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.
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.
