1. In a backdrop marked by little or no awareness about the need for financial protection, 81%of the country's households save, with urban people accounting for a bigger proportion of savings – 88%, compared with rural areas, where 79% of the households save. This forms the crux of a survey conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). Expenditure in urban areas accounts for 62 % of income, compared with 56.2 % in ruralareas. Salary earners constitute the highest income earners in urban centres, enjoying the highest per capita income. Nearly 37% of the urban population constitutes chief earners who earn regular salaries/wages. Their share in total income is 45%. In contrast, people engaged in agri businesses make up the largest group among chief earners. Their contribution to total income is 43%, the survey has established. Also, typically urban, salaried households are the most well-off section.
2. Oriental Bank of Commerce, has entered into a tie-up with Escorts Ltd, a tractor manufacturer, for providing retail tractor finance to farmers. The bank will also offer credit facilities to authorised dealers of Escorts under a Channel Financing Arrangement.
3. American Express wants to extend its wealth management services to high networth individuals beyond Mumbai and
4. Consumer loans including home from ICICI Bank, will cost more by 1%, a day after the RBI hiked key short-term rates. RBI had hiked the repo rate by a quarter percentage point to 7.75% and increased the cash reserve ratio by 50 bps to 6.50%. ICICI Bank has increased its floating reference rate (FRR) by 1% to 12.75% for consumer loans (including home loans), effective March 31. For existing floating rate customers, the increase in FRR by 1% will be effective April 1. The bank has also hiked its benchmark advance rate (I-BAR) by one percentage point to 15.75% pa, payable monthly.
5. Karnataka Bank Ltd has increased interest rates on domestic term deposits with effect from April 1. The rates would be applicable to fresh deposits and renewals of maturing deposits. Following are the interest rates for deposits up to Rs 5 crs with the earlier rates given in brackets.: 4.5 % (4.25 ) for maturity pattern of seven days to 14 days; 4.5% (4%) for 15 days to 45 days; 5.5% (5 %) for 46 days to 90 days; 6.5% (6%) for 91 days to 180 days; 7.5% (7%) for 181 days to less than a year; 8.5% (7.5%) for one year to less than two years; 9.25% (7.5%) for two years to less than three years; 9.5% (7.75%) for three years to five years; and 9% (8%) for maturity pattern of above five years. The release said that the bank has a special deposit scheme for 600 days, carrying an interest of 9.25 %. The interest rate for deposits of senior citizens in this scheme is 10%.
6. Bank of
7. The interbank call rates touched an intra-day high of 70% on the last trading day of the financial year, signalling extreme liquidity tightness in the market, before closing at 30%. The market has been reeling under tight liquidity on the back of advance tax outflows of around Rs 40,000 crs and the RBI’s liquidity absorption measures.
8. Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the government was ‘fully supportive’ of RBI's decision to increase key short term lending rates and cash reserve ratio to contain inflation.
9. ICICI Bank CEO M V Kamath and 7 others have been charged with dacoity after a car financed by the bank was allegedly forcibly repossessed. The offences under Section 395 (punishment for dacoity), 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 29 (document) and 506 (b) (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the IPC were registered against Kamath and others after a local court directed police to do so on a complaint by a borrower.
10. ABN Amro, currently in merger talks with British banking major Barclays, has doubled its micro finance clientele globally with its
11. It's a reasonably well-known fact that many banks insist customers open a fixed deposit with them to rent a safe deposit locker. In large cities, some banks ask for a minimum Rs 25,000 as fixed deposit for a locker. A 63-year-old Mumbai consumer complains that a cooperative bank demanded Rs 1 lakh as the minimum deposit amount. Few consumers, though, are aware that such a demand is in violation of a Reserve Bank of
12. Flow of credit to the self help groups (SHGs) under the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) has been less than the target in Orissa. By January 2007 only 51% of the targeted credit could be achieved by the banks operating in the state. Only 65.84% of the sponsored applications were sanctioned and of them 75% only were actually disbursed. During Apr-Dec 2006, total 76,955 applications were sponsored and 50,664 applications were sanctioned. Of this about 38001 applicants were disbursed loans.
