In Short

Other banking crisis news in brief

Banks still hoping to join scheme

• The two largest foreign- owned Irish banks, Ulster Bank Group and Halifax-Bank of Scotland (Ireland), are progressing their applications to join the Irish bank guarantee scheme despite Britain announcing a comprehensive rescue plan that will benefit their parent banks.

Ulster Bank said its parent bank, RBS, "intends to participate in certain of the measures" in the plan announced by British chancellor Alistair Darling.

However, the bank said its position in relation to the Irish guarantee scheme "remains unchanged".

Bank of Scotland (Ireland) said it was "continuing to pursue its application" for inclusion in the Irish scheme.

IMF warns of fall in global growth

• The financial crisis will drive down global growth to its lowest since 2002 with a big risk it will drop even further, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned.

Although Olivier Blanchard, the fund's chief economist, said yesterday that the chance of another Great Depression was "nearly nil", the IMF said the US and European economies were mainly already in or close to recession.

"The world economy is now entering a major downturn in the face of the most dangerous shock in mature financial markets since the 1930s," the IMF said. "The situation is exceptionally uncertain." - ( Financial Timesservice)

BoI withdraws tracker Loans

• Bank of Ireland and its subsidiary, ICS Building Society, are withdrawing tracker mortgages for new customers from tomorrow due to funding costs. It is understood that the bank's decision to withdraw trackers predates the decision by the European Central Bank to cut interest rates by 0.5 per cent.

Lenders have been withdrawing tracker rates as, once set, banks cannot adjust them over the life of the mortgage to take account of their rising funding costs.

Frank Conway, director of the Irish Mortgage Corporation, said: "Lenders are likely to want to move new business towards standard variable or fixed rates, where they have far greater control over their costs."

Oil price drops to $88.95 a barrel

• Oil prices fell yesterday as concerns about the impact of the global financial crisis on demand and rising US inventories outweighed a move by central banks to cut rates.

Earlier, oil prices had dropped to a fresh 10-month low, but pared some losses when US stocks rose after five sessions of losses.

News that Opec members were considering an emergency meeting in November to discuss the impacts of the financial crisis on oil demand also underpinned prices.

US crude settled at $88.95 a barrel, down $1.11.

London Brent crude settled at $84.36 a barrel, down 30 cents. - (Reuters)