Trends in Vogue inks pact with Bhartiya Mahila Bank

Trends in Vogue, a CavinKare initiative that manages hair saloons under Green Trends, has entered into an agreement with Bhartiya Mahila Bank to promote women entrepreneurship.

Under the agreement, Green Trends plans to have 500 salons nationally set up by women entrepreneurs by the end of the current financial year, a top company official said today.

"We are happy to associate with Bhartiya Mahila Bank in providing collateral free loans to prospective franchises across the country, especially women. We believe it will not only ease the process of salons but also empower more women to emerge as successful entrepreneurs...," CavinKare Chairman & Managing Director CK Ranganathan said.

Green Trends has also introduced mobile and online check- in service for customers, he said.

"We have been noticing a significant upswing trend of women from various backgrounds entering this beauty salon segment and this MoU with Bhartiya Mahila Bank will further strengthen the support," Trends in Vogue's Business Head R Gopalakrishnan said.

Bhartiya Mahila Bank Chairman and Managing Director Usha Ananthasubramanian said after this tie-up with CavinKare, the bank is confident of developing women as "entrepreneurs" across the country.

She said the bank will provide loans of up to 75 per cent of the total project cost to women entrepreneurs across the country.

"The rate of interest will be between 11.5 per cent and 12.5 per cent," she said.


Source: Economic Times

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Banks sell Rs 10,000 crore of bad loans to ARCs in March

Faced with unprecedented levels of stressed assets, banks led by the country's largest lender SBI sold over Rs 10,000 crore of bad loans to asset reconstruction companies (ARC) in March alone.

"This single-month figure is higher than any other yearly number from the past," an industry source told PTI, wishing not to be named.

Due to the high accretion of NPAs in the recent past -- the total NPAs stood at 4.2 per cent as of September 2013 -- the banks are being nudged to sell bad assets to the 14 ARCs.

Together with restructured assets the total stressed assets in the system touched 10.2 per cent as of the December quarter. Banks have recast nearly a Rs 1 trillion worth of loans in the past fiscal alone, taking the total CDR book to over Rs 4 trillion.

SBI, which had reported 5.73 per cent NPAs in the December quarter, led the chart by reportedly selling close to Rs 4,000 crore to ARCs. This was for the first time the bank has done so.

State Bank chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya had last week said in Kolkata that her bank was selling Rs 3,500- 4,000 crore of its Rs 6,77,800 crore NPAs to ARCs in FY14. In March banks reportedly invited bids to sell Rs 42,800 crore of bad assets.

The ARCs have not been so strong in mopping up bad assets in the past few years and often complain about a lack of seriousness from banks when it comes to sale of assets.

According to ARCs, in the past banks merely used the mechanism of inviting bids for price discovery on the assets and walked out saying the money offered by ARCs is low.

Apart from SBI, other lenders have also gone public with their intention of selling bad assets.

The state-run Bank of India said it was mulling to offload Rs 900 crore to ARCs in the March quarter alone, after auctioning Rs 2,000 crore in the first three quarters.

The troubled United Bank of India, which reported a spike in the gross NPAs to over 10 per cent as of December, was planning to sell Rs 700 crore in bad assets.


Source: Economic Times

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