SBI opens new branch in Hyderabad

State Bank of India opened a new branch at Chandanagar near B.H.E.L. It was inaugurated by its Chief General Manager, Rakesh Sharma. The branch would focus on housing loans, car loans and financing small businesses. Sharma said the interest rates offered by SBI on these products were the best compared to other banks....

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Federal Bank opens 1,000th branch

Federal Bank has crossed a milestone with the opening of its 1,000th branch at Thiruvalla in Kerala on Friday.The launch at Muthoor coincided with the first day of Malayalam calendar year, Chingam 1, 1188. It was on the same day that Federal Bank had begun its journey with the opening of its first branch.The Bank has gained the distinction of being the first among banks headquartered in Kerala to cross the 1,000-branches mark. It has 542 branches in Kerala and 458 branches spread over the other states, Shyam Srinivasan, Managing Director and...

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RBI stance has delivered ‘to some extent,’ says Governor

Reserve Bank Governor D. Subbarao is of the view that recent policy monetary initiatives have succeeded “to some extent.”“Has the RBI succeeded in its efforts? To some extent, I would say,” Subbarao remarked during the course of a lecture delivered here.Gains can be seen on the headline inflation front. But core inflation remains to be high and consumer price inflation is in double digits, he admitted.In a low-growth, high-inflation scenario, it is worthwhile to imagine what the situation would have been without RBI’s tightening cycle.Inflation...

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Oriental Bank ties up with M&M for vehicle financing

Mahindra & Mahindra has signed an MoU with Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) for personal and commercial vehicle financing. Customers of M&M will be able to avail of these services from any of the 1808 OBC branches. M&M has a total of 250 dealer outlets.The MOU was signed by Arun Malhotra, Senior Vice-President, Sales & Customer Care – Mahindra & Mahindra and Atul Gautam, General Manager, OBC in the presence of S. L. Bansal, Chairman & Managing Director, OBC.“OBC is expanding its operations in the Commercial and Passenger...

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Education loans, NPAs on bank chiefs meet agenda

The Finance Minister P Chidambaram is scheduled to discuss expansion of education loans with banks chiefs on Saturday. This will be one of the key points on the agenda apart from Non-performing Assets (NPA) in the banking sector. This is the first such performance review meeting after Chidambaram returned to the Finance Ministry. According to the agenda note circulated for the meeting, four issues related to education loans are to be considered. These are expansion, ensuring time-bound disposal of applications, education loans for meritorious...

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Union Bank to seek Rs 1,000-cr capital support

Union Bank of India will seek Rs 950-1,000 crore worth capital support from the Union Government to fund its growth needs this year. The bank aims to achieve 18-20 per cent growth in business in 2012-13, said D. Sarkar, Chairman and Managing Director, Union Bank. “We had sought Rs 650 crore from the government last year, but we did not get it. This year we plan to ask for Rs 950-1,000 crore to meet our growth target,” he told newspersons on the sidelines of a banking conclave organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and...

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RBI directive on‘survivor’ clause

The Reserve Bank of India has directed banks to incorporate the “either or survivor” or “former or survivor” clause in their account opening forms.The central bank has also asked banks to inform their existing as well as future term deposit holders about the availability of such an option.“If such a mandate (“either or survivor” or “former or survivor”) is obtained, banks can allow premature withdrawal of term/fixed deposits by the surviving depositor without seeking the concurrence of the legal heirs of the deceased joint deposit holder,”...

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Reliance Life open to talks on bancassurance tie-up

Reliance Life Insurance aims to be in the top three league of private life insurers by premium income in the next three years. To meet this aspiration, the company has now realised that it needs to get on board a bank of a critical size as a bancassurance partner. As on date, Reliance Life is in the sixth position in premium income among the private players. Bancassurance has been a distribution gap for Reliance Life. To bridge this gap, Reliance Life is now open to discussions on giving a very small equity (say up to 5 per cent) to a...

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SBI Cards targets 1 million new customers by 2014-15

SBI Cards, the second largest credit card solutions provider in India after HDFC Bank, is targeting to add one million new customers by 2014-15, Mr Kadambi Narahari, CEO, said on Thursday. Between 2007 and 2010, the number of credit card holders in India fell from 27 million to 17 million. Even after this consolidation in the wake of global slowdown, when many credit card companies went out of business, penetration of credit cards in India is still low — as against China and Brazil accounting for 200 million cards each, India accounts for...

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Federal Bank eyes 20% credit growth this fiscal

Despite poor monsoon and economic slowdown, the Kerala-based Federal Bank expects credit growth of 20 per cent in the current fiscal.Though, during the lean period, advances grew lower than targeted, they are expected to pick up in the coming months, said Shyam Srinivasan, Managing Director and CEO, Federal Bank.“We have targeted 20-22 per cent growth, but hope to achieve close to 20 per cent,” he said.Retail and gold loan businesses are doing well (gold loans which account for 27 per cent of its retail loan book, grew by almost 100 per cent...

