Govt stake in IOB increased to 65.87%

Chennai: The government's stake in public sector Indian Overseas Bank has increased from 61.23 per cent to 65.87 per cent as a result of capital infusion of Rs 1,054 crore into the Bank.At a recent meeting, IOB allotted 7,39,49,343 equity shares of Rs 10 each at an issue price of Rs 142.53 per equity share totalling Rs 1,054 crore to Government of India on preferential basis, the Bank said in a statement. With this development, the Government's holding in IOB has increased from 61.23 per cent to 65.87 per cent, it said. On March 22, 2011, bank...

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Adi Godrej succeeds Rajat Gupta as ISB chairman

HYDERABAD: Godrej Group chairman Adi Godrej was Saturday elected the chairman of the city-based Indian School of Business (ISB). He succeeded Rajat Gupta, who resigned March 21 after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) slapped insider trading charges on him. Adi was unanimously elected the chairman by the executive board at its meeting, attended by 14 of its 30 members. The board accepted the resignation of Indian-American businessman Rajat Gupta, who founded ISB a decade ago. Addressing a press conference here, Adi said Gupta was...

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India being hurt by undervalued yuan: RBI

MUMBAI: China's policy to keep its currency, the renminbi or yuan , artificially undervalued gives it a huge economic advantage and impacts India's trade, says a research paper released by the Reserve Bank. In the paper, 'The Implications of Renminbi Revaluation on India's Trade', S Arunachalaramanan and Ramesh Golait of the RBI have said that an artificially undervalued currency gives China a distinct advantage in the export market. "By keeping renminbi (RMB) undervalued against the US dollar (USD) and depreciating it in line with the USD in...

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Procedural irregularities hold up SBI chief's appointment

The formal appointment of the State Bank of India (SBI) chairman has been delayed due to procedural irregularities in selection of the candidate proposed by the finance ministry. The irregularities have been highlighted by Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar. He has written to the finance ministry, questioning Pratip Chaudhury’s selection for the top job at the country’s largest lender. A senior government official told Business Standard that Hemant Contractor’s name was on the top of the list during the selection of managing directors (MDs). However,...

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Union Bank CMD gets 3 months extension

State-owned Union Bank of India today said the government approved re-appointment of its Chairman and Managing Director MV Nair for a period of three months. "Appointment Committee of the Cabinet of Government of India has approved re-appointment of Chairman and Managing Director MV Nair, for an initial tenure of three months wef April 1, 2011, or until further orders, whichever is earlier," Union Bank of India informed the Bombay Stock Exchange. Nair completed his five-year tenure in the bank on March 31, 2011. He was appointed Chairman and Managing...

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Bank of Baroda gets Rs 2,461 cr govt fund

State-owned Bank of Baroda (BoB) today said it has allotted 2.7 crore shares to the government of India on a preferential basis, resulting in capital infusion of Rs 2,460.9 crore. As a result, the government of India's holding has increased to 57.03% from 53.81%, BoB said in a statement. Earlier, shareholders of the bank approved a Special Resolution at an Extraordinary General Meeting for the issue and allotment of 2,72,79,579 equity shares of Rs 10 each to the government at a premium of Rs 892.14 per share, it said. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee...

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Raghuram Rajan against giving banking licence to cos

MUMBAI: Former IMF chief economist Raghuram Rajan is not in favour of the government giving banking licence to corporate houses. "I think the old RBI policy of not allowing corporates banking licence was good one. I still stand by that. Whether it will continue with this or not is a different question," Rajan, who is also an honorary advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh , said on the sidelines of an event in Mumbai. He suggested that existing peers, like NBFCs and MFIs, should be given preference over corporates owing to their experience in...

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Banks won't have to pay service tax on forex deals

MUMBAI: Banks will now be exempted from paying service tax on foreign exchange transactions entered into with other lenders. The transactions with customers will be charged a nominal sum of 0.1-0.5% of the transaction amount or a maximum of Rs 5,000 on foreign exchange transactions. In a notification issued by the finance ministry on March 31, the ministry indicated the amount to be collected by banks as service tax on foreign exchange transactions, the eligibility and the amount to be collected by banks. These issues were taken up by the Foreign...

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Bessemer Venture raises $1.6 bn venture capital fund, to invest 25% in India

NEW DELHI: Global investment firm Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) has raised a $1.6 billion venture capital fund, a quarter of which will be invested in India. This is the eighth fund to be raised by BVP and its largest so far. The investors are largely US-based university endowments, foundations and family offices that are looking to invest in India's rapid growth besides global market opportunities. "In the wake US Federal Reserve's policy of quantitative easing and dollar devaluation, India is among the more attractive destinations for investors,"...

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Macquarie SBI Infra invests $200 mn in GMR Airports

BANGALORE: GMR Infrastructure on Thursday said Macquarie SBI Infrastructure Investments has invested 893 crore or $200 million in its wholly-owned subsidiary GMR Airports Holding, which runs the Delhi and Hyderabad airports. The investment was made through compulsorily convertible preference shares, GMR Infrastructure said in a statement to Bombay Stock Exchange , without divulging details. The shares could be converted into equity at a later date. On February 11, the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) had approved GMR's proposal to raise...

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SBI extends teaser home loan scheme by a month

The home loan scheme offers a discount in the interest rate for the first three years. The interest rate structure of the scheme remains unchanged, said a top SBI official. For the first year, the interest rate for loans up to Rs 30 lakh is 100 basis points lower than the card rate, or 8.75 per cent, since the card rate is 150 basis points plus the base rate. The bank’s base rate is 8.25 per cent, and the home loan rates will change whenever this is revised. In the second and third year, the effective interest rate is 9.5 per cent or 25 bps discount...

