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Weekly Global News Wrap Up: Abu Dhabi eyes three-way bank merger; ING fined with $900m over money laundering case

And Venezuela has imposed additional reserve requirements.

From Bloomberg: Abu Dhabi is engineering a second bank merger in its latest attempt to stay competitive in the era of lower oil prices. Three of its state-linked banks are in talks to combine into an institution with $110 billion of assets, according to Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank PJSC, one of the lenders.

The negotiations follow a tie-up between Abu Dhabi’s two biggest banks last year and the merger of sovereign wealth funds in March.

From CNBC: Dutch prosecutors said on Tuesday they had settled a money laundering case with lender ING Groep for 775 million euros ($900 million).

Prosecutors said they blamed ING for violating the country's law on preventing money laundering and financing terrorism "structurally and for years" by not stopping customers' accounts from being used for money laundering from 2010-2016.

"The result was that clients for years were able to make use of ING bank accounts for criminal activities pretty much undisturbed," a prosecution statement said.

From Bloomberg: Venezuela’s Central Bank ordered banks to adhere to additional reserve requirements starting this month. The bank said new requirements must be applied to excess reserves coming in after Aug. 31, according to a statement. Central Bank President Calixto Ortega said in a televised address on Monday the measures were meant to fight inflation and stabilize prices.

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