Multilateral Banks

Almost none of the huge amount of money "loaned" to Greece has actually gone there, writes Joseph Stiglitz, former World Bank chief economist. CorpWatch's EuroZone Profiteers report sheds light on how some of it was used to pay off bad loans made by private-sector banks in France and Germany. Read More

Argentina and Belgium have separately accused HSBC bank's Geneva branch of setting up a network of offshore accounts to help their citizens avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes. The charges are apparently based on a trove of documents provided by Hervé Falciani, a former HSBC employee turned whistleblower. Read More

An independent ombudsman has confirmed that World Bank officials should have raised serious questions before the International Finance Corporation (IFC) - the private sector arm of the World Bank - approved a $30 million loan to Corporación Dinant in Honduras in 2009 for palm oil plantation projects. Read More

This profile of Westdeutsche Landesbank is from CorpWatch's EuroZone Profiteers report which investigates the role of six major banks in Greece, Ireland and Spain during the EuroZone crisis. Loans from these banks helped fuel the credit boom that left the countries deep in debt. Read More

This profile of Ireland is from CorpWatch's EuroZone Profiteers report - a study of the the role of six major banks in Greece, Ireland and Spain during the EuroZone crisis. Loans from these banks helped fuel the credit boom that left borrowing countries deep in debt. Read More

A large chunk of the Eurozone bailouts are for speculative schemes that were handed out by banks in just four countries Belgium, France, Germany and the UK. So why are Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain being blamed? And who is really getting bailed out? Read More

U.S. investigators of bankrupt MF Global Holdings Ltd. have yet to determine after four months of probing whether enough evidence exists to pursue a criminal case. The company collapsed after a $6.3 billion bet on the bonds of some of Europe's most indebted nations went sour. When the Read More

The worldwide financial crisis is hitting people in the Global South with particular venom, and disaster profiteering is alive and well. Take Mexico. While entities like Citigroup-owned Banamex get away with charging Mexican credit account-holders usurious interest rates of up to 100 percent, Banamex itself turned nearly $1 billion in profits in 2008. Read More

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Norway's Ministry of Finance announced Friday that it would exclude mining giant Barrick Gold and U.S. weapons producer Textron Inc from the country's pension fund for ethical reasons. This is an especially significant judgment for Canada, as Barrick Gold is currently Canada's largest publicly traded company. Read More