Apple Pay will earn fees from Chinese banks when customers use its mobile payment service for purchases, but will only earn about half of the 0.15 per cent that the US tech giant reportedly charges in the United States. Citing "people with knowledge of the matter," the online news service Caixin reports that Chinese banks have agreed to pay around 0.07 percent of each transaction to Apple after 19 local banks, led by China's own Big Four, hammered out a deal to let customers link their bankcards to Apple Pay and use NFC technology to complete the transaction. Poor trading results and low client activity in the second half of 2015 at the world's 12 largest investment banks contributed to an overall three per cent decline compared to a year ago, Reuters reported, citing industry analytics firm Coalition. Return on equity was only slightly down year on year, however, to 9.2 per cent from 9.3 per cent. The global IB sector is still struggling to adjust to higher capital and liquidity requirements, while litigation costs and market volatility have forced restructures, staff shedding and business line exits, Reuters reports, adding that these trends have hit revenue from trading fixed income, currencies and commodities particularly hard. The biggest US banks are bracing for a tougher round of stress tests from the Federal Reserve, which could crimp their plans for higher dividends and share buybacks, according to the Financial Times. The basic framework for this year's test was toughened up last month to allow for bigger falls in unemployment, a deeper trough in Europe and negative short-term interest rates throughout the nine-quarter planning horizon, FT.com reports, reminding readers the Fed warned last week on operational risks such as class-action lawsuits, a rogue trader or a major cyber security breach. Emerging markets bank Standard Chartered stands accused of buying a US$100 million "dirty debt" at a steep discount and then demanding compensation from the Tanzanian government, reports the Financial Times. The deal was allegedly done, despite the bank knowing that the loan had been part of a multimillion-pound embezzlement scheme, according to claims in a legal battle over a power plant project. StanChart, with nearly US$1 billion in fines over the past nine years for breaching anti-money laundering rules, denies being complicit by allowing money to be siphoned off to majority partners, calling the allegations by the project's minority partner "baseless".