1. In a move that may impact foreign banks that have significant retail exposure in the country through the NBFC route, the RBI, in a draft circular, said banks must not hold more than 10% stake in a deposit-taking, NBFC. Housing finance companies have, however, been exempted.
2. Since the last mid-term review of the annual monetary policy, the Indian economy has continued to expand with the capital market having re-ignited its excitement. Business investment has grown at a solid pace, supported by growth in turnover, rising backlogs of orders for capital goods and higher rates of profitability. As the second quarter results have indicated, India Inc remains in good financial health with favourable credit conditions. This continual growth expectation has underlined the confidence evidenced in the current mid-term review.
3. Reliance Retail, the 100% subsidiary of Reliance Industries, on October 28 unveiled Reliance Fresh, the first of its multi-format retail foray involving an investment of Rs 25,000 crs.
4. India Inc continues to be in robust health. A study of 762 major companies, which have declared their first-half results, shows their aggregate net profit increased by 31.2% in April-September 2006.
5. Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest bank, plans to move thousands of jobs to India.
6. With the apex bank putting across draft guidelines to curtail the regulatory arbitrage enjoyed by bank-sponsored non-banking finance companies, banks are going back to their drawing boards and revisiting plans for setting up NBFCs.
7. Microcredit, an important initiative aimed at financial inclusion, has proved to be a profitable business proposition both in short and long terms for commercial banks globally with micro-entrepreneurs gradually becoming part of their active clientele. Delivering a special lecture on global experiences of inclusive growth initiatives at the Bancon-2006, Mercedes Benavides, manager, Global Network for Banking Innovation in Microfinance, Women’s World Banking, while citing the experiences in Latin America, said more and more commercial banks are now entering the microfinance sector with the benefit of access to lessons learned by microfinance institutions in this area. She also said the top performing MFIs the world over are achieving high growth and profitability.
8. MetLife India Insurance Co Pvt Ltd has entered into a bancassurance tie-up with UTI Bank. This is MetLife's fourth bancassurance tie-up after J&K Bank, Karnataka Bank and Dhanalaxmi Bank. The bancassurance tie-up with UTI Bank will complement MetLife's 10,000 strong agency force. While agents form one half of our sales push, bancassurance forms the second half.
9. Kotak Mahindra Bank has opened its retail banking branch in Kottayam. The bank has 82 branches in 57 locations in the country.
10. State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur is planning to add one more branch each at Tirupur and Coimbatore. It is also contemplating to open a regional office at Chennai to monitor its branches in the South.
11.SBI may raise another Rs 1,000 crs to Rs 2,000 crs as tier-II capital during the current fiscal to fund business growth.
