Russia has stepped up its plans to exploit the potential of distributed ledger technology with the announcement that state-owned bank Vnesheconombank is to open a blockchain research centre in Moscow, Finextra reports. According to VEB chief executive Sergei Gorkov the research centre, to be headquartered at the National University of Science and Technology in Moscow, will pave the way for the bank to invest in blockchain projects and eventually develop its own blockchain-based services and products. Key profitability and credit metrics at major Chinese banks continued improving in the first half of 2017, compared with the same period a year ago, Caixin reports. These megabanks earned more from lending to businesses and had fewer loans run sour, while the government continues to clamp down on systemic excesses. Yesterday, Bank of China, the country's fourth-largest bank by assets, reported an 11.5 per cent growth in net profit for the first six months. Agricultural Bank of China, the third-largest lender, saw its first-half net profit rise 3.3 per cent, while Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the country's largest bank, posted a 1.8 per cent net-profit increase for the same period. Wells Fargo is facing another consumer class-action lawsuit, this time alleging that it bilked home loan borrowers by charging them extra fees when their applications were delayed - even when it was the bank's fault, the LA Times reports (republished via AFR). The new suit, filed this week in a San Francisco federal court, is the latest development in a growing new controversy over the practices of the bank's home loan unit and one of several new problems that have emerged at Wells Fargo over the past year in the wake of the bank's sham-accounts scandal.