Sunday Papers: Call for crackdown on banking competition - money news

The Sunday Times

*  The Independent Commission on Banking has said competition between high street lenders should be continually policed by the Consumer Protection and Markets Authority.

* KBC, the Belgian financial services group, is winding down its asset finance unit in the International Financial Services Centre, which has financed infrastructure projects in Ireland through public-private partnerships.

* Brian Cowen, the taoiseach, was warned that a budget of more than €800 million for Fas, the state training agency, was “questionable” and was not properly focused, when he was appointed finance minister in September 2004.

* Mail.ru, the Russian firm which owns a slice of Facebook, could list in London within a fortnight, valued at up to $5 billion.

* Maeve Donovan, the former managing director of The Irish Times, was given a €1.1 million payoff when she left earlier this year.

* Agricultural Bank of China,  the country’s third-largest bank by deposits, is poised to take a floor at 1 Bartholomew Lane, opposite the Bank of England.

* Independent Colleges, the private third-level institute majority-owned by Independent News and Media, plans to raise about €1.7 million in fresh funding.

* Mark Tucker, the former chief executive of Prudential, has been handed a bonus package worth more than £7.7 million in his new role as executive chairman of AIA, the Asian insurance giant.

* A row has erupted in Whitehall over the government’s £1 billion green investment bank, as energy experts fear the scheme will be too small to make a difference.

The Daily Telegraph

* A group of Europe's largest private equity houses are to fund a multi-million pound investigation into the way the industry is perceived amid concerns of a renewed backlash against its practices.