HSBC plans to cut a further 500 positions in Asia, mostly in Hong Kong while Macquarie Group became the latest Asian lender to post a sharp fall in profits.

Bank of America said it will boost its stake in China's third-largest bank, China Construction Bank, to 19.1%  from 10.75%.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Monday that solid progress has been made  in stabilizing the U.S. financial system but it will take considerable time to restore it to health.

Australia's central bank chose to cut rates aggressively this month in part to cushion consumers from an unprecedented fall in household wealth, which threatened to drag the economy down by  more than expected just a few weeks earlier.

Macquarie Group, Australia's biggest investment bank, posted a 43%  slide in first-half profit on Tuesday, took heavy writedowns and signaled it was heading for its first fall in annual profit in 17 years.

Citirgoup announces it will significantly cut down its workforce, while pirates who hijacked a crude oil tanker off the coast of Kenya approach a Somali port. Following are today's top videos:

The U.S. Treasury Department said Monday it had transferred $33.56 billion to 21 banks as part of a capital infusion program intended to help steady the shaky financial system, bringing the total injected into banks since the program began to $148.6 billion.

Goldman Sachs' no-bonus  move immediately is prompting questions in the investor community about whether or not other banks will follow suit.

Life insurers, needing to rebuild capital drained away by investment losses, are joining the long line of U.S. companies seeking to borrow under the government's $700 billion financial rescue program.

By choice or by force, more U.S. consumers are putting away their credit cards as the financial crisis reshapes attitudes toward spending and debt.

Freddie Mac could post losses totaling $20 billion to $40 billion in 2009, hurt by higher credit costs and write-downs in mortgage assets, an analyst at Friedman Billings Ramsey said.

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit met with employees Monday to discuss major cut backs in the struggling firm's workforce aimed at calming market fears that the troubled financial services giant isn't taking the steps necessary to address its many ills, which include a bloated cost structured that has sent shares of its stock reeling.

Goldman Sachs Group CEO Lloyd Blankfein and six other top executives at the bank will not be receiving cash or stock bonuses for 2008, a spokesman said Sunday.

Swiss bank UBS axed bonuses for top executives on Monday and said it would introduce a more transparent pay system in the most far-reaching changes on pay at a top European lender during the credit crisis.