Nonperforming loans at Chinese commercial banks rose by seven per cent between September and December, to 1.27 trillion yuan (US$196 billion). It was the slowest quarterly increase in two years, reports Bloomberg, citing data from the China Banking Regulatory Commission. Including "special-mention" loans, where future repayment is at risk but yet to become nonperforming, the industry's total troubled loans swelled to 4.2 trillion yuan, representing 5.46 percent of total advances. This data comes amid speculation that soured loans could be much larger than indicated by official data. The ECB is considering support for Italy's "bad bank," or nonperforming loan securitisation scheme. According to Reuters, the central bank is in talks with the Italian finance ministry over potentially acquiring senior tranches of securitised soured bank loans and accepting them as bank collateral. An investigation by the Reserve Bank of India into a series of suspicious transaction between branches of the Bank of Baroda and banks in Hong Kong is set to expand. All of India's commercial banks are under a cloud as the RBI and other enforcement agencies continue to investigate a series of "irregularities", including non-submission and inordinate delays in filing of Suspicious Transaction Reports, the Press Trust of India reports. Hong Kong's Bank of East Asia, one of the last remaining family run banks in the region, said it rejected a call by US hedge fund Elliott Management Corp to put the bank up for sale, Reuters reports. Elliot Management owns a stake of around seven per cent in the bank, estimated to be worth US$7.6 billion. HSBC's CEO Stuart Gulliver said the bank would slow the pace of hiring around 4,000 jobs in China's southeast region in the coming years, Bloomberg News reports. Meanwhile, Sky News is reporting that Gulliver has warned that the banking group could move 1,000 jobs from its London investment banking division to Paris if the UK votes to leave the EU in a planned referendum.