Hughes Strengthens Dominance in Finance & Banking Sector with Two More Contract Awards by Indian Banks

New Delhi, Delhi, India, Thursday, February 03, 2011 -- (Business Wire India)

Hughes Communications India, Ltd. (HCIL), a leading provider of broadband satellite and managed network services, and wholly owned subsidiary of Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES), today announced two significant contracts signed for the United Bank of India and UCO bank networks for their respective RRBs (Regional Rural Banks). The first contract award is from United Bank of India valued at Rs. 8 crores , under which Hughes will provide broadband services connecting 1,095 Regional rural bank locations The second contract, valued at Rs. 7.5 crores was awarded by the UCO Bank to deploy a network of 808 satellite terminals for Regional Rural bank connectivity.

As per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) mandate in 2010, RBI recommended that all the RRBs should move to centralized banking solution platform by September 2011 to help them become more efficient and grow faster in future.

The mandate for Hughes for both the contracts is to expand the core banking solution platform to their RRBs. The UCO bank agreement is signed for seven years and the United Bank of India agreement will span for five years.

Commenting on the significant wins, Partho Banerjee, CEO and managing director of HCIL, said, “Of the 611 districts in India, 61% are still under banked and most of them fall in the rural areas. Hughes recognizes the importance of financial inclusion in India and is proud to be associated with the country's two leading public sector banks?the United Bank of India and the UCO bank ?to connect their RRBs across the country. HCIL has connected more than 10,000 branches and 18,500 ATMs over 25 Indian banks and we estimate that approximately 50,000 sites will be rolled out in the next three years by various banks in India."

HCIL is the leading provider of satellite broadband solutions in the Indian financial sector with more than 23 nationalized and private banks in India as customers. To date, HCIL provides managed network services to 18,500 plus branch and ATM locations across India. Major customers include the largest of Indian banks- State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and others. HCIL also built and operated "INFINET"?the Indian Financial Network of 3,000 plus locations across all banks, facilitated by the Reserve Bank of India.

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50 DoT officials under CVC scanner for alleged graft

The central vigilance commission has imposed major penalty on 226 officials of different government organisations for their alleged involvement in corrupt practices.

Out of the total 226, a highest of 50 are from department of communications, 36 from Central Board of Excise Customs, 23 from ministry of railways and 13 from State Bank of India.

Besides, 10 officials from Vijaya Bank, nine from Punjab Sind Bank, eight from MCD, seven from Andhra Bank, 6 from Canara Bank and five each from Allahabad Bank, Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd and UCO Bank have been penalised.

According to the commission's performance report for December, the anti-corruption watchdog disposed of 804 cases during the month referred to it for advice.

The commission also effected recoveries to the tune of about Rs2.78 crore after conducting technical examination of some departments.

It said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has received sanction for prosecution against 90 officers and charge sheet were filed against 160 others for their alleged involvement in graft.

"The commission is deeply concerned over continuing delays in filling the post of chief vigilance officers (CVOs) in several key organisations like Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC),Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) and National Aluminium Company (NALCO).

The government is being regularly reminded," the report said.

It added that advisories have been issued by the commission from time to time to alert the departments about the vulnerabilities in the organisations, policies, systems and procedures which pose a risk of corruption.

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Banks seek better tax breaks on NPA provisioning

Banks have sought enhanced tax breaks for the provisions that they make in their books of accounts towards bad and doubtful debts.

At a pre-budget meeting with the Union Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, the country's top bankers sought full deduction for income-tax purposes the provisions made by banks on bad and doubtful debts.

Currently, the income-tax law has capped the amount that banks can avail themselves of as deduction for bad and doubtful debts. Provision for bad and doubtful debts made by banks are allowed as a deduction to the extent of 7.5 per cent of gross total income and 10 per cent of aggregate average rural advances made by them.

Alternatively, such banks have been given an option to claim a deduction in respect of any provision made for assets classified by the RBI as doubtful assets or loss assets to the extent of 10 per cent of such assets.

NBFCs bad debts

While banks sought full tax deduction on their provisions for NPAs, the Finance Industry Development Council (FIDC) pointed out that non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) do not get any tax deduction on the provisions made by them for bad and doubtful debts.

"Our plea to the Finance Minister was that asset financing NBFCs registered with RBI should be allowed to avail themselves of deduction for their NPA provisioning," Mr Raman Aggarwal, Co-Chairman of FIDC told Business Line after the meeting.

TDS exemption

Meanwhile, bankers have also demanded that banks be exempt them from tax deduction at source (TDS) on all sources of incomes received by them. Currently, interest income received by banks from their borrowers alone is TDS exempt.

Now banks have said that their incomes from sale of financial products such as mutual funds and insurance should also not be subjected to tax deduction at source (TDS), sources said.

As part of their budget wish list, bankers have also sought compensation from the Government for the no-frill accounts being opened by banks as part of their financial inclusion efforts.

The need to have a vibrant and deep corporate bond market was also emphasised for enhancing infrastructure financing. One banker suggested that marketable ‘Gold bonds' be introduced to raise long-term resources for infrastructure financing.

Among those who attended the meeting include Mr O.P. Bhatt, SBI Chairman; Mr K.R. Kamath, Chairman and Managing Director of Punjab National Bank; Mr Arun Kaul, Chairman and Managing Director of UCO Bank; Mr R.V. Verma from National Housing Bank and Mr Uday Kotak from Kotak Mahindra Bank.

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Banking on Belief: 'Lockless' Bank in India To Be Guarded By God

The United Commercial (UCO) Bank has announced that they are opening India's first "lockless" bank branch in a small village called Shani Shinganapur in the Ahmednagar district.

Luckily the area, whose presiding deity is Lord Shani, is known for its total lack of crime. In fact, the village is so crime-free that reportedly none of the village's homes even have doors--let alone locks. While the bank will have doors, they will all be lock free but officials aren't worried about the risk. They say that people have a stronger faith than an urge for riches.

"People here fear that if there is a theft or robbery, then the culprit and their family have to bear the wrath of Lord Shani," said local legislator Shankar Gadakh.

While it's heartening to hear of a truly crime free community--and you'll have to forgive NewsFeed for our cynicism here--there is such a thing as too much temptation. (via The Times of India)

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Ornaments worth Rs 10 lakh stolen in Patna from UCO Employee's Residence

PATNA: Gold ornaments worth Rs 10 lakh were stolen from the Shivpuri residence of Amita Mishra, a teacher of economics in B D College, under Shastrinagar police station on Friday afternoon.

Amita told TOI that she lives alone in the house as her husband, Gyan Prakash, working with UCO Bank, is posted in Gujarat and her daughter is in Canada for higher studies. She said she left her flat for her college at around 11 am on Friday. "I returned around 6 pm and found the latchet of main door broken and lights on," she said, adding both her almirahs were open.

She said that since she was arranging her daughter's marriage, she had purchased gold ornaments for her and kept them in the almirahs. "My daughter had also kept her ornaments with me as she had to leave for Canada," she said.

She suspected the hand of some insiders as they seemed to know where the keys of both the almirahs and ornaments were kept. The Shastrinagar police have started investigation into the incident.

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