1. The Centre's buyout of the Reserve Bank of
2. Kerala will be declared a "total banking state" by June 30 with every family having at least one bank account. This is in tune with the RBI guidelines for ensuring total financial inclusion in all the districts of the country. In September 2006, Palakkad in Kerala had become the first district in the country to achieve the status of a `total banking district'.
3. The home loan market could grow faster, with the National Housing Bank (NHB) working on ways to structure products that will expand the market for housing finance to include urban slums and low-cost rural housing. The housing regulator is looking at products where the repayment schedules coincide with the cashflow of farmers and self-employed. Banks and housing finance companies (HFCs) prefer to enter this space, in partnerships with established microfinance institutions (MFIs). The key issue in expanding the market to include low-cost funding is the lender’s fixation for equated monthly installments.
4. Goldman Sachs Group Inc, the world's most profitable investment bank, offered to buy shares in ICICI Financial Services. ICICI Financial, which controls the insurance and asset- management arms of
5. Consumer education is finding its way into housing finance now. Customers have been questioning disparities in home loan agreements, varied service charges and hidden costs for some time now. They may get answers from a common forum of banks and housing finance companies (HFCs). NHB is mulling over an idea to promote a common forum of banks and HFCs. The idea is to promote customer protection and education in the housing finance arena. Letters have already been dispatched to leading banks and housing finance companies asking for their feedback.
6. The Kerala government has unveiled an action plan to convert the state into a favoured investment destination by promoting public-private partnership in infrastructure development and offering to set up exclusive industrial parks for NRI investors. While the policy speaks about setting up product-specific Special Economic Zones, that in a state like Kerala, large quantum of land like 30,000 acres could not be set apart for SEZs.
7. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and mutual funds (MFs) are likely to be allowed to trade in bullion and energy futures on the country’s commodity exchanges. According to officials, the finance and agriculture ministries have finally come to an agreement on the proposal. Besides giving small investors access to the commodities market, the participation of FIIs and MFs is expected to lend depth to trades in these areas. FII and MF investments in commodity exchanges will fall under the purview of the Sebi, while the Forward Markets Commission (FMC) regulates the exchanges.
8. United Bank of
9. ICICI Bank is offering baits to entice retail investors to invest in its equity share issue aimed at mobilising Rs 10,062.5 crs from the domestic market, including a greenshoe option (or, the option to retain a part of the oversubscription) of Rs 1,312.5 crs. Apart from a discount of up to 5%, the bank is providing small investors an easy option to pay for the shares on offer through the book-building process (an auction conducted by investment bankers). Retail bidders also have the option to pay only Rs 250 per share on application, Rs 250 on allotment and the balance on call, which will be issued within six months of allotment. ICICI Bank will also list the partly paid shares for the benefit of retail investors. ICICI Bank has defined retail investors as individual bidders, including Hindu undivided families and NRIs, whose bid amount does not exceed Rs 1,00,000.
10. UTI bank , the third largest private bank of the country, has chalked out a plan to increase its lending in Orissa by 55 % during the current fiscal. The bank , which lent Rs.450 crs during 2006-07, plans to increase lending to Rs.700 crs during the current fiscal. However, in the overall growth of credit, focus will be on priority sector lending. The bank's lending to the priority sector of the state was Rs.140 crore last fiscal. It aimed to increase priority sector lending by 64 percent to Rs 230 crore. Similarly, the agricultural lending target had been raised by 91% to Rs 65 crs from Rs 34 crs at present.
11. IDBI Bank will set up a mutual fund subsidiary with IDBI Capital markets, its wholly-owned subsidiary, once its proposed life insurance venture gets off the ground. The bank will have a 65% stake in the asset management company (AMC) with IDBI Capital holding the remaining share, according to a senior IDBI official. The bank’s application for setting-up the AMC business is already with the RBI. The central bank, however, has asked the public sector bank to focus on getting the insurance business off the ground before taking up new businesses.
