Tides of 21.02.2008

1. Bank funds are getting cheaper. The country’s largest bank, State Bank of India, cut its interest rates for the second time in less than ten days. Several other banks including Union Bank of India, Bank of India and Canara Bank also followed suit. SBI announced a 0.25 per cent reduction in its benchmark prime lending rate, on Wednesday . The bank’s BPLR will be 12.25 per cent with effect from February 27.Union Bank cut its BPLR by 50 basis points from 13.25 per cent to 12.75 per cent.Canara Bank cut its BPLR by 25 basis points to 12.75 per cent.
Bank of India also cut its PLR by 50 basis points.

2. Turnaround time is not a term that is used only in logistics and shipping industry. Bankers too have started using them frequently in relation to customer service.The Union Bank of India’s CMD Mr M.V. Nair, is on a project called ‘Nav Nirman’ that aims at improving turnaround time in his bank. The basic focus of the ‘Nav Nirman’ is to re-write the fundamental architecture of the bank to bring customer to the centre.He says, “The large business of any bank falls into four categories. They are: retail, SME sector, corporate sector and rural sector. And the needs of these four segments are different.”In the retail sector, there are two groups. One, is the old generation customer who would like to have personal banking at the branch level and the other is the new generation customer. The latter group may not like to visit the branch. They are online and want technology to deal with the product. In this regard, the bank has set up retail asset branches where it commits a turnaround time for the sanction of certain loans. This has to be given by technology and people. The bank has already announced a turnaround time of 48 hours for the sanction of educational loans. “This cannot be done unless you fundamentally change the architecture. That is what ‘Nav Nirman’ aims at,” he said. He explains how the changes will go beyond the financial architecture and affect even the physical lay-out.
He says, “First when you enter the branch, you will have ATMs and kiosks where transactions are done. I am also trying to implement passbook writers for updating passbooks. They can complete all their transaction in the first stage itself. We will call this as the transaction area. The advantage is that even though the branch may be closed, the transaction area will be open all 24 hours. You can do 80 per cent of the job in the transaction area.“After the transaction area, the branch area will come where the customer will get the teller and the product display. Once technology is used, you have more online data transaction, call centres, and CBS. Then the branches will be become freer. Then the next challenge is to connect with customers. To do this, nearly 5,000 officers of the bank were put on a two-day training programme where the bank tied up with different universities.”

Tides of 19.02.2008

1. Payments of Rs 1 crore and above between banks, NBFCs, primary dealers and any other entities regulated by the Reserve Bank of India may be allowed only through electronic mode from April 1. All such payments above the cut-off point done between parties regulated by the RBI should be through Real Time Gross Settlement or National Electronic Fund Transfer.
The new guidelines will also be applicable to participants in the RBI-regulated markets such as foreign exchange, money and Government securities markets.

2. Banks will now have to make withdrawals from ATMs free of charge for their own customers. Requests for balance enquiries would have to be made free to customers of other banks as well. In a draft circular, the RBI has asked banks to implement these changes with immediate effect.
For use of other bank ATMs for cash withdrawals, the RBI has asked banks not to charge more than Rs 20 with effect from March 31, 2008. This will also gradually be made free of charge by April 1, 2009.

3. Individuals who do not have an individual proof of residence can now open an account with any bank by producing the utility bill of a close relative as a proof of residence along with a declaration from the relative, said a notification from the Reserve Bank of India.The utility bill, which is an important source of address proof, is generated in the name of the person owning the residence. There are instances where a wife staying with her husband or parents staying with their son, or children with parents find it difficult to open account in some banks as the utility bills required for address verification are not in their name.

4. The Union Bank announced the opening of five fully computerised branches in the districts of Vizianagaram and East Godavari, according to a press release here on Monday. The new branches are situated at Bobbili, Salur and Parvatipuram in Vizianagaram district and Kakinada and Rajahmundry in East Godavari district.

5. Canara Bank launches online trading facility at select CBS brancjes.

6. The Reserve Bank of India has cleared the branch licence of Swiss bank UBS AG, which was put on hold following investigations into certain fund transactions.

7. The officers and staff of State Bank of India will observe a two-day strike on February 25 and 26 in support of various demands.

8. Tuticorin-based Tamilnad Mercantile Bank has got licences to open branches at 17 new locations in the country.

9. Banks are going slow on lending for purchase of two-wheelers. Such lending has seen a decline of more than 15 per cent over the past year, said officials from banks which are active in this segment.

