Yahoo Finance 
News in Brief
LONDON, Oct (HKSE: 3366-OL.HK - news) 28 (IFR) - Tough in China
Pressure from soured loans and weak lending margins pushed quarterly profits at Industrial and Commercial Bank of China down slightly to Rmb72.6bn (US$10.7bn).
Results last week from China Construction Bank, Bank of China and Bank of Communications also showed flat profits and operational challenges. China's top state banks have been under pressure to continue to report profit growth, even as they have wrestled with mounting bad debts and shrinking margins in their core lending business.
ICBC (HKSE: 1398-OL.HK - news) 's non-performing loan ratio rose to 1.62% at end-September from 1.55% at end-June, while BoCom and CCB (HKSE: 0939-OL.HK - news) reported a slight drop in their bad loan ratios.
To bolster profits, Chinese banks have been lowering the amount of cash they set aside for future losses, sometimes below the regulatory threshold.
Higher misconduct costs and restructuring charges led to another third-quarter loss at Royal Bank of Scotland, casting fresh doubts on when the government will recoup its 2008 bailout cash.
RBS, still 70% owned by the UK government, also said it would miss an end-2017 deadline to sell its Williams & Glyn branch network, which was a condition of its 2008 state rescue.
BMO changes
Bank of Montreal (Toronto: BMO.TO - news) has appointed Darryl White as chief operating officer, succeeding Frank Techar, whose new role will focus on building the company's presence in the US Midwest.
White, who has been with BMO for 22 years, most recently served as group head of BMO Capital Markets. Patrick Cronin has been promoted to head of BMO Capital Markets, from his current role as the unit's chief operating officer.
Cooling off
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing plans to extend new volatility controls to its derivatives market on November 14.
The volatility-control mechanism, which has been operating successfully on the HKEx (HKSE: 0388-OL.HK - news) securities market since August 22, aims to "protect market integrity by preventing extreme price volatility arising from major trading errors and other unusual incidents".
The new controls will put contracts or stocks that trigger certain price thresholds into a five-minute so-called "cooling off" period. (This story will appear in the October 29 issue of IFR Magazine)
