Banking, Finance & Services

Dahabshiil, a Somali money transfer company, has won a temporary reprieve from Barclays, the last major bank to allow remittances to Somalia. The agreement comes just as a new report estimates that African expatriates lose $1.8 billion a year in transfer fees to companies like Moneygram and Western Union. Read More

A whistleblower who previously worked for Ernst & Young, the international auditing firm, has alleged that his bosses turned a blind eye to discoveries that Kaloti Jewellery International - one of the world's biggest gold companies - dealt in minerals from undocumented sources that may have included conflict zones. Read More

The World Bank has agreed to investigate Amalgamated Plantations Private Limited (APPL) in India for abusive working conditions on tea plantations in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam, following a formal complaint by workers. A Columbia Law School team has confirmed the workers allegations. Read More

Three top executives at Anglo Irish bank are on trial for a secret scheme to buy their own bank's shares that eventually triggered the 2008 collapse of the Irish economy. The bankers allegedly hatched the plan to cover up bets made by Sean Quinn, once Ireland's richest man. Read More

Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment bank, is being sued in London for selling Libya "worthless" derivatives trades in 2008 that the country's financial managers did not understand. Libya says it lost approximately $1.2 billion on the deals, while Goldman made $350 million. Read More

Several major banks - notably Citibank, Deutsche Bank and HSBC - have suspended over a dozen global foreign exchange traders in a growing scandal over manipulation in the $5.3 trillion-a-day market. Barclays, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Royal Bank of Scotland, Standard Chartered and UBS are also being investigated. Read More

An independent ombudsman has confirmed that World Bank officials should have raised serious questions before the International Finance Corporation (IFC) - the private sector arm of the World Bank - approved a $30 million loan to Corporación Dinant in Honduras in 2009 for palm oil plantation projects. Read More

The U.S. Congress had a miserable record on resisting corporate influence in 2012, according to a new report card released today. The 2012 Corporate Accountability Coalition Report Card tracks Congressional action related to corporate accountability, transparency, and responsible business during the second year of the 112th Congress. Read More

A lawsuit against Victor Dahdaleh, a Canadian-British billionaire, for allegedly paying £39 million ($65 million) in bribes to win supply contracts worth £2 billion ($3.2 billion) from Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) has collapsed. Read More

This profile of Dexia is from CorpWatch's EuroZone Profiteers report which investigates the role of six major banks in Greece, Ireland and Spain during the EuroZone crisis. Loans from these banks helped fuel the credit boom that left the countries deep in debt. Read More