10. The Government of India’s subscription to the rights issue of State Bank of India will be against the issue of ‘Special Marketable government securities’ and not SLR (Statutory Liquidity Ratio) Marketable Securities.The SBI said it will issue a corrigendum to its Letter of Offer for the rights issue, intimating its shareholders of the change.The bank has also informed SEBI of the matter

Tides of 14.02.2008

1. HDFC Bank has entered into a $7.4 million, three-year strategic Enterprise Level Agreement with Symantec for IT compliance, enterprise security and storage management solutions. Symantec would provide consulting, implementation services, set of security and storage solutions and services. The IT Compliance Solution would help the Bank to automate and standardise processes for compliance with laws, regulations and frameworks including SOX, Basel II, COBIT, ITIL and ISO 27001.

2. The bancassurace business of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is on a steady growth, thanks to the growing interest of many banks in enhancing the fee-based income.
Led by Andhra Bank in the number of policies and first premium income, 26 banks in the country are currently eyeing a niche in bancassurance by selling insurance products of the State insurer.

3. City Union Bank, has received licence from the Reserve Bank of India to open 40 more branches. These are to be opened within one year. In conformity with the RBI’s guidelines, the bank will ensure that half the new branches will be in under-banked areas. At least four branches will be in rural areas. Officials of City Union Bank had told Business Line that the bank would like to get into Rajasthan, UP and Haryana.

4. Public sector banks (PSBs) have urged the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, to exclude them from the ambit of transfer pricing provisions under the income tax law. They have also sought exclusion from the purview of Section 40A(2) of the income tax law, which empowers an assessing officer to disallow deduction of any expenditure incurred between related parties and considered by the officer as excessive or unreasonable having regard to the fair market value of the goods, services or facilities.

5. Smaller banks by and large seem to wait for the biggies to effect a change in the interest rate before taking the plunge.Mr K.V.S. Manian, Head of Retail Liabilities and Branch Banking, Kotak Mahindra Bank, said “we have not made up our minds yet on the rate cut. It will stay put for now”.He admitted to the credit off-take being slow on the home loan front compared to the past, but on the car and personal loans front, ‘there has been no problem’, he said.

6. Swiss bankers’ association (SBA) wants Indian banks to locate and operate in Switzerland. The trade association also wants Swiss banks to be able to open branches and get licence here little bit more easily than it has been in the past.Making a case for more transparency and predictability in the procedures for entry of Swiss banks into India, Mr Pierre G Mirabaud, Chairman of SBA, told Business Line in an interview here that the changing environment (away from public sector dominance) in India and the involvement of multiple agencies sometimes made it difficult for foreign players to get a licence and locate here.

7. HDFC Bank has incorporated ‘jitter-enabled’ card readers in all its 1,910 ATMs in order to prevent skimming or capturing of card details by fraudsters.

8. The IBA has invited the attention of member banks to a list of financial service providers whose services have been terminated for various reasons by individual banks and reported to it in compliance with specific RBI guidelines. The grounds of termination of services range from submission of forged documents indicating dishonesty and lack of integrity, leakage of customer data, failure to meet statutory liabilities, to involvement in frauds.

9. Public sector banks (PSBs) on Tuesday urged the Finance Minister, Mr P Chidambaram, to restore tax exemption on income received by the banks from their long term financing of infrastructure projects.

10. Anticipating opportunities in India after 2009, foreign banks are queuing up to open offices in India.Two foreign banks have recently announced their plans to start operations here. Royal Bank of Canada, the largest bank in Canada, inaugurated its representative office in Mumbai on February 1. It will provide capital market products, wealth management, correspondent banking and trade finance services.On February 6, Glitnir, the Northern European bank headquartered in Iceland, also announced that it would be filing applications with the Reserve Bank of India to open a representative office here.

Tides of 11.02.2008

1. To prepare the organisation for the next 10 years, it is essential for Union Bank of India to prepare its people first, according to its Chairman. In this regard, the bank has come out with a unique model, where it picked up 30 officials in the age group of 30 to 40 years for a year-long training at its training college in Bangalore. “It is like a capsule MBA programme. Thirty of them were given 15 projects. These projects are those which the bank wants to implement in future. They work on these projects. I personally monitor them,” he said, adding that these officers also come up with very good ideas in their projects.Now the second batch is under going training. Every year, it will train 30 such officers.

