New earthquake banking

New U.S. president, Barack Obama will be greeted with a new episode of the financial crisis in the country. When it appeared that water slowly returning to normal, news pessimism returned to the sector.

country's two largest banks, Bank of America and Citigroup, have had the negative news in a sector that seems to live in permanent crisis since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September.

The U.S. government has announced that the former will support up to 138,000 million dollars (104,190 million euros), of which 20,000 million for direct investment and the rest to the losses that the bank may have because mainly to the purchase of Merrill Lynch.

Bank of America had already received government aid for 25,000 million dollars.

The State shall protect

Bank with up to 118,000 million dollars (89,090 million euros), to the possibility that unusual record losses on the purchase of Merrill Lynch in November by about 50,000 million dollars.

Specifically, Merrill Lynch active, such as loans and mortgages, which have been devalued because of the current economic situation and that due to the acquisition, Bank of America came with the purchase.

Citigroup

Is split into two

Another of the country's banking giant, Citigroup, has announced that it lost 18.715 million dollars in 2008 (about 14,000 million), compared with profits of $ 3.617 million achieved the previous year due to the depreciation of assets and losses from the financial crisis.

Its revenue plummeted 32.7% in the full year, when it also had to double provisions for defaults and losses on loans.

Only in the fourth quarter, it lost U.S. $ 8.294 million, 15.6% less than the same period in 2007, when he felt the impact of the first effects of the financial crisis.

Losses in the last three months of 2008 are clearly superior to those obtained in the remaining quarters of the year due to falling inter-13% of its revenue and the multimillion dollar depreciation has had to work in and values in the area of banking, the credit losses and restructuring costs.

Financial group, which stressed that despite the losses has been able to improve their solvency ratios due to the capital increase conducted, has also announced that Split into two companies, known as Citicorp Holdings and Citi, with the aim of improve its management.