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IndusInd Bank enters into prepaid forex sector

IndusInd Bank on Thursday entered the prepaid forex segment by launching a card offering cash in six currencies.A customer can load an amount in the card in the country before travel and use the card to withdraw cash from automated teller machines and shopping at merchant establishments, the bank said in a statement.IndusInd has tied up with ElectraCard Services (ECS), which will provide technology and processing services.The Indus Forex card will be available in US dollar, euro, Sterling pound, Singapore dollar, Australian dollar and Saudi...

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RBI stance has succeeded ‘to some extent’, says Subbarao

Reserve Bank Governor D. Subbarao is of the view that the recent policy monetary initiatives have succeeded “to some extent’’.“Has the RBI succeeded in its efforts? To some extent, I would say,” Subbarao remarked during the course of a lecture delivered here. Inflation front The gains can be seen on the headline inflation front. But core inflation remains to be high and consumer price inflation is in double-digits, he admitted.In a low-growth, high-inflation scenario, it is worthwhile to imagine what the situation would have been without...

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Quarterly numbers: Dhanlaxmi Bank under scanner

What's brewing at Dhanlaxmi Bank? The auditors of the old private sector lender have resigned earlier this month following certain differences with the management while the banking regulator suspects that some of the shareholders of DLB are acting in concert.The auditors Walker Chandiok & Co - the local audit arm of the management and audit consultancy Grant Thornton - have put a question mark on some of the bank's performance numbers for the quarter ended June 2012.Dhanlaxmi CEO & managing director PG Jayakumar said that there was...

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SBI hopes to maintain treasury gains in second quarter

State Bank of India (SBI) is hopeful of maintaining its impressive performance on the treasury income front in the second quarter as well, a top bank official said today.“We are hopeful that income from treasury will be maintained at the present (Q1) level,” Deputy Managing Director and Group Executive (Global Markets) of SBI, P.P. Pradeep Kumar told PTI here.During the first quarter, the public sector lender has optimally managed its treasury operations to post mark-to-market gain.SBI has a mark-to-market gain of Rs 521 crore during the last...

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Central Bank launches new RD scheme

Central Bank of India has launched a recurring deposit scheme ‘Centswashakti’ for retail depositors. This scheme allows depositors the flexibility to deposit up to 10 times the originally decided minimum amount every month.  The instalments can be deposited in the scheme, with tenures ranging from 6 months to 120 months, one or more times during a month. Interest rate on the RD will be as per prevailing term deposit card rate. It will be calculated on a daily basis and will be credited half-yearly....

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'HDFC Bank not mulling rate cut on auto loans'

HDFC Bank is not mulling a rate cut on its auto loans offering as done by State Bank of India (SBI), in the near future, a senior official has said.The city headquartered HDFC bank is not contemplating a rate cut even though SBI announced a reduction of up to 0.5 per cent in its auto loan offering earlier this month, senior Executive Vice-President and Business Head for Vehicle Loans, Ashok Khanna, told PTI.“Not immediately,” he answered, when asked if HDFC Bank will also take a cue from SBI and follow suit with a rate cut.Khanna said his bank...

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I-T dept to press money laundering charges in HSBC case

The Income Tax department has decided to include the offence of money laundering in its soon to be filed charge sheet against individuals named in the classified HSBC list, for stashing illegal funds.The department in its probe has found that the illegal funds were laundered in many cases which can be categorised as “criminal proceeds of crime”.According to sources, I-T may have to coordinate its prosecution action in this case with the Enforcement Directorate which is the designated enforcement agency for the Prevention of Money Laundering...

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SBI sees Rs 1,100-crore of restructured loans turning bad

State Bank of India expects about 3 per cent of its total restructured loan portfolio of Rs 36,904 crore to slip into the loss category.What this means is that the bank will have to make 100 per cent provisioning for loans aggregating about Rs 1,100 crore. Recovery of loans in the loss category takes a long time as this entails liquidating the collateral.According to SBI Chairman Pratip Chaudhuri, given the tough economic environment, about 20 per cent of the restructured book eventually turns into non-performing assets (NPA). Of the total...

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StanChart allegations cast light on former U-turn payments

The recent allegations levelled against Standard Chartered – that it schemed to hide billions of dollars of transactions, leaving the US financial system “vulnerable to terrorists, weapon dealers, drug kingpins and corrupt regimes” has shone the spotlight on a US regulatory loophole that for years allowed banks with US operations to maintain their activities with Iran, at the same time that the US maintained a tough sanction regime against the country. Exemptions US sanctions against Iran have grown over the years since 1987, strengthened...

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