RBI eases lending curbs on United Bank; shares up 5%

The Reserve Bank of India has removed the restriction imposed on United Bank of India for sanction of credit / participation in restructuring proposals. This is significant in view of fresh slippage by corporate borrowers, including some restructured loans.P Srinivas, MD & CEO of the bank, met the RBI Governor earlier this month and requested the RBI to remove restrictions on its corporate borrowing. After the bank reported net losses in the second and third quarter last fiscal, the RBI had clamped several restrictions on the UBI.Since...

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Branches doing government business should be open on March 30 & 31: RBI

The Reserve Bank instructed all banks, who deal with government business, to keep designated branches open on March 30 and 31."It has been decided that all agency banks shall keep the counters of their designated branches conducting government business open for full day on March 30, 2015, and till 2000 hrs on March 31, 2015," it said in a notification.The RBI said the government is desirous of accounting all the government transactions within the same financial year itself and has requested for special arrangements to be made at branches for...

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Exim Bank green bond issue raises $500 mn

Export-Import Bank of India has successfully launched a five-year Green Bond issue of $500 million.The issue, launched on Tuesday, attracted subscription of around 3.2 times the issue size led by demand across 140 accounts.“The five-year $500-million Eurodollar Reg S Green bond issue was priced at 147.50 basis points over US Treasuries (UST) at a fixed coupon of 2.75 per cent p.a., cutting through the current secondary trading levels of similar bonds and achieving a pricing tighter than the bank’s own $500 million Reg S bonds issued in February...

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Corp Bank opens ‘e-Lobby’

Corporation Bank opened a new branch with ‘e-Lobby’ facility at Balmatta in Mangaluru on Wednesday. The ‘e-Lobby’ facility at Balmatta is the sixth in Mangaluru. The other e-Lobbies are located at Head Office of the bank in Pandeshwar, Car Street, Jeppu, Kankanady and Bejai.The e-Lobby has self-service automation kiosks and an ATM. A press release said here that the bank has so far opened 99 e-lobbies across the country. Amrit Paul, Inspector General of Police, Western Range, inaugurated the Blamatta branch. SR Bansal, Chairman and Managing...

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Standard Chartered appoints new Group CIO

Standard Chartered (StandChart) announced the appointment of Michael Gorriz as Group Chief Information Officer.He will join in the third quarter of 2015 and be based in Singapore, reporting directly to incoming Group Chief Executive, Bill Winters, the foreign bank said in a statement.Michael will succeed Jan Verplancke, Director, current Group Chief Information Officer, who will retire after 10 years of service. Jan will leave on the completion of an appropriate hand-over period, the bank said.Michael has prior experience at Daimler AG as Vice...

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Muthoot Fin cautions people against fake promotion schemes

Muthoot Finance has cautioned people against fake Muthoot Finance Lottery promotions.In a recent instance, a supposed organisation by the name of Chevron Texaco Oil & Gas Company fraudulently attempted to lure customers/ investors, through the platform of Muthoot Finance, by sending bogus e-mails and informing unsuspecting people that they have won a lottery worth crores of rupees.The unsuspected customers were further instructed to submit their details, including residential address, bank name, account number, account holder’s name, bank...

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DCB Bank rises; Motilal Oswal starts coverage with 'buy'

India's DCB Bank shares gain as much as 2.7 per cent.Motilal Oswal initiate coverage of stock with "buy" rating and price target of Rs. 155.Loan book realignment from unsecure to secure, cost control and focus on strong granular liability profile, key reason for growth, says DCB Bank.Oswal expects core revenues to clock healthy CAGR of 26 per cent over FY14-17, driven by strong loan growth and largely stable margins.While there was a sharp improvement in NIM, helped by "healthy" asset quality management, provisioning coverage ratio remains...

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SBI sees loan growth picking up from next year

State Bank of India, India's largest lender, expects loan growth to rise to as much as 15 per cent in the fiscal year to March 2016, boosted by government auctions for coal concessions and mobile radio airwaves, Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya said on Tuesday.That compares to what is expected to be "very very low" loan growth of below 10 per cent in the current fiscal year, Bhattacharya said in an interview.She also said a cut in India's cash reserve ratio, the share of deposits which lenders must hold with the central bank, would "definitely...