2. After having scored a first with its Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) issue, Bank of India (BoI) is looking to expand into allied businesses such as mutual funds and wealth management. The bank is also considering acquiring a small overseas bank if the price is reasonable, said Mr T.S. Narayanasami, Chairman and Managing Director. In January, the Finance Minister had asked nationalised banks to look into various options, including QIP, to raise tier-I capital to meet the Basel-II norms, which would be implemented from April for banks having overseas branches. Syndicate Bank and UCO Bank are other public sector banks that might be considering raising capital through the QIP route instead of a follow-on public offer.

3. South Indian Bank ltd has formulated a plan for the next five years and is awaiting the board’s approval. It would increase its business three-fold by March 2013, from the current level of Rs 24,500 crore. It also plans to add 250 branches during that period, taking the total branch strength to 750, and increase its ATM network to 500 from the current 202.

4. The awareness about insurance is quite high in India. Around 78 per cent of households are aware of insurance products. However, ownership of insurance products is low — only 24 per cent households in the country own a life insurance cover”, the survey by Max New York Life-NCAER on `How India Earns, Spends and Saves’ said. The survey, which is based on figures for 2004-05, pointed out that bulk of the urban households (90 per cent) are aware of the life insurance policies and their benefits.

5. Kotak Life Insurance (KLI) will open 100 more branches on a pan-India basis, taking the total network of branches to 210 by March 2009. Of this, 40 branches would come up in the current financial year itself, said Shekhar Bhandari, senior vice-president (sales). The company has adopted a state-wise business development strategy on the basis of business potential in various states and selected 5 states for the purpose.

6. India's foreign-exchange reserves rose $4.36 billion to a record $292.7 billion in the week ended February 1, the central bank said. Foreign-currency assets increased by $3.5 billion to $283 billion, the Reserve Bank of India said in an e-mailed release in Mumbai. The nation’s special drawing rights with the International Monetary Fund were held at $9 million. Its reserves with the IMF fell by $11 million to $423 million, while gold reserves rose $871 million to $9.2 billion. The reserves comprise overseas currencies, gold and special drawing rights with the IMF.

7. ICICI Bank is still awaiting Reserve Bank of India’s final norms on bank holding companies.

8. In a bid to establish a toehold in the overseas market, the Oriental Bank of Commerce is planning to set up a representative office in the UAE in the next six months. It has already got RBI approval and is seeking regulatory permission from the UAE authorities for opening an office in Dubai.

9. State Bank of Travancore, an associate of India's largest public lender SBI, will open its representative office in Dubai to provide services to NRIs in the UAE. SBT has already got the approval of UAE Central Bank for the move and is expected to open the representative office in two months, SBT General Manager (international banking) A K Basu said.

10. The Delhi Consumer Commission today imposed a Rs 10-lakh fine on ICICI Bank for refusing credit card to a lawyer for a "negative profile" profession. However, the bank refuted the charge that it was not giving credit cards to advocates and said it would appeal against order before an appropriate forum. The Commission asked the bank to deposit Rs 10 lakh in the State Consumer Welfare Fund, and pay Rs 50,000 as compensation to the complainant.

Tides of 9.02.2008

1. Exporters reeling under the dollar slide could be in line for a slew of reliefs in the Foreign Trade Policy coming up next month.The steps being contemplated by the Commerce Ministry range from possible reimbursement of, or rebate on, some of the taxes incurred on export production; to zero duty EPCG (export promotion capital goods) scheme in place of the five per cent concessional duty, possibly for the first time. These and a dozen other sops are being considered to mitigate exporters’ losses due to the rupee’s 11 per cent appreciation against the dollar, according to a note circulated by the Commerce Minister, Mr Kamal Nath, at a meeting organised by the Federation of Indian Exporters’ Organisation.

2. Punjab National Bank has commenced cheque truncation system (CTS) in the National Capital Region (New Delhi). The system has gone live in 10 branches of PNB in New Delhi.The Reserve Bank of India had initiated steps for implementation of cheque truncation system in NCR, New Delhi. Ten banks including PNB had joined the project. By March 2008, CTS is likely to be made live in all the branches of PNB in NCR (New Delhi) area, a release issued by the bank said. Under the CTS, image/s of the instrument and the corresponding data contained in MICR line will be captured and used for settlement amongst banks and payment of cheques. Inter-city collection/clearance of cheques is also expected to be brought under CTS, which will enable reduce collection time significantly.

