Financial giants Citigroup Inc, Deutsche Bank AG, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd plus current and former staff have faced charges in Australian court which included colluding during a share issue.

The virtual currency spiked to an all time high earlier on Wednesday as pandemic recession fears pumped the pressure on stock markets. As reported by main agencies, bitcoin has traded at its highest value to date, reaching $19,920.53, but the rally stopped just below the 20,000 border, said dta-provider Coindesk.

South Korean investment bank Mirae Asset Daewoo Co Ltd said it won a suit in US court filed by China state controlled Anbang Insurance Group, after Mirae affiliates dumped a $5.8 billion takeover deal focused on 15 US Anbang hotels.

Spain's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) is to sell its US business to PNC Financial Services Group Inc for $11.6 billion in cash in one of the biggest global bank deals this year, which sees yet another European lender retreat from the United States. The sale will further consolidate the US banking sector and prompted speculation BBVA could use the cash to buy up a rival bank in its domestic market.

The European Central Bank will held talks on possible tweaks to its inflation target at a seminar next week, Finnish central bank governor Olli Rehn said on Friday, reinforcing expectations that the target could be finalised before a strategy review ends in mid-2021.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warned on Monday that there will be no agreement of a global digital tax this year. The issue has deeply divided Europe and the US, news wires reported.

London Stock Exchange said on Friday it had accepted a €4.325 billion ($5.09 billion) cash offer by pan-European bourse operator Euronext for the Milan stock exchange.

The coronavirus pandemic has made the super-rich around the globe even richer, according to a study by consulting firm PwC and the major Swiss bank UBS, cited by dpa. At the end of July, the total assets of the world's more than 2,000 billionaires had risen to a record level of around 0.2 trillion dollars, the analysis, published on Wednesday, shows. This level surpasses the previous peak of 8.9 trillion dollars, reached at the end of 2017.

The Bank of Lithuania believes that harmonisation of rules and requirements throughout the European Union (EU) would help to enhance anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) efforts in an effective manner, eliminate existing regulatory fragmentation and ensure a unified European approach.

Global banks faced a fresh scandal about dirty money on Monday as they sought to limit the fallout from a cache of leaked documents showing they transferred more than $2 trillion in suspect funds over nearly two decades, Reuters reports.