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SBI opens 25,000th ATM and 9,000th semi-urban branch

State Bank of India (SBI) today opened its 25,000th ATM and the 9,000th semi-urban branch, and said it will add 10,000 ATMs annually for the next three years. The outgoing Chairman OP Bhatt said SBI had plans to deploy 10,000 ATMs every year over the next three years. He inaugurated both these facilities at the SBI board room here through video conferencing, which was attended by the entire board of the bank, including RBI Deputy Governor Shyamala Gopinath.While the 25,000th ATM is located at south Mumbai's Girgaon, the 9,000th rural, semi-urban...

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Bhatt hangs up boots as SBI chief

As OP Bhatt hangs up his boots today after a five-year innings at the helm of affairs of country's biggest lender State Bank of India (SBI), he has reasons to feel proud -- the bank's net profit rose to its peak at Rs 11,734 crore. Bhatt's indelible legacy would be his special home loan rates or teaser rates, which helped SBI dislodge HDFC from its No 1 position in mortgage market, but invited sharp criticism from peers as well as regulator RBI. While SBI's net profit rose to Rs 11,734 crore in March 2010 from Rs 5,530 crore in March 2006, its...

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Income tax filing: Now, pay it through ATM

NEW DELHI: No forms, no queues. Just go to your ATM and pay your income tax. The government on Thursday launched the new facility for tax payment and said it was to begin with open only to Union Bank of India customers but will be extended to other banks. Here's how it will work. The bank's debit cards holders will register on the lender's website. This site is in turn linked to the National Securities Depositories Ltd which will help validate the permanent account number (PAN) of individuals and the Tax Deduction Account Number (TAN) provided...

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American sued in world's largest fraud

Los Angeles: A Saudi Arabian company is suing the former chief executive of a collapsed Mideast bank for $9.2 billion, alleging he helped stage one of the largest global fraud schemes in history.But the American is alleging quite the opposite. The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles federal court Monday accuses Southern California resident Glenn Stewart of fraudulently obtaining loans while he was CEO of The International Banking Corp. TIBC was the fourth-largest bank in Bahrain until it failed in 2009. The lawsuit was filed by Ahmed Hamad Algosaibi &...

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Cheque payments costlier from April 1

New Delhi: Making payments through cheques may become a costlier affair from tomorrow, as RBI has allowed banks to levy higher service charges for their clearing, especially of high-value and outstation cheques. As per a RBI circular coming into effect from April 1, 2011, banks would be free to fix service charges on speed clearing of cheques of value above Rs 1 lakh. At present, RBI does not allow banks to charge more than Rs 150 per cheque for speed clearing of cheques worth over Rs 1 lakh, while there are no charges for value up to Rs 1 lakh. However,...

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Sebi hikes FIIs infra bonds cap by $20 bn

New Delhi: Capital market regulator Sebi today hiked the FIIs limit for investment in bonds, issued by infrastructure companies, to USD 25 billion from USD 5 billion. This would increase the total limit available to foreign institutional investors (FIIs) for investment in corporate bonds to USD 40 billion. The minimum tenor of the investment in listed corporate bonds would be 5 years. "These investments are now permissible in unlisted instruments," Sebi said in a statement. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in his Budget speech for 2011-12 had...

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ICICI foreign co; its investments subject to FDI norms: Govt

NEW DELHI: The government today said that ICICI Bank and other lenders whose more than 50 per cent equity is owned by overseas entities will be treated as foreign companies for the purpose of computing FDI. "ICICI is an Indian bank, but it is over 50 per cent (equity) foreign owned, it is owned by foreigners in that sense...for downstream investment it is a foreign company...," Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary R P Singh told reporters here. Besides ICICI Bank, the other lenders which have more than 50 per cent foreign...

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SBI to manage EPFO's Rs 3-lakh-cr fund till June 30

The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on Wednesday said its corpus of about Rs 3.5 lakh crore will now be managed only by State Bank of India for a three-month period ending June 30, in an interim arrangement. In a meet of its trustees here, the body turned down the proposal to give a three-month extension to the other existing fund managers — ICICI Prudential, HSBC and Reliance Capital. The three private players were earlier managing the bulk of the total corpus. “The EPFO's apex decision making body, the Central Board of Trustees (CBT),...

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SBI ignores customer, fined Rs 23,000

Rourkela: The main branch of the State Bank of India (SBI), Sundargarh, about 110 km from here was punished by the District Consumer Redressal Forum for ignoring the claim of a customer and causing him mental harassment. The forum, disposing a claim case filed by Debadatta Naik of Kanaktura village under sadar police station yesterday ordered payment of Rs.18,000 alongwith a fine of Rs 5000 to Naik within 30 days along with an interest rate of 12 percent. Naik had been to SBI, ATM counter to withdraw money on November 29, 2010. But the ATM did...

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Andhra HC tells Satyam to pay Rs 350 crore to CBDT

HYDERABAD: In a major setback to Mahindra Satyam, the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Wednesday asked the company to issue bankers' cheques worth Rs 350 crore to the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). The company was also asked to provide an unconditional bank guarantee worth Rs 267 crore to the tax authorities. The interim order comes after Mahindra Satyam moved the high court last week seeking a stay on the proceedings related to 617-crore claim made by tax authorities. The I-T department's claim is based on 345 crore foreign tax credit availed...

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