3. The growth in non-food bank credit has shown a slowdown in the recent past, illustrating RBI’s concern that banks have not expanded credit despite comfortable liquidity conditions. The outstanding amount of non-food credit as on January 25, 2008 was at Rs 21,42,494 crore, an increase of Rs 37,259 crore against Rs 21,05,235 crore as on January 4, while the growth was higher at Rs 53,050 crore during the December-January period, according to the weekly figures released by RBI. The amount outstanding as on December 7, 2007 was Rs 20,52,191 crore.

4. Bank unions have objected to the formation of the proposed National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) without taking into account the assurances given in Parliament by the Union Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram. Responding to the public notice relating to the formation of NPCI, where names of nine individuals have been mentioned as applicants, the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) has now conveyed to the Government that mere mention of individual names as applicants for setting up the corporation gives a very “misleading picture” about the ownership of the proposed corporation.

5. The Rs 16,700-crore rights issue of State Bank of India is likely to open on February 18. Official sources said that the country’s largest commercial bank would go ahead with the rights issue as planned, despite the recent turbulence in the capital markets.SBI is offering one share of Rs 10 each for every five held at a price of Rs 1,590 per share. The Government, which currently holds 59.73 per cent stake in SBI, plans to issue bonds worth Rs 10,000 crore to the bank towards its share in the rights issue.The rights issue is likely to be open for a month for subscription.Indications are that the Government would subscribe to the rights offering on the last date of the issue.

6. The South Indian Bank has opened its regional office in Kolkata. The regional office was opened by Dr G.D. Gautama, Principal Secretary to the Government of West Bengal. With this, the number of regional offices of the bank will go up to 13, a press release issued here said. Dr V.A. Joseph, Chairman and CEO of SIB, who presided over the function, said the Kolkata region of the bank is expected to be the gateway to the North Eastern States. The bank has already opened one branch at Guwahati in Assam and has plans to open more branches in the North-Eastern region.

7. Bank of India has said its board has approved a proposal to raise about Rs 1,360 crore through an issue of 3.78 crore equity shares. In a notice to the BSE today, the bank said it will issue the shares at a price of Rs 360 per share of face value of Rs 10, issued at a premium of Rs 350 per equity share, aggregating to Rs 1,359.81 crore. SBI Capital Markets Ltd, A.K. Capital Services Ltd, Edelweiss Capital Ltd, HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India) Pvt Ltd, JM Financi al Consultants Pvt Ltd, Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Ltd and Motilal Oswal Investment Advisors Pvt Ltd were the book running lead managers to the issue.

8. Syndicate Bank has decided to raise its additional capital through the qualified institutional placement route instead of the follow-on public offer programme planned early this year. Syndicate Bank’s move followed the Government’s recent liberalisation permitting public sector undertakings/enterprises to raise capital through placement with placements of equity with qualified institutional buyers (QIB).

9. State Bank of Travancore (SBT) has received approval from the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates to open a representative office in Dubai.

10. Till the end of January ICICI Lombard has done about Rs 1,100 crore. It hopes to finish with Rs 1,700 crore for this year and have a target of Rs 2,500 crore for the next fiscal. It has done about Rs 440 crore in private cars, about Rs 440 crore in commercial vehicles and about Rs 100 crore in two wheelers.

Tides of 4.02.2008

1. Kotak Mahindra Bank may get more than a 51 per cent stake in the Ahmedabad Commodity Exchange (ACX). ACX has chalked out a Rs 50 crore business plan which aims at offloading a 51 per cent stake to Kotak Mahindra Bank for Rs 321 a share.Members of the exchange will hold the remaining 49 per cent equity in the newly corporatised exchange.

2. GE Money India is looking for a strategic partner to drive scale just as it did with the State Bank of India (SBI) for its card business. It is trying to replicate its card model in its joint venture with Wizard Home Loans, a non-banking finance company from Australia. After credit cards and home loans, GE Money is now seeking a partner for its personal loans and mortgage portfolio, housed in a fully-owned subsidiary. The company has brought back veteran Iqbal Singh to lead its business in India.

