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Deferred Payment Protocols dated April 30, 1981 and December 23, 1985
between Government of India and erstwhile USSR the Rupee value of the Special Currency Basket was indicated as Rs. 73.305676 effective from April 26, 2012.
AD Category-I banks are advised that a further revision has taken place on May 4, 2012 and accordingly, the Rupee value of the Special Currency Basket has been fixed at Rs.75.594562 with effect from May 9, 2012.
AD Category-I banks may bring the contents of this Circular to the notice of their constituents concerned.
The Directions contained in this circular have been issued under sections 10(4) and 11(1) of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999 (42 of 1999) and are without prejudice to permissions / approvals, if any, required under any other law.
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Reserve Bank of India revises banks' commission for govt biz
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has revised the agency commission it pays to banks for running government businesses with effect from July 1, 2012. The central bank has sharply cut the commission rate for receipt transactions conducted via electronic mode to Rs 12 from Rs 45 per transaction, while it has hiked the rate of receipts through physical mode to Rs 50 from Rs 45, the RBI said in a notification.
Further, the RBI has revised the rate for pension payments to Rs 65 per transaction from Rs 60 earlier. However, the central bank has lowered the payment rate for payments other than pension to 5.5 paise per Rs 100 turnover from 9 paise earlier, it said. The central bank undertakes the government's general banking businesses via its offices, branches of state-run banks and few private sector banks like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank.
“In a dynamic banking scenario, several factors/ developments influence the cost / mechanism of agency business arrangement. Taking all these factors into consideration, RBI had held detailed consultations with major public and private sector agency banks in the recent months,” the notification said.
India's Federal Bank inks pact with UAE's National Bank of Abu Dhabi for mobile money transfer
Indian private sector lender Federal Bank Ltd has partnered with UAE's National Bank of Abu Dhabi to offer real-time international account-to-account money transfer services through mobiles from across the globe to any bank in India. Under the agreement, Federal Bank will use the arrow mobile service of National Bank of Abu Dhabi, powered by mobile payment provider Luup for the purpose, the foreign lender said in a statement.
This will help customers reduce the time taken to transfer money to just seconds against the 2-3 days with standard mobile banking applications, thereby giving users security, convenience and control, it said. "Through this new tie-up with NBAD, one of the largest banks in UAE offering state of the art remittance services, families of Indian expatriates can receive money real time within seconds through Federal Bank,”
Federal Bank Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Shyam Srinivasan said. Notably, Federal Bank has remittance arrangement with 66 exchange houses or banks from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the highest for any bank in India.
Reserve Bank of India to ease norms to encourage banking in hilly areas of Uttarakhand
The Reserve Bank of India will relax policy norms to encourage opening of more bank branches in the remote and hilly regions of Uttarakhand state, the central bank's Governor D Subbarao said. "The Reserve Bank and the government, as the case may be, will relax the policy guidelines to see that there is greater penetration of banking system in the hilly areas," Subbarao said at a conference after the central bank's board meeting with the Uttarakhand government.
Major state-run banks like State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and Bank of Baroda have already agreed to increase the credit-deposit (CD) ratio in five districts of Uttarakhand, he added. "In order to raise CD ratio, not only the banks will work, but the state government will also generate proposals for SME (small and medium enterprises) sector loans," Subbarao said. The RBI has told banks and the state government to prepare an operational plan for taking banks to hilly areas and uncovered districts, he said.
SBI RFP for Maharashtra off to a poor start
Over the last two weeks, ET has been reporting on a new plan by the Finance Ministry'sDepartment of Financial Services (DFS) to divide India into 20 clusters, and to appoint a common Banking Correspondent company for all public sector banks operating in that geography. Such a move, feels the DFS, will vastly improve the economics of the Bank-BC model. The suggestion, however, as ET has reported earlier, has banks worried that any BC company which wins a tender might develop monopolistic tendencies.
A new development took place on this front yesterday. For yesterday was the day when the first auction to appoint a BC, as per this new arrangement, took place. This was conducted by theState Bank of India, for Maharashtra. Companies had to bid for cash management costs. And they had to, upon winning the tender, establish about 4,000 banking correspondents, complete with PoS machines and all.
Any company which won would need to have the cap ex and op ex required for setting up such a network and managing it. However, the bids had attracted a motley set of companies. Including several which bid were very small in size.
