17 July 2012 Last updated at 07:17 ET

Morning business round-up: HSBC to apologise to US Senate

What made the business news in Asia and Europe this morning? Here's our daily business round-up:

Continue reading the main story

Market Data

Last Updated at 04:47 ET

Market index	Current value	Trend	Variation	% variation
Dow Jones	15318.23	Up	138.38	0.91%
Nasdaq	3482.18	Up	30.05	0.87%
S&P 500	1651.81	Up	12.77	0.78%
FTSE 100	6342.66	Down	-31.55	-0.50%
Dax	8193.68	Down	-35.83	-0.44%
BBC Global 30	6788.23	Up	13.01	0.19%

Marketwatch ticker

Data delayed by 15 mins

A US Senate investigation has disclosed how lax controls at Europe's largest bank left it vulnerable to being used to launder dirty money from around the world.

The report into HSBC, released ahead of a Senate hearing on Tuesday, says huge sums of Mexican drug money almost certainly passed through the bank.

Suspicious funds from Syria, the Cayman Islands, Iran and Saudi Arabia also passed through the British bank.

HSBC has said it will apologise when it appears before the Senate.

Technology firm Yahoo has appointed leading Google executive Marissa Mayer as its next chief executive.

Ms Mayer, 37, will become the firm's third chief executive in the space of a year. She was "honoured and delighted" to lead the company.

In May, chief executive Scott Thompson stepped down after accusations that he put a fake computer degree on his CV.

In September 2011, chief executive Carol Bartz was fired after two-and-a-half years in the post.

Foreign direct investment into China fell in June as an economic slowdown dampened companies' appetite for expansion.

Inbound investment fell 6.9% from a year earlier to $12bn (£7.7bn), figures showed. This comes after a six-month slide and only a 0.1% gain in May.

The Chinese economy grew at its slowest pace in three years in the second quarter of this year.

Business headlines

The World Trade Organization has ruled that China discriminates against foreign credit-card and debit-card providers.

A panel of the trade body said China maintained a monopoly on yuan-denominated payment cards which breaks WTO rules.

Only one company, China UnionPay, is allowed to process domestic currency transactions. This limits foreign providers such as Visa and Mastercard.

Prices in the UK are rising at their slowest rate since the end of 2009, official figures have shown.

The annual inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Prices Index fell to 2.4% in June, from 2.8% in May, the Office for National Statistics said.

The rate of inflation, which indicates how fast prices are rising compared with a year earlier, is slowing due to lower food, fuel and clothing prices.

In our latest Business Daily podcast, we look at the questions being asked about other markets where traders have a say in fixing prices. Lesley Curwen hears about the incentives and conflicts of interest which might lead traders to manipulate the figures they submit.