bank

South Africa's Standard Bank has confirmed that it is the latest bank to be hacked into, admitting that it had credit card data stolen and used in an elaborate scheme carried out in Japan.

On May 15th, between 5am and 8am, more than 100 people withdrew $13 million from 1400 ATMs across Japan in less than three hours. The coordinated heist involved forged credit cards, and data stolen from South Africa's Standard Bank. As The BBC reports,

While not quite on the level of last week's Berenberg downgrade (to Sell) which warned that DB's problems may now be "insurmountable", shortly after the close Moody's surprised the market with a downgrade that may have substantial repercussions on the funding costs (and perhaps viability) of the largest German, and European, lender.

Yesterday, when reporting on the latest development in China's ongoing under-the-table stealth nationalization-cum-bailout of insolvent enterprises courtesy of a proposed plan to convert bad debt into equity, we noted that while China has already managed to convert over $220 billion of Non-performing loans into equity, concerns - both ours and others' - remained.

When it comes to European stocks, Deutsche Bank has made up its mind: sell in May and don't come back at all this year.

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The only "growth" we're experiencing are the financial cancers of systemic risk and financialization's soaring wealth/income inequality.

The Keynesian gods have failed, and as a result we're in the eye of a global financial hurricane.

The Keynesian god of growth has failed.

The Keynesian god of borrowing from the future to fund today's consumption has failed.