RBI, finance ministry differ over rural bank branches
The Reserve Bank of India, RBI, and the finance ministry seem to have differences on the way banks should go about ensuring financial inclusion. While both the regulator and the ministry are passionate about providing banking services at low cost to the disadvantaged, a difference of opinion between the two has confused bankers. Recently, the finance ministry told banks that every business correspondent outlet should be converted into an ultra-small branch.
So far, business correspondents - agents appointed by banks to provide banking services to the financially excluded in rural India - reached out to individuals on their own and operated from home. On the other hand, the RBI, in a recent circular, told banks to set up an ultra-small branch for 8-10 business correspondents operating in an area.
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India's forex reserves dip $1.8 bln from week ago to $290 bln as on May 18: RBI
India's foreign exchange reserves fell by $1.8 billion to $290 billion as on May 18 from the previous week, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said Friday. The foreign currency assets decreased by $1.74 billion from the week ago to $256.11 billion as on May 18, the central bank said in its weekly statistical supplement.
The value of gold reserves remained unchanged at $26.61 billion, while Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) reserves fell by $35.5 million to $4.39 billion, the RBI said. India’s reserve position in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) declined by $23.6 million to $2.86 billion as on May 18.
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SKS Microfinance plans to reintroduce endowment life insurance policy
India's only listed micro lender SKS Microfinance Ltd plans to reintroduce its endowment life insurance policy to its customers, after having exited this area of business in 2009, the Business Standard reported Friday citing an unidentified senior company executive. “We (SKS Microfinance) started this business in July 2008. There was huge demand and we facilitated sale of around 2.8 million insurance policies in 14 months. But our internal systems were not capable of handling these volumes and we discontinued the business,” the paper quoted the official as saying.
Endowment policy is a life insurance plan where the policyholder is guaranteed some amount of money at the end of the policy term or on death. The micro lender is presently “strengthening” its “back-end processes” and will relaunch the endowment life insurance business after it has upgraded its “systems”, the executive said. However, the executive did not give any time-frame for the relaunch of the policy, but said it will be “sooner than later”. SKS Microfinance is expected to enable sale of endowment insurance policies of India's largest life insurer Life Insurance Corp of India (LIC), private sector life insurers SBI Life Insurance and ICICI Prudential Life.
Recently, the Business Line citing Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) Chairman J Hari Narayan reported that the regulator has found “massive problems” in the insurance operations of SKS Microfinance. The irregularities include illegally accepting the cheques of death claims from its insurers on its name, and collecting higher commissions than that allowed by IRDA while selling insurance products. The finding comes as another blow to SKS Microfinance, which is struggling to emerge from the financial turmoil that the entire microfinance industry slipped into following the passage of a strict state law in October 2010.
SKS Microfinance is associated with around 10 insurance companies in both life and non-life segments. The company earns a large portion of its other income from the distribution of its insurance policies. It earned Rs 3.66 billion in fiscal year 2011-12 from the insurance business. The micro lender posted a net loss of Rs 3.3 billion during the fourth quarter (Jan-Mar) of the last financial year 2011-12 as compared to a net loss of Rs 697.6 million in the same quarter a year ago, as provisions for bad loans more than doubled
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RBI notifies Housing Development Finance Corp's move to raise FII limit to 100% from 74%
The Reserve Bank of India has notified that India's major mortgage lender Housing Development Finance Corp Ltd's (HDFC's) board has approved resolutions to raise the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) limit to 100% from 74% earlier. The hike in the FIIs' investment limit is for the purchase of HDFC's equity shares and convertible debentures under the portfolio investment scheme, the RBI said in a statement earlier Thursday.
HDFC's decision is a precursor to the company's forthcoming conversion of its warrants into equity by foreign investors that will take the total FII holding in the mortgage lender beyond 74%, HDFC had said in a regulatory filing earlier. The company's warrants are due for conversion by August 24, 2012. As of now, the FII holding in HDFC is at 66.7%, while the promoter holding in the company is zero.
Notably, global indices owner and manager Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) reversed HDFC's weightage in its MSCI India index after the company's move to up the FII limit. Earlier this month, MSCI had reduced weightage of HDFC.
Canada’s Intact, HDI-Gerling lead Reliance General stake race
Anada’s largest home, auto and business insurer, and Germany’s third largest insurance group, HDI-Gerling International Holding AG, have emerged as top contenders to buy a 26% stake in Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Capital Ltd’s non-life insurance arm, Reliance General Insurance Co. Ltd, according to two people with direct knowledge of the development. The two, neither of whom wanted to be identified, also said the deal value could be around Rs.1,500 crore, which would make it among the largest foreign investments in the insurance business in India.
