules designed to prevent political interference. Examples include the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Federal Reserve System in the United States. Some central banks are publicly owned, and others are privately owned. For example, the Reserve Bank of India is publicly owned and directly governed by the Indian government. The major difference is that government owned central banks do not charge the taxpayers interest on the national currency, whereas privately owned central banks do charge interest.

Currency issuance

The Bank of England, central bank of the United Kingdom

Many central banks are "banks" in the sense that they hold assets (foreign exchange, gold, and other financial assets) and liabilities. A central bank's primary liabilities are the currency outstanding, and these liabilities are backed by the assets the bank owns.

Central banks generally earn money by issuing currency notes and "selling" them to the public for interest-bearing assets, such as government bonds. Since currency usually pays no interest, the difference in interest generates income. In most central banking systems, this income is remitted to the government. The European Central Bank remits its interest income to its owners, the central banks of the member countries of the European Union.

Although central banks generally hold government debt, in some countries the outstanding amount of government debt is smaller than the amount the central bank may wish to hold. In many countries, central banks may hold significant amounts of foreign currency assets, rather than assets in their own national currency, particularly when the national currency is fixed to other currencies.

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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/banking-bunkum.html

http://www.bis.org/cbanks.htm

Global financial system

The global financial system (GFS) is a financial system consisting of institutions and regulations that act on the international level, as opposed to those that act on a national or regional level. The main players are the global institutions, such as International Monetary Fund and Bank for International Settlements, national agencies and government departments, e.g., central banks and finance ministries, and private institutions acting on the global scale, e.g., banks and hedge funds.

Deficiencies and reform of the GFS have been hotly discussed in recent years.

The history of financial institutions must be differentiated from economic history and history of money. In Europe, it may have started with the first commodity exchange, the Bruges Bourse in 1309 and the first financiers and banks in the 1400–1600s in central and western Europe. The first global financiers the Fuggers (1487) in Germany; the first stock company in England (Russia Company 1553); the first foreign exchange market (The Royal Exchange 1566, England); the first stock exchange {the Amsterdam Stock Exchange 1602).

Milestones in the history of financial institutions are the Gold Standard (1871–1932), the founding of International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank at Bretton Woods, and the abolishment of fixed exchange rates in 1973.Government institutions

Governments act in various ways as actors in the GFS: they pass the laws and regulations for financial markets and set the tax burden for private players, e.g., banks, funds and exchanges. They also participate actively through discretionary spending. They are closely tied (though in most countries independent of) to central banks that issue government debt, set interest rates and deposit requirements, and intervene in the foreign exchange market.

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Bank of America, Los Angeles

The Bank of America, Los Angeles was established in 1923 by Orra E. Monnette, emerging from a series of mergers between Los Angeles based banks between 1909 and 1923. It ultimately merged with the Bank of Italy (USA) to form the Bank of America.

The foundation was the Los Angeles based American National Bank of Los Angeles (ANB) which Monnette purchased controlling interest using profits from his father's silver mine in Tonopah, Nevada. In 1909, ANB was merged into Citizens Trust and Savings Bank; in 1911, Monnette purchased the Broadway Bank and Trust Company, which when merged with the family’s other holdings formed the Citizens Bank and Trust Company.

In 1923, Citizens Bank and Trust Company was renamed Bank of America, Los Angeles. Monnette’s intention was to build capital for national expansion; however in 1928 Monnette was approached by Amadeo Giannini, founder of the Bank of Italy, (San Francisco, California) who was interested in pursuing a merger with BoA. The resulting Bank of America emerged prior to the stock market crash of 1929.

Hatton National Bank

Hatton National Bank PLC is a leading private (i.e., not government-owned) bank in Sri Lanka.

History

• 1888: RD Banks and AT Atkin established a small, private bank called Hatton Bank to cater to the needs of investors and laborers in Ceylon’s tea plantations.
• 1948: Sri Lanka attained its independence and Brown & Co., an engineering concern, bought the interests of the original investors.
• 1961: The Government of Sri Lanka forbade foreign banks to accept deposits from Ceylonese nationals.
• 1970: Hatton National Bank (HNB) was formed to take over Hatton Bank and the Kandy and Nuwara Eliya branches of Grindlays Bank. (Grindlays had inherited these branches from its merger with National Bank of India (NBI). NBI had established the branches in 1892. By giving up the two branches Grindlays earned the right to continue to operate its branch in Colombo, which NBI had established in 1881, serving corporate business.) A share issue shortly thereafter brought the ownership structure of Hatton Nation Bank to 37% Brown & Co., 28% National & Grindlays, and 35% public ownership.
• 1974: HNB acquired Mercantile Bank of India’s branches in Pettah and Colombo as well as a part interest in Mercantile (a subsidiary of HSBC since 1959, which retained its branch in Colombo).
• 1989: HNB acquired Dubai’s Emirates Bank’s branch in Columbo and with it a Foreign Currency Banking Unit.
• 1996: HNB acquired Banque Indosuez’s Colombo branch, which dated from 1979 or '80.
• 1997
• 2000: HNB opened a representative office in Karachi, Pakistan, and another in Chennai, India. Harry Jayawardena, in a hostile and highly resisted bid, acquired 44% or more of Sampath Bank via HNB (9%), Stassen Holdings and other related and nominally unrelated entities. (Sampath Bank commenced operations in 1987 as the Investment and Credit Bank, and was originally promoted as a Buddhist Bank but later presented as a financial institution of and for the “sons of the soil.”) HNB made controversial purchases of Sampath Bank shares and also invested in shares of the DFCC Bank.
• 2002: HNB acquired the Sri Lankan branches of Habib Bank A.G. Zurich. It planned to use them as the base for Islamic banking.

