VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Bank of America has hired two U.S. government officials to join its financial crimes team, according to three people familiar with the matter, as banks are under increasing pressure to police their transactions for suspicious activity.

British and U.S. regulators are poised to levy hefty fines on leading banks in a landmark settlement after a year-long global investigation of allegations of collusion and manipulation in the foreign exchange market.

At a retreat for Merrill Lynch financial advisers in a luxury Orlando hotel last month, a group of several dozen men and women in business attire swung their arms back and forth over their heads to Kid Rock's "All Summer Long" to get their circulation going.

A number of high-profile brokers have left Bank of America Corp's (BAC.N) Merrill Lynch wealth management unit in recent weeks, and top executives at the company have grown concerned enough to ask business head John Thiel to explain the departures, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

U.S. TV startup Roku Inc is working on plans to confidentially file for an initial public offering, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

AstraZeneca's cancer drug pipeline, already on a roll following promising clinical trial results, could get a further boost next week from a European green light for an experimental medicine against ovarian cancer.

As traditional Wall Street moneymakers like stock and bond trading suffer, banks are growing increasingly willing to invest in less glamorous operations: their credit card businesses.

Outflows from Pimco may be far from over as many investors have yet to decide whether to stick with the Newport Beach, California-based asset manager.

Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), the second-largest U.S. bank by total assets, could see its shares climb 50 percent over the next three years, Barron's financial newspaper said on Sunday.

Swiss private bank Julius Baer is interested in acquiring Coutts International, a unit of Royal Bank of Scotland, but will not get into a bidding war for the venerable British bank's overseas arm, a Swiss paper reported on Sunday.

As banks shed off their private equity units to comply with the Volcker Rule, the executives of these newly-independent firms will find themselves doing more travel in their search for new investors, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Office of the New York Attorney General will continue with the lawsuit without claim to damages it lodged against Bank of America over its 2009 purchase of Merrill Lynch, Bloomberg reported.

South Korea-based investment fund Korea Investment Corp (KIC) is considering selling a $1-billion stake in Bank of America after the latter's value halved since 2008, according to a report by Korean media.

As far as investment banking fees go, Bank of America outperformed JPMorgan Chase & Co since it acquired Merrill Lynch & Co in 2008, Bloomberg reported.

Banks are growing more reliant on the growing market for equities as they get nearly half of their fourth quarter investment banking revenues from equity trading and underwriting, the Financial Times reported.