Weekly Global News Wrap Up: Standard Chartered, HSBC cut credit card products; Citigroup, AT&T end court battle; Banks mull over storing cash in vaults

And boutique banks nabs $100m away from Wall Street rivals.

Citigroup and AT&T have recently been dealing with a litigation over whether the "AT&T thanks" customer loyalty program infringed Citigroup's trademark in the phrase "thankyou." Reuters reports that according to a Monday filing with a Manhattan federal court, the companies have dropped claims against each other with prejudice, meaning they cannot be brought again. Read more here.

European banks are considering the idea of keeping cash piles in high security vaults as interest rates go negative. CNBC says this practice could undermine central banks' ability to use negative rates to boost growth, not to mention the host of other costs it creates such as storage and transport. Read more here.

According to Bloomberg, banks such as Citi, HSBC, and Standard Chartered are cutting the number of card products they offer in Asia. The changing customer behaviour is forcing banks to focus on getting a smaller range of cards adopted for online payments. Bloomberg cited data from London-based Retail Banking Research which shows that at 18% last year, regional growth in credit-card payments was double the global rate, yet the actual number of cards in circulation fell in Asia last year even as the worldwide tally increased. Read more here.

CNBC reports that smaller banks have been claiming a bigger portion of the profits that come from large-scale mergers and acquisitions, and the $14b Pfizer-Medivation deal announced early Monday is another example. Jeffrey Nassof, director at M&A consulting firm Freeman & Co., told CNBC that the deal is expected to generate a payday of up to $50 million for Pfizer's advisors, and nearly $60 million for the banks that advised Medivation. Read more here.