One of the two said it was only a matter of time before “a term sheet” is signed by “Reliance Capital, Reliance General and the foreign partner”. To be sure, deals of this nature are never final till they are signed and, even then, are subject to approvals from concerned regulators. A Reliance Capital spokesperson termed the news of the potential deal speculative and said the company wouldn’t comment.
Gilles Gratton, vice-president (corporate communications) at Intact Financial Corp. (which owns Intact Insurance) also declined to comment. Replying to an email, Martin Schrader, press officer at Talanx AG that controls HDI-Gerling, said, “It is our policy not to comment on market rumours and speculations.”
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| Bank Policy Rate: |
| Bank Rate |
09.00% |
| Repo Rate |
08.00% |
| Reverse Repo Rate |
07.00% |
| CRR |
04.75% |
| SLR |
24.00% |
|
| LATEST LENDING RATES (BASE RATES) |
| Public Sector Banks : |
| Allahabad Bank |
10.50% |
| Andhra Bank |
10.50% |
| Bank of Baroda |
10.50% |
| Bank of India |
10.50% |
| Bank of Maharashtra |
10.70% |
| Canara Bank |
10.50% |
| Central Bank of India |
10.50% |
| Corporation Bank |
10.50% |
| Dena Bank |
10.70% |
| Federal Bank |
10.45% |
| IDBI Bank |
10.50% |
| Indian Bank |
10.50% |
| Indian Overseas Bank |
10.50% |
| Oriental Bank of Commerce |
10.50% |
| Punjab National Bank |
10.50% |
| State Bank of Hyderabad |
10.50% |
| State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur |
10.50% |
| State Bank of India |
10.00% |
| State Bank of Mysore |
10.25% |
| State Bank of Travancore |
10.50% |
| Syndicate Bank |
10.50% |
| Uco Bank |
10.50% |
| Union Bank |
10.50% |
| United Bank |
10.45% |
| Vijaya Bank |
10.45% |
| Private Sector Banks : |
| Axis Bank |
10.00% |
| Bank of Rajasthan |
08.00% |
| DCB |
09.50% |
| Dhanlaxmi Bank |
11.25% |
| HDFC |
10.00% |
| HSBC |
09.75% |
| ICICI Bank |
09.75% |
| ING Vysya Bank |
10.45% |
| Karnataka Bank |
11.00% |
| Kotak Mahindra Bank |
09.75% |
| Yes Bank |
10.25% |
|
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* Honeymoon Packages
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Sahyog Tours & Travels
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Contact us : 01662-250251 |
 |
| Global Currency Update: |
| Currency |
Rate |
Change |
| USD |
55.410 |
-0.25% |
| EUR |
69.384 |
-0.35% |
| GBP |
86.795 |
-0.31% |
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|
| PENSION |
* * Pension Ledger Maintainin
* Arrear Calulation of all types revision in pension for Defence/State Govt./Railway/Center Govt. etc.
* All solutions for any problem relates to pensioners
* Txt file preparation for Eps pension / LIC Comm./ Salary/ Employment Allowance etc. |
Sahyog
S.C.O. 46, Sector-13 Hisar, Haryana(125005)
Contact us :- 09896856853 |
| Stock Market : |
|
Index |
Change |
| Sensex |
16217.82 |
-4.48 |
| Nifty |
4920.40 |
-1.00 |
|
| Term of the Day : |
| Dividend yield |
| Annual rate of return on common stock (ordinary shares) or preferred stock (preference shares), computed by dividing the annual dividend by the shares' market price. Dividend yield reflects the return on the current'opportunity value,' and not on the historical cost of the investment. As the price of the shares declines, the dividend yield goes up indicating that the shares are priced cheaply and are a 'good buy.' Such shares usually attract risk averse investors. |
| Quote of the Day : |
| Things would have been simple for human, if we were born with brain only. The addition of heart bringa all the complexities in life. |
| Joke of the Day : |
| A general noticed one of his soldiers behaving oddly. The soldier would pick up any piece of paper he found, frown and say: “That's not it” and put it down again. This went on for some time, until the general arranged to have the soldier psychologically tested. The psychologist concluded that the soldier was deranged, and wrote out his discharge from the army. The soldier picked it up, smiled and said: “That's it.” |
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