1. State Bank of Patiala (SBP) has launched ‘SBP-Smart Deposit Scheme’ (term deposit and special term deposit) for a maturity period of 455 days. The deposits would provide an interest of 9.5 per cent per annum for general public.
2. State Bank of India, the country’s largest commercial bank, has kicked off the consolidation process with its associate banks. SBI has decided to merge State Bank of Saurashtra, a wholly owned associate bank, with itself. The boards of both SBI and State Bank of Saurashtra have given an in-principle approval to the merger proposal.
3.The country’s forex reserves fell by $2.551 billion to $226.445 billion for the seven days ended August 17, dipping for the second consecutive week.This was due both to FII outflows resulting from the US sub-prime loan crisis, as well as the RBI's recent curbs on external commercial borrowings. Market participants also attribute the fall in reserves to the revaluation of other currency assets.
4. Indian companies have borrowed about $14.97 billion through external commercial borrowing (ECB) and foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCB) within a span of five months from January to May 2007.Analysts feel that the huge borrowing through ECB route was mainly due to the high rates of interest in the domestic market. “The interest rates for borrowing through ECB/FCCB was about two-three per cent lower than that offered by the domestic market.”
5. LIC has launched two unit linked insurance plans - Profit Plus and Fortune Plus. Both are unit linked endowment plans, which combine insurance with market related returns.
6. The Kerala Government and the Centre in association with the United India Insurance Company Ltd will jointly launch a health and personal accident insurance policy for the “Tsunami affected elow poverty line (BPL).
7. The ICICI group is looking to hire about 20,000 people a year through direct employment for the next few years. The three back office hubs of ICICI Bank, in Bhubaneshwar, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad, have about 20,000-30,000 people at each location. The bank sees an attrition rate of 15-16%.One way of addressing the problem of attrition is to create and increase the pool of people with the right skill sets. For this, ICICI Bank has tied up with educational institutions such as NIIT, ICFAI and Manipal University for integrating the bank’s training modules as part of the curriculum.
8. The Reserve Bank of India today permitted foreign investment in ICICI Bank shares, as the share of Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) has gone down below the trigger limit of 74 per cent of its paid-up capital.
9. The share of credit flow to small scale industries from public sector banks have been steadily declining since early nineties. Lending to SSI sector accounted for 16.1 per cent of bank credit in 1991 and has declined to 8.5 per cent in 2006.
10. The Union Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, has assured the Lok Sabha that he would soon bring a Bill to regulate the various payment systems in the country, including those operated by non-banks such as card companies.
11. Giesecke & Devrient GmbH, a German company specialising in providing international technology services, is set to expand its product range for currency processing systems in India by introducing coin handling systems.
12. Small and marginal farmers availing agriculture loans up to Rs 50,000 need not pay any service charge and need not deposit land documents at bank branches. These are some of the recommendations of the group set up by the Reserve Bank of India.
13. In a notification issued to banks, the Reserve Bank of India said: “Banks and financial institutions are advised to invariably furnish a copy of the loan agreement along with a copy each of all enclosures quoted in the loan agreement to all the borrowers at the time of sanction / disbursement of loans.”
The condition would apply for all loans across the board.
The condition would apply for all loans across the board.