3. Under its “Industry-Academia Partnership” programme, ICICI Bank is in discussions with three leading universities of the West Bengal to launch banking and insurance courses. while the proposal to start the course with Calcutta University had been more or less approved, the dialogue was on with Burdwan University, said K V Kamath, managing director and CEO, ICICI Bank on the sidelines of a seminar on entrepreneurship development in Kolkata on Friday.
The bank was also in discussions with Jadavpur University to roll-out similar courses.

4. ICICI Bank was looking at growing by 30 per cent on a year-on-year basis in its small and medium enterprises (SME) customers portfolio, with more focus on providing customised solutions for the SMEs. Talking at the sidelines of the Tieger08 organised by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), ICICI Bank managing director and chief executive officer K V Kamath told Business Standard that it was adding 1000 SME customers every day to its already existing 1 million SME clients. The focus was on encouraging online transaction options for SME clients more than funding SME ventures. ICICI had many private equity players and venture capital funds in the market for that, he added. Kamath remarked that there will be more equity participation in small and medium enterprises.

5. IOB has set a revenue target of Rs 10,000 crore from its overseas expansion, slated to take place over the next year. IOB is currently logging revenues of Rs 5,000 crore from operations out of its 11 overseas branches. The bank will soon open a representative office in Dubai, besides branches in Vietnam and New Zealand. Transaction oriented products were to emerge as a key driver in the years to come.

6. Insurance has become the proverbial goose laying golden eggs for public sector banks which are foraying into the sector in a big way. This year, at least eight public sector banks are set to scrap their existing bancassurance tie-ups with insurers. They are: Bank of India, Union Bank, Karnataka Bank, Allahabad Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Bank of Maharashtra and Federal Bank. Other banks, which are planning to start their own insurance companies, are Punjab National Bank, Dena Bank and Bank of Baroda, according to industry sources. The banks are all set to explore the insurance sector after collecting new business premia of about Rs 75,000 crore (both in life and non-life segments) in the last nine months of the current financial year.

7. Crisil has placed its ratings on the debt programmes of GE Money Financial Services Ltd (GEMFSL) and GE Money Housing Finance (GEMHF) on ‘Rating Watch with Developing Implications’. This action follows US-based GE Capital Corporation’s stated intent to dilute 100 per cent stake in GEMFSL and GEMHF by inducting a partner. At present, Crisil has ratings of ‘AAA/Stable/P1+’ and ‘P1+’ on the debt programmes of GEMFSL and GEMHF, respectively.
These ratings centrally factor in the continued management, funding, and operational support that the two entities derive from GECC. The extent of divestment by GECC in GEMFSL and GEMHF is yet to be finalised.

8. City Union Bank posted 83.12 per cent growth in net profit to Rs 25.38 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2007, compared with Rs 13.86 crore in the same period a year earlier. Total income during the third quarter rose 59.75 per cent to Rs 176.14 crore from Rs 110.26 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year. Interest income rose 55 per cent to Rs 154.84 crore from Rs 99.40 crore, while other income rose 96.13 per cent to Rs 21.30 crore from Rs 10.86 crore in the year-ago period. The bank’s operating profit rose 60.07 per cent to Rs 43.22 crore from Rs 27 crore posted in the third quarter of the previous financial year. Net interest income was up 24.57 per cent to Rs 49.34 crore from Rs 39.60 crore a year earlier. It is planning to open 50 new branches and 40 offsite ATMs this year. Currently, it operates 180 branches and 75 ATMs across the country.
9. Bank customers can buy movie, airline tickets using mobile phones. Standard Chartered Bank has tied up with PayMate, which has arrangements with 700 establishments across the country, for accepting payments via mobile phones. The UK bank’s customers can also book movie and airline tickets and transfer money through cell phones. PayMate is a mobile payment service in India, which enables online transaction of money via mobile phones to shop for gifts, buy movie and airline tickets, send flowers pay utility bills, subscribe to newspapers and magazines, among other things. PayMate also has a tie-up with 3,000 online merchants and 100 multiplexes across the country.

