The latest job cuts  in the banking sector come amid an overall wave of layoffs across the United States as companies move to cut costs in the face of slackening demand and a general economic downturn.

The latest job cuts  in the banking sector come amid an overall wave of layoffs across the United States as companies move to cut costs in the face of slackening demand and a general economic downturn.

Massachusetts' top securities regulator on Tuesday accused Oppenheimer & Co. of fraud over the investment bank's sales of auction-rate securities to customers who couldn't access their money after the market for the risky investments froze.

The latest job cuts  in the banking sector come amid an overall wave of layoffs across the United States as companies move to cut costs in the face of slackening demand and a general economic downturn.

An American customer of UBS AG will ask a Swiss court to stop his account details from being handed over to U.S. authorities probing alleged tax evasion, his lawyer said Monday.

UBS AG said Monday that starting next year it will stop making bonus payments to its chairman and that other top executives will be penalized if the bank performs badly to discourage irresponsible risk-taking.

Markets are braced for more hemorrhaging in jobs, with a Friday employment report expected to record 200,00 more jobs vaporized in October. This would push the jobless rate up two-tenths of a point to 6.3 percent.

Shares in UBS fell on Thursday after U.S. authorities charged the Swiss bank's wealth management boss with helping Americans hide $20 billion from the taxman, putting Swiss bank secrecy laws in the spotlight again.

By Tony Munroe

A senior executive with Swiss banking giant UBS AG was charged in a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday with conspiring to hide $20 billion in assets from the Internal Revenue Service using secret overseas accounts for thousands of wealthy customers.

A federal investigation into UBS concerning its sale of offshore private banking services to wealthy Americans is concentrating on senior and midlevel executives and bankers, and could result in one or more indictments, people briefed on the matter said on Monday, the New York Times reported.

Markets are braced for more hemorrhaging in jobs, with a Friday employment report expected to record 200,00 more jobs vaporized in October. This would push the jobless rate up two-tenths of a point to 6.3 percent.

National Australia Bank Ltd., the country's largest lender by assets, said Monday it raised 3 billion Australian dollars ($2.05 billion) by selling shares to institutional investors in a bid to strengthen its balance sheet.

Markets are braced for more hemorrhaging in jobs, with a Friday employment report expected to record 200,00 more jobs vaporized in October. This would push the jobless rate up two-tenths of a point to 6.3 percent.

European building materials and construction stocks could be big gainers from a Barack Obama win in Tuesday's U.S. presidential election, while defence companies would get a boost if rival John McCain won, analysts said.