No more banks will fail, Paulson predicts

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Tuesday that he does not expect any more major financial institutions to fail during the current credit crisis.

He also said that he has no plans to ask Congress to make the second half of the $700-billion US financial rescue fund available before the Bush administration leaves office on Jan. 20.

Paulson said in an interview on CNBC that he believes the actions taken by financial authorities in the United States and other countries will allow all the systemically important institutions to remain viable.

There have been 25 U.S. bank failures so far this year, compared with three in all of 2007.