The Hindu Business Line : Friday, April 01, 2005

Loans against warehouse receipts for farmers — Corpn Bank ties up with MCX
CORPORATION Bank has launched `Corp Agriculture Produce Loan' (CAPL) scheme for farmers, in association with the Multi-Commodity Exchange of India Ltd (MCX). The scheme is aimed at mitigating the losses incurred by farmers who often resort to ... More

INSIGHT

Nothing macho about forex reserves
Foreign exchange reserves play an irreplaceable role in many emerging economies. Any comparison of India and China harps on the reserves of the latter. But the accretion to China's reserves is a necessity that fills a critical gap. It is inapt to mak e a virtue of such a necessity. There is nothing macho at all about China's reserves of $610 billion. India needs forex reserves only because it does not trust the market to dynamically fill the demand-supply gap, says G. Ramachandran. More

FOREX

Foreign investments account for 40% of reserves accretion
FOREIGN investment flows constituted around 40.1 per cent of the total accretion to the foreign exchange reserves during the nine-months ended April-December 2004-05, as per the latest RBI statistics. External commercial borrowings accounted ... More

Rupee tad higher; gilts lacklustre
MUMBAI: The rupee ended marginally higher against the dollar at 43.74/75 on Thursday, against Wednesday's close of 43.79/80. There was a significant sell off in the dollar-rupee due to players taking positions at the close of the financial ... More

SOFTWARE

MS Office for banks
NEW DELHI: Microsoft Corporation India on Thursday announced the availability of Microsoft Office for Banks, a solution targeted at Indian public sector banks. The offering is a customised solution, which is fully localised and Unicode ... More

GENERAL INSURANCE

Regulate hospital charges, urge health insurers
HEALTH insurers are seeking grading of private hospitals and regulation of their charges. According to them, private hospitals charge higher rates from patients treated under health insurance schemes. This results in insurers paying huge claims, ... More

RBI & OTHER CENTRAL BANKS

WMA for Centre fixed at Rs 16,000 cr
THE Reserve Bank of India has fixed Ways and Means Advances (WMA) limit for the Government of India for the financial year 2005-06 at Rs 10,000 crore for the first half, and Rs 6,000 crore for the second. The RBI said it may trigger fresh ... More

PUBLIC SECTOR BANKS

PSBs offer to do treasury management for PFs
PUBLIC sector banks have begun pitching for treasury management for provident funds in a bid to increase their fee-based incomes. High level banking sources said that this proposal was made since most of the PFs were barely breaking even. PFs ... More

Union Bank total biz at Rs 1-lakh cr
UNION Bank of India has achieved a total business Rs 1 lakh crore comprising its deposits and advances, in the current fiscal. The bank has a network of 2051 branches. It added 23 branches during the year. While all the branches are ... More

C-DIT to host SBT Web sites
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: State Bank of Travancore (SBT) has joined hands with the Centre for Development of Imaging Technology (C-DIT) to host and maintain the bank's Web site in the regional language (Malayalam), the first bank to do so, and ... More

FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

Pennar Profiles gets lenders' nod for OTS scheme
PENNAR Profiles Ltd has informed the stock exchanges that the secured lenders of the company have accepted the one-time settlement (OTS) arrangement proposed by the company. These lenders include IFCI, IDBI, ICICI, SBI and SBH. As per the OTS, ... More

CREDIT MARKET

Bank lending: Biotech cos seek priority sector status
THE Department of Biotechnology (DBT) today proposed that bank lending to biotech companies should be categorised as priority sector lending. Also, accepting a long-standing industry demand, it has proposed the formation of a National ... More

Enough of expert panels on loans to rural poor
AN Expert Group under Mr Y.S.P. Thorat, Managing Director, Nabard, studying the low Credit-Deposit ratio (CD ratio) has come up with a revised version of the critical indicator, which if accepted, will immediately lift CD ratios in the ... More

Bank lending in Wayanad
KOCHI: Lending Rs 380 crore, against a target of Rs 605 crore, banks in Wayanad district have achieved 63 per cent of the priority sector lending target. The district level review committee meeting noted that the agricultural sector ... More

IOB disbursements in Thiruvananthapuram
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Priority credit disbursement by banks in Thiruvananthapuram district during the first nine months of fiscal 2004-05 has crossed Rs 1,134 crore (target Rs 1,393.95 crore). This was announced at the district-level ... More

TRADE & LABOUR UNIONS

LIC staff team meets Minister

PEOPLE

New bank chairmen, thou shall and shalt not...
IN THE next two years, many nationalised banks will have new chairmen. Most of them will be first timers. Newspaper reports indicate that even bank general managers may be considered for the top post, since the ... More

Swarup to head pension authority
MR D. Swarup will take over as the Chairman of the interim Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) with effect from today. Mr Swarup was the Expenditure Secretary in the Ministry of Finance. As the head of the interim pension ... More

TRENDS

DK banks' biz crosses Rs 9,756 cr
AS many as 352 branches of various banks in Dakshina Kannada district crossed a business of Rs 9,756 crore as on December 2004. These branches mobilised deposits of Rs 6,418 crore and disbursed advances of Rs 3,338 crore during the ... More

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