10. Andhra Bank reported a 16.69 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 159.02 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2007, compared with Rs 136.27 crore in the corresponding period the previous year, on the back of a steep rise in profits from treasury operations. Total income grew 33 per cent to Rs 1,233.34 crore for the quarter under review compared with Rs 926.92 crore in the year-ago period. Treasury income grew 23.08 per cent, compared with 36.55 per cent registered by other banking operations during the same period. However, treasury operations registered over 400 per cent increase in gross profit while other banking operations reported a marginal dip. Other income, which also constitutes fee-based income, was up 29.33 per cent to Rs 147.65 crore during the three-month period, compared with Rs 114.16 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

Tides of 1.02.2008

1. A 25 per cent increase in net interest income and a doubling of ‘other income’ helped City Union Bank post a net profit of Rs 25.38 crore for the third quarter of the current year, 83 per cent higher than in the corresponding quarter last year.‘Other income’ was aided by commission income from selling Life Insurance Corporation’s products. In the nine months up to December, City Union Bank collected Rs 17 crore of first premium, compared with Rs 15 crore for the whole of last year. (Forty per cent of the first premium collected is the commission.)

2. Lakshmi Vilas Bank’s net profit increased by 23 per cent to Rs 3.82 crore for the quarter ended December 2007 against Rs 3.10 crore during the same period of the previous year. Its total income grew by 16.8 per cent to Rs 143.06 crore (Rs 122.5 crore) and other income by 35 per cent to Rs 41.32 crore (Rs 30.63 crore). Its total business during the first three quarters of the current fiscal rose to Rs 8,879 crore (Rs 8,098 crore).

3. YES Bank has reported 13.25 per cent rise in net profit for the third quarter ended December 2007 to Rs 54.24 crore as against Rs 47.89 crore reported in the corresponding quarter a year ago. Total income for the quarter was up 115.5 per cent at Rs 443.18 crore compared (Rs 205.69 crore) While total advances for the bank grew by 79.1 per cent to Rs 8,598 crore (Rs 4,800 crore), total deposits grew by 103.8 to Rs 11,129 crore (Rs 5,461 crore).

4. United Bank of India has posted a net profit of Rs 74.70 crore during the quarter ended December 31, 2007 compared with Rs 69.76 crore in the same period of last year, posting around nine per cent growth. Cumulatively, i.e., in first nine months, the net profit at Rs 307.21 crore (Rs 231.84 crore in nine months last year) posted a growth of 32.5 per cent on year-on-year basis.

5. Dhanalakshmi Bank has posted a 77 per cent increase in its net profit for the quarter ended December 2007. Its net rose to Rs 5.53 crore in the just ended quarter compared to Rs 3.11 crore during the same period of the previous year. Its income from operations increased by 24 per cent to Rs 77.31 crore (Rs 62.31 crore) and other incomes shot up by Rs 4.12 crore to Rs 8.67 crore. Segment-wise revenue break up reveals that the treasury income swelled from Rs 21 lakh for the quarter ended December 2006 to Rs 3.79 crore during the same period of 2007.

6. Since its inception in September 2005, the SME Rating Agency of India Ltd (SMERA) has credit rated 1,400 small and medium sized companies. The demand for its services, as revealed by the trend in number of companies rated, is growing. In the first six months of 2005-06, SMERA rated 101 SMEs. In the next full year, it did 445 companies. In the current year upto January, the agency has rated another 850 companies. It expects to rate at least another 350 companies before the year is out.The trend indicates that SMEs are finding that getting a rating from the agency helps. Sometimes a rating helps in getting bank funds at a slightly lower rate of interest, but more often than that, it gives the lender a higher level of comfort. A rating has also helped some companies to boost their image and secure more business.

7. DSP Merrill Lynch Fund Managers on Thursday signed a distribution agreement with Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) to distribute its investment products especially mutual funds through the latter’s branch network.

8. Housing finance company HDFC said on Thursday that it has reduced its retail prime lending rate (RPLR) by 25 basis points, with effect from February 1. The reduction in rates will benefit all the existing borrowers. The HDFC’s current RPLR is 14 per cent, which would now come down to 13.75 per cent. For the new home loan customers, HDFC’s rate of interest under the Adjustable Rate Home Loan continues to be at 10.25 per cent.

9. Indian Bank has launched schemes to finance the small scale tea sector in the Nilgiris.
“Before March 31, it intends to improve its presence in the Nilgiri tea sector. Its package covers all players – growers, green leaf agents, women workers, factory owners, traders and auctioneers.”

10. Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) has reported a net profit of Rs 308.14 crore for the third quarter of the year compared with Rs 246.78 crore in the corresponding period of last year, a growth of 25 per cent. The profits came essentially from core operations—income from treasury operations, which was lower in Q3 last year.For the first nine months of the current year, the bank made a net profit of Rs 896 crore against Rs 718 crore in the same period last year.