1. The volume of financial services will be three times bigger than the volume of ITeS services in India over next 15 years and the employment generation would far exceed the BPO industry. This is because of the advent of significant portion of International Financial Services (IFS) to India and surge in volume of domestic financial services. Already, many global financial firms are mulling shifting of jobs to India. This would be followed by the arrival of internationally known financial firms.
2. The broad objectives of Monetary Policy in India relate to maintaining price stability and ensuring adequate credit expansion to foster growth. But the relative emphasis on these objectives has naturally differed depending on the socio-economic requirements and priorities during the course of the country's growth process. Monetary Policy has to, therefore, be evaluated in an integrated framework in terms of the inter-relationship among money, output and prices.
3. SBH will be organising a `housing loan mela' from May 2 to May 31 at Zoroastrian Club, Secunderabad here. During the period, the bank would offer waiver of processing charges, 50 bps concession in the rate of interest for loans up to and including five years of tenure and 25 bps concession in the rate of interest for loans above five years and up to 20 years. Further, a free personal accident insurance policy of Rs 1 lakh for the first year of the loan would also be offered.
4. Bank of Baroda plans to open another 15 SME loan factories this year. It inaugurated the 16th SME loan factory, at Coimbatore.
5. The capital adequacy of banks will fall by 50 bps in 2007-08 and by as much as 75 bps each in the second and third year, after adopting the new capital adequacy norms. There would be a severe strain on capital due to the implementation of Basel II norms, according to bankers. The impact will however be spread over 3 years. The banks will have to adopt the new capital provisioning norms under Basel II with effect from March 2008.
6. In a major relief to banks, the RBI has included direct finance to corporates for agriculture and allied activity of up to Rs 1 crore under priority sector lending against the earlier exposure of Rs 20 lakh. Similarly, home loans up to Rs 20 lakh will also now be classified under priority sector advances against the earlier limit of Rs 15 lakh. The new norms will take immediate effect. The targets for priority sector lending will be linked to adjusted net bank credit (ANBC) or credit equivalent amount of the off-balance sheet exposure, whichever is higher, at end of previous financial year.
7. Vijaya Bank has returned to profitability and registered a net profit of Rs 63.65 crs in the fourth quarter of 2006-08 compared with a net loss of Rs 34.53 crs in the corresponding period last year. The operating profit has also gone up by 20% to Rs 193.25 crs during the same period. The turnaround has been partially made possible by a writeback of Rs 48.3 crs earlier for taxes. The bank also benefited from lower provisioning for NPA and higher interest income on advances, which grew by 48 % to Rs 513 crs.
8. Bank of Maharashtra registered a net profit of Rs 75.27 crs in the fourth quarter ending March 2007, while it registered a loss of Rs 33.41 crs in the same period last year. But its net profit grew more than four times to Rs 271.84 crs in 2006-07 compared with Rs 50.79 crs in 2005-06 on the back of robust growth in non-interest income. The board has recommended a dividend of 20% for the year ended March 2007.
9. A severe staff crunch at the branches for managing the front desk operations has compelled the SBI to resume recruitments in the clerical cadre after almost a gap of 20 years. The bank plans to induct about 3,600 persons in unionised category as “Customer Relations Associates”. The bank needs people to interface with customers at the branches. All the young graduate personnel (to be inducted in clerical posts) will be computer savvy and sensitive to the client requirements.
10. The cumulative value of exports rose by 23.88% to $124.6 bn (Rs. 5,63,800 crs) in 2006-07 from $100.6 bn in the previous fiscal. However, the cumulative value of imports grew at a much faster pace by 25% to $181.3 bn (Rs. 8,20,568 crs) from $140.2 bn, according to provisional data for merchandise released by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics. Crude oil imports were higher by 30% at $57 bn during the year against $44 bn in the previous fiscal. Non-oil imports were valued at $124 bn, which were 25% higher than the level of such imports valued at $99.4 bn.
11. Bharti Airtel chief Sunil Bharti Mittal will join the board of Standard Chartered PLC as an independent director.
12. Till some time ago, a gold credit card was enough to tell the world you've arrived. Now, as rupee-millionaires proliferate in the afterglow of the India growth story, gold is not enough. India's credit card companies are thus thinking platinum - cards that are usually offered by invitation only.
13. The government has clarified that coins of all denomination including 25 paise are acceptable in the country.
14. The number of special economic zones notified in the last 14 months since the SEZ Act came into force in February 2006, has touched the 100-mark.
15. Market regulator SEBI has imposed a fine of Rs 3 crore and Rs 5 crore on national depositories CDSL and NSDL respectively for negligence and lack of compliance in allotment of shares in the initial public offers of many companies between 2003-05.
16. RBI has exempted farmers from submitting 'no due' certificate (NDC) for obtaining loans up to Rs 50,000 from banks.
17. Andhra Bank is planning to set up a bank in Malaysia in partnership with BOB & PNB.The finer points of the joint venture are being worked out. Bank of Baroda would be the majority holder in the JV, with 40%, while Andhra Bank will hold a 25 % stake and PNB, 35%.
