Ananova:

A bank robber who held police at bay for five hours in Austria took calls from customers and offered them loans.

Police say Guenther Baum stormed into the Bawag bank on the main shopping street in Vienna waving a gun.

But he was quickly ringed in as he had chosen to rob a bank next door to the country's special forces headquarters and a police station.

He fled to the first floor of the bank where he grabbed three staff and a customer, and then started taking calls from customers offering loans as the police waited outside.

He eventually gave himself up leaving the bank to deal with the angry customers who thought they had secured the answer to their financial problems.