4 November 2000

Government to retain majority stake in SBI
New Delhi: At a time when it has already gone ahead with plans to reduce its stake in nationalised banks to 33 per cent, the government has made it very clear that it will not reduce its stake in the country's leading commercial bank, State Bank of India, to below 55 per cent.

This was made clear by the minister of state for finance, even as the draft bill for amendment in the Bank Nationalisation Act in order to facilitate reduction of government stake in other nationalised banks is with the cabinet for its consent.

One