FOR MORE VISIT-http://www.hnb.net/

Carl Banks

Carl E. Banks (born August 29, 1962 in Flint, Michigan) is a former American football linebacker in the National Football League from 1984 to 1995 for the New York Giants, the Washington Redskins and the Cleveland Browns. He made the Pro Bowl in 1987, had 39.5 career quarterback sacks, and was a member of the NFL's 1980's All-Decade Team. He played college football at Michigan State University and was the third overall pick in the 1984 NFL Draft. He was a member of the Giants teams that won Super Bowls XXI and XXV. Banks was a standout in their Super Bowl XXI victory in which he recorded 14 total tackles, including ten solo tackles.

Currently, Banks can be heard as one of the voices of Sirius NFL Radio and WFAN. Starting in 2007, he became an analyst for the radio broadcast of the New York Giants. Today he lives in New Jersey.

WORLD BANK

The World Bank is a bank that provides financial and technical assistance to developing countries for development programs (e.g. bridges, roads, schools, etc.) with the stated goal of reducing poverty.

The World Bank differs from the World Bank Group, in that the World Bank comprises only two institutions:

• International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)
• International Development Association (IDA)

Whereas the latter incorporates these two in addition to three more:

• International Finance Corporation (IFC)
• Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA)
• International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)

John Maynard Keynes (right) represented the UK at the conference, and Harry Dexter White represented the US.

The World Bank was created following the ratification of the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference|Bretton Woods agreement. The concept was originally conceived in July 1944 at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. Two years later, the Bank issued its first loan: US$250 million to France for post-war reconstruction, the main focus of the Bank's work in the early post-World War II years. Over time, the "development" side of the Bank's work has assumed a larger share of its lending, although it is still involved in post-conflict reconstruction, together with reconstruction after natural disasters, response to humanitarian emergencies and post-conflict rehabilitation needs affecting developing and transition economies. There were criticisms of the results of the World Bank's "development schemes" leading to corruption and widespread exploitation by the corporations who are given monopolies of developing nations' resources.

The World Bank is one of the two Bretton Woods Institutions which were created in 1944 to rebuild a war-torn Europe after World War II. Later, largely due to the contributions of the Marshall Plan, the World Bank was forced to find a new area in which to focus its efforts. Subsequently, it began attempting to rebuild the infrastructure of Europe's former colonies. Since then it has made a variety of changes regarding its focus and goals. From 1968-1981 it focused largely on poverty alleviation. In the 1980s and 1990s its main focus was both debt management and structural adjustment.

FOR MORE VISIT- http://www.worldbank.org/

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/0,,pagePK:158889~piPK:146815~theSitePK:223547,00.html

Selita Ebanks

Selita Ebanks (born February 15,1983) is a Caymanian fashion model. She is best known for her work with Victoria's Secret and is one of the Victoria's Secret Angels.

Selita Ebanks was born on February 15, 1983 in George Town, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory. She was raised in a large family that includes seven brothers. Influenced by her brothers, Ebanks played many sports growing up, such as basketball, soccer and tennis. The Ebanks family was quite poor, living in what she described as "a little blue, zinc-roof shack on Walkers Road". Often, Ebanks didn't have shoes to wear to George Town primary school. Her family, her mother in particular, encouraged her development through extracurricular programs.

FOR MORE VISIT--http://www.pr.com/article/1060

Pleasanton, California

Pleasanton is a city in Alameda County, California, incorporated in 1894. It is a major suburb in the San Francisco Bay Area located about 25 miles (40 km) east of Oakland. The population was 63,654 at the 2000 census. In 2005 and 2007, Pleasanton was ranked the wealthiest middle-sized city in the United States by the Census Bureau. Pleasanton is home to the headquarters of Safeway Inc. Oracle and Kaiser Permanente have offices in Hacienda Business Park. Although Oakland is the Alameda County seat, a few county offices and a courthouse are located in Pleasanton. Additionally, the main county jail is in the neighboring city of Dublin. The Alameda County Fairgrounds are located in Pleasanton, and the annual County Fair is held there during the last week of June and the first week of July. Shadow Cliffs Regional Park is located on the east side of town.

