1. The Delhi State Consumer Commission has slapped a penalty of Rs 1 lakh on Axis bank for lapses in finalising the account of an 85-year-old customer.
2. Information and communication technologies (ICT) may not be a cure to all problems, but it can be a powerful tool to facilitate economic, individual and social development, said Prof K Raj Reddy of Carnegie Mellon University (USA) at the 73rd and 74th convocation of Andhra University .
3. Indian banks face the likelihood of scaling down their lending targets for 2007-08, following a slump in credit off-take during the first six months of the financial year resulting from successive rounds of interest rate hikes. The loan portfolio of banks has grown by Rs 54,908 crore till September 14, representing only 3.6 per cent growth. During the same period last year, banks had lent Rs 147,657 crore, a rise of 10.5 per cent. As a result, banks anticipate credit growth in 2007-08 to be closer to 20 per cent, down from 27.6 per cent in 2006-07 and short of the target of 25 per cent set at the beginning of this fiscal.
4. Need for funds slows as credit offtake till mid-Sept crawls to just 9% of annual target. The sustained slowing of credit growth has made State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender, consider shelving its proposed rights issue of Rs 8,000-12,000 crore, sources in the bank told Business Standard. The bank’s credit portfolio has grown by just about Rs 9,000 crore in the first five and a half months of 2007-08 against the bank’s target of increasing its advances by Rs 1,00,000 crore.
5. State Bank of India, the country’s biggest lender, became the first public sector bank to touch a market capitalisation of Rs 1,00,000 crore.
6. State Bank of India (SBI) will lend another $1-1.5 billion to Tata Steel UK to enable the Tata group to refinance a part of the bridge loans taken by it for the acquisition of Anglo-Dutch steel maker Corus. Tata Steel is unable to raise funds from foreign banks, which have turned risk-averse following the US sub-prime mortgage crisis. The Indian conglomerate has therefore turned to the country’s largest lender for funding support. The fresh loan will be in addition to the $1 billion SBI sanctioned late last month. SBI will take the enhanced exposure to Tata Steel through its overseas branches. This will become a substantially bigger acquisition financing exposure of SBI, considering that it till now was involved in deals only of less than $100 million.
Tata needed refinance to pay-off $7.2 billion of bridge loans taken for the biggest buyout by an Indian company.
Tata needed refinance to pay-off $7.2 billion of bridge loans taken for the biggest buyout by an Indian company.
7. In the first-ever case of its kind, ICICI Bank has compensated the families of its two borrowers who allegedly died due to harassment by the bank’s recovery agents. The bank has paid Rs 10 lakh in the form of fixed deposit to the family of Prakash Sarvankar from Andheri here who committed suicide after being publicly humiliated by the agents for recovery of a personal loan.
8. The country's largest private general insurer ICICI Lombard has bagged a contract from the railways to provide personal accident cover at a premium of just 4.75 paise per passenger.
9. Standard Chartered Bank recently announced the acquisition of American Express Bank for $860 million in cash. This purchase would give the UK-based bank an expanded presence in India and boost its recently launched private banking business in the country. Its wholesale banking business focuses on the entire spectrum ranging from emerging corporates, small and medium enterprises (SME) and large corporates. It is doing well and will continue to grow at 20 per cent to 25 per cent. It wants to expand the SME business as it accounts for around 20 per cent of our revenues. The small and medium enterprises business segment is growing at upwards of 50 per cent and will continue to report robust growth.
10. RBI is in favour of a domestic card payment settlement company to rival the global payment majors Visa and MasterCard. The Indian Banks Association (IBA) had earlier proposed the setting up of a domestic card transaction settlement company called India Pay, following a forecast that card payments in India will increase three-fold in five years. The central bank wants new players to be promoted so as to infuse competition in the card payment market. All card-based transactions are currently settled through the global payment network of Visa and MasterCard. The central bank’s Board for Payment and Settlement Systems observed that nearly 95 per cent of the card-based transactions in the country were domestic in nature, but most of the credit card, debit card and pre-paid cards issued were affiliated either to Visa, Master card or American Express. The RBI has asked IBA to submit a detailed report on the feasibility of setting up an indigenous payment settlement system. A streamlining of card transactions could reduce the cost of operations.
