1. The Tatas are picking up a stake in the Mumbai-based Development Credit Bank (DCB), which could just fall short of the 5-per cent mark. The investment is being routed through the newly formed Tata Capital Ltd, a company created to give an added focus to the group’s presence in the financial services business.
2. IRDA has cancelled the direct insurance broker licence of New Delhi-based Paramount Insurance Brokers Pvt Ltd.
3. RBI Governor, Dr Y.V. Reddy, called on the Union Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, at the latter’s North Block office here.Indications are that the discussions, which lasted over two hours, centred around issues such as rupee appreciation and its impact on exporters, inflation situation in the economy and policy initiatives that may be required at the Central Bank’s forthcoming quarterly review of monetary policy on July 31.
4. Driven by a surge in other income and healthy growth in deposits and advances, HDFC Bank posted a 34.2 % rise in net profit. The bank’s net profit for the first quarter ended June 30, 2007 was at Rs 321.23 crs against Rs 239.3 crs in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
5. The net profit of South Indian Bank has grown by 102 per cent to Rs 30.37 crore during the first quarter of the current financial year, from Rs 15.05 crore in the previous year. The total income grew by 41.85 per cent to Rs 322 crore (Rs 227 crore) and the gross profit was up at Rs 53 crore (Rs 42 crore).
6. Corporation Bank will take up an aggressive branch expansion plan for regions other than the South, its traditional bastion. The bank is weighing the possibility of widening its network further, especially to areas where it needs to markedly scale up presence. The idea is to penetrate markets that have displayed positive signs in terms of generating fresh business.
7. The Karnataka State Financial Corporation has come out with a one-time settlement scheme for small and tiny borrowers for loans of up to Rs 10 lakh. The State Government has extended budgetary support of Rs 54 crore for the settlement. The scheme would allow settlement of loans that have turned to non-performing assets till April 2006. Under the scheme, the interest dues by the KSFC would be compensated by the State Government.
8. Standard Chartered Bank has announced that it had set up its global private banking hub in Chennai, under its wholly owned, captive, BPO subsidiary, Scope International Private Ltd.
The bank has private banking operations in ten cities across the globe (more coming up) and the Chennai hub would handle all the transaction processing. Scope was initially set up as a cost arbitrage opportunity by offshoring processes, but “has evolved into a centre of expertise, providing risk-controlled process efficiency.” Today, it processes 80 million transactions for Standard Chartered Bank annually.
The bank has private banking operations in ten cities across the globe (more coming up) and the Chennai hub would handle all the transaction processing. Scope was initially set up as a cost arbitrage opportunity by offshoring processes, but “has evolved into a centre of expertise, providing risk-controlled process efficiency.” Today, it processes 80 million transactions for Standard Chartered Bank annually.
9. Reserve Bank of India is likely to transfer its stake in National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) to the Government, after completing the SBI equity transfer.Highly placed Nabard officials said that the discussions were still underway on the methodology for transfer. The RBI holds 72.5 % stake in Nabard or Rs 1,450 crore of the paid-up equity of Rs 2,000 crore. The remaining 27.5% or Rs 550 crore is held by the Centre. Nabard has an authorised capital of Rs 5,000 crore. The stake transfer proposal comes as Nabard enters its 25th year of operations.
10. ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has opened a representative office in Dubai. This is ICICI Prudential’s second overseas office, after its first one in the Kingdom of Bahrain.The company hopes to cater to the vast Non-Resident Indian population in the Gulf.
11. While plastic cards can open the doors of any commercial establishment, there are still many who prefer thick wads of currency on their person. The amount of cash people flush out of ATMs (automated teller machines) is 44.4 % more than what is spent on credit cards. A recent industry survey shows that ATM withdrawals account for Rs 65,000 crore as against Rs 45,000 crore swiped away on credit cards. However, purchases on debit cards were only Rs 12,000 crore, despite debit cards far outnumbering credit cards.The number of debit cards in circulation is close to 60 million and credit cards only 26 million. The total transaction on the cards as a whole during the year is said to be close to Rs 1,25,000 crs.