FOR MORE VISIT -http://www.ci.pleasanton.ca.us/

Charbel Nader

Charbel Nader is an Australian investment banker who first came to prominence through a number of innovative Film Financing transactions in the 90's the most notable being a series of Village Roadshow off balance sheet film financings which funded Films such as the Matrix series and Oceans 11 in conjunction with Warner Bros ^[1] .

After a successful stint in Sydney with News Corp's Venture capital vehicle e-Ventures and PBL /Nine Network where he was responsible for the Macquarie Nine Film raising; a joint endeavour between the Nine Network and Macquarie Bank he returned to Melbourne as Managing Director of McHudson Corporate.

In June 2007 he was recruited by Pitt Capital Partners to head up and establish a Melbourne office of the Investment Bank which is a wholly owned subsidiary of one of Australia's oldest publicly listed corporations Washington H. Soul Pattinson which also owns 61% of New Hope Coal Limited

He is credited with leading the Pitt Capital Partners Limited team that successfully completed the $236m debt and equity recapitalisation of Living and Leisure Australia (ASX: LLA), the only successful mid cap recapitalisation completed in 2008, at the height of the global credit crisis

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Prosper Marketplace

Prosper Marketplace, Inc. is a San Francisco, California-based company that operates Prosper.com, an online auction website where individuals can buy loans and request to borrow money. Borrowers set the maximum interest rate they wish to pay, and loan buyers, called "lenders," bid on specific loans by committing a portion of the principal and setting the minimum interest rate they wish to receive on a particular loan. Prosper manages the reverse dutch auction, assembling bids with the lowest interest rates in order to fund the loan.

Prosper verifies selected borrowers' identity and personal data before funding loans and manages loan repayment. These unsecured loans are fully amortized over three years, with no pre-payment penalty. Prosper generates revenue by collecting a one-time fee on funded loans from borrowers, and assessing an annual loan servicing fee to loan buyers. The idea for the service is derived from group banking concepts, such as rotating savings and credit associations. Other motivating ideas derive from the concept of microlending.

Prosper publishes performance statistics on the website; these are available to the public at large. All transactions are in US dollars; lenders and borrowers must be US residents.

Prosper opened to the public on February 5, 2006. Prosper was founded by Chris Larsen, who also founded E-loan, and John Witchel and is backed by Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital, Fidelity Ventures, Omidyar Network, DAG Ventures and Meritech Capital Partners.

In April 2008, Prosper aligned with the Utah-charted Web Bank. Previously, Prosper operated under individual lending licenses issued by various states, and was subject to each state's maximum interest rate laws. By afiliating with Web Bank, Prosper borrowers nationwide (except in Texas and South Dakota) can offer a maximum interest rate of 36%, which lenders can then bid down.

On December 1, 2008, Prosper Marketplace Inc. entered into a settlement with state securities regulators over sales of unregistered securities.

for more visit---http://www.prosper.com/

Bob Kagle

Robert Kagle is a Director at eBay and a partner at Benchmark Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. In addition to eBay, Kagle sits on the Board of Directors for several companies including: E-Loan, Jamba Juice, Logoworks, Mint.com, Prosper, uShip, and ZipRealty.

Kagle's investment in eBay is seen as his first--and biggest--success. Benchmark Capital's $6.7 million investment in eBay "holds the record for the best performing Silicon Valley investment ever: by the spring of 1999, this stake was worth $5 billion" ^[1]. Kagle's share was $170 million, and he has served as a director for eBay since 1997. ^[2]

Kagle was born and raised by his mother in Flint, Michigan. Kagle began his business career working at General Motors^[3], and received a B.S. in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering from General Motors Institute (renamed Kettering University) in 1978. He received his M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1980.

for more visit--http://www.benchmark.com/sv/general_partners/kagle.shtml

Before his work at Benchmark Capital, Kagle was a partner at Technology Venture Investors. Prior to his 12 years at TVI, Kagle worked for the Boston Consulting Group.

Popular, Inc.

Popular, Inc., is a financial services conglomerate that has been operating in Puerto Rico for over 115 years, and in the United States for almost 52. In recent years it has expanded into other areas of the Caribbean and Central America. It is better known as Banco Popular, but it is also known as BPPR for Banco Popular de Puerto Rico.

Popular, Inc. is the parent company of Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, Banco Popular North America, Evertec, E-Loan, and several other companies.

World Headquarters are based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on the Golden Mile in Hato Rey. The headquarters of Banco Popular North America are located in Rosemont, Illinois.

for more visit--http://www.bancopopular.com/welcome.html