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Syndicate Bank to open 300-500 branches next fiscal

Syndicate Bank is planning to open 300-500 branches in the next financial year, according to TK Srivastava, Executive Director.He told presspersons in Manipal on Tuesday that the bank had around 3,500 branches currently. Of these, 50-60 were opened during the fourth quarter of the current financial year. “Going forward, another 300-500 branches will be opened in the next fiscal,” he said.The bank also has 37 mid-corporate branches. Another 13-14 such branches would be opened in the next two-three months, taking the total to 50, he said.To a...

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Axis Bank launches financial planning app

Axis Bank, India’s third largest private sector bank, has partnered Max Life Insurance, to launch a financial planning app to facilitate better life insurance purchasing experience to customers."The app furthers the Axis Bank vision to be the preferred financial solutions provider excelling in customer delivery through insight, empowered employees and smart use of technology...," Axis Bank said in statement.The application is designed to enable policy issuance in less than four hours.The digital initiative also involves latest analytics tools...

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PNB raises Rs. 1,800 cr from bonds to fund infra projects

State—owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) today announced raising Rs. 1,800 crore through long-term bonds for funding infrastructure projects.“The bank has raised Rs. 1,800 crore via long-term bonds for infrastructure project finance and affordable housing in the nature of debentures,” Punjab National Bank (PNB) said in a statement.The 10-year bonds were issued at an annual coupon rate of 8.35 per cent on private placement basis on March 24, 2015, the statement said.Shares of PNB closed at Rs. 161.60 per unit, down 0.95 per cent on the BSE.In...

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Standard Chartered bank holds global board meeting in New Delhi

Amidst reports of Standard Chartered shifting its headquarter to Asia, the UK-based bank is having its two-day global board meeting here starting on monday, reflecting increased importance of India in its global framework.As India is the third largest profit centre of the Standard Chartered, the board may also consider separating Indian operations into a subsidiary as the banking sector regulator RBI is encouraging global lenders to set up subsidiary.In 2011, India emerged as the largest profit centre for the bank. The other two largest profit...

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Bharatiya Mahila Bank to have 60 branches by Mar 31: Chairman and Managing Director

Bharatiya Mahila Bank will launch nine more branches by this month end to close the fiscal with a network of 60 outlets, a top official said today."The number of branches of the bank will be increased to 60 by the end of this financial year (2014-15)," Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) Chairman and Managing Director Usha Ananthasubramanian told reporters after inaugurating the bank's 51st branch here.She said, the bank plans to open some more branches next year, but the decision would be taken by the Board.The deposits of the bank stand at Rs 800...

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Syndicate Bank raises Rs 400 crore by issuing bonds

Syndicate Bank today said it has raised Rs 400 crore by issuing bonds.The bank has issued unsecured redeemable non-convertible Basel III compliant tier II bonds in the nature of debentures aggregating to Rs 400 crore, the public sector lender said in a filing to BSE."The issue is fully subscribed," it added. Syndicate Bank's net profit for the third quarter ended December 2014 had fallen by 20 per cent to Rs 304.99 crore.Syndicate Bank scrip closed at Rs 104.90 apiece on BSE, down 1.69 per cent from previous close. Source : Economic Time...

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Bank of Baroda cuts deposit rate for select maturities

After Axis Bank, state-owned Bank of Baroda has also reduced the interest rate for deposits below Rs. 1 crore by 0.1 percentage points (or 10 bps) for a select maturity bracket."The bank has decided to revise rates of interest payable on Domestic Term Deposits & NRO Deposits of below Rs. 1 crore, applicable to fresh deposits and renewal, with effect from March 24, 2015. The applicable rate of Interest in the maturity range of 181 to 270 days has been reduced from existing 7.75 per cent to 7.65 per cent," the public sector lender said in...

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IRDAI slaps Rs. 20 lakh penalty on Apollo Munich Health Insurance

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has imposed Rs. 20 lakh penalty on Apollo Munich Health Insurance Company for violation of various norms.In an order, IRDAI Chairman TS Vijayan said fine was imposed for accepting premiums from agents after expiry of their license. The company did not capture the record of the license dates of the agents as well.Further, the insurer did not provided the mandatory reserve for claims under litigation. It also violated norms by procuring travel insurance business through Make...

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Nabard staff union bats for reverse merger with RBI

The Centre may consider appointing the Deputy Governor of RBI as Chairman of Nabard (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development).It may also seriously consider the reverse merger to make RBI and Nabard complementary to each other for the betterment of agriculture and rural development.These are among the suggestions that VK Bhosale, General Secretary, All India Nabard Employees Association, has made in a communication to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.He welcomed the allocation of around Rs1 lakh crore in the budget towards various...

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