Business news for Sun, 11 Nov 2007 & with word customers. 9 news.

WESTPAC has passed on the official interest rate rise to its home loan customers after the NAB and CBA quickly lifted variable borrowing costs last week.

Progressive Corp. is providing collision coverage for customers' dogs or cats at no additional premium cost. It will pay up to $500 if a customer's dog or cat is hurt or dies in a car accident.

PRIVATE banking clients of the Bank of China will mushroom from several hundred to more than 1,000 in the next two years, Huang Jinlao, marketing director of the lender's Personal Banking Department, said in Beijing recently. These clients will have a total 10 billion yuan (US$1.35 billion) of funds that will be managed by the country's second-largest lender, he said. It is the first Chinese-funded bank to provide domestic private banking services since March 28, targeting those with liquid financial assets above US$1 million, after Citibank, Standard Chartered and other leading foreign-funded banks. The Chinese bank aims to capture a bigger share of the country's increasingly large wealth management market. The country ranks No. 5 in terms of households with more than US$1 million in liquid assets, following the United States, Japan, Britain and Germany, according to a recent report released by the Boston Consulting Group. The number of such Chinese households totaled 310,000

Customers of failed credit union Streetcred are being urged by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) to get in touch and claim their money back

JOHN Hofmeister has gotten his share of letters from customers who are angry about high gasoline prices. But in March of last year, the president of Houston-based Shell Oil Co. received a piece of hate mail that startled even him ? it contained no note, just a hand-drawn image of the executive hanging from a tree.

THE Bank of China's private banking clients will mushroom from several hundred to more than 1,000 in upcoming two years, Dr. Huang Jinlao, marketing director of Personal Banking Department of Bank of China (BOC), said in Beijing recently. This translates into a total amount of 10 billion yuan (US$ 1.35 billion) wealth from the private banking clients to be managed by the country's second largest lender, he said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua. It is the first Chinese-funded bank to provide domestic private banking services since March 28, 2007 targeting those with liquid financial assets above US$ 1 million, after Citibank, Standard Chartered and other leading foreign-funded banks, striving to capture a bigger share of the country's increasingly large wealth management market. The country has the world's fifth largest number of households with more than US$ 1 million in liquid assets, trailing only the United States, Japan, Britain and Germany, according to a recent

TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) -- Walt Disney Co., the Burbank, Calif., entertainment giant, will partner with Softbank Corp., the Japanese telecom- and Internet-services provider, to offer cellular-phone services in Japan, a person familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal. Disney will lease bandwidth from Softbank and sell its phones and the service through the Japanese company's stores, the Journal reported. Japan's government has been opening the market for cellular service by approving licenses for new providers and enabling wireless customers to port their numbers if they change carriers, the WSJ reported.

Steve Holliday, a 51-year-old Briton, took over as chief executive of National Grid PLC in January and completed the company's $7.3 billion acquisition of Brooklyn-based KeySpan Corp. in August. The utility giant serves 3.3 million electric and 3.4 million natural gas customers in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island. In the United Kingdom, London-based National Grid has 11 ...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co, the No. 2 U.S. entertainment company, plans to launch mobile phone service in Japan next spring offering customers animated content, the Nikkei business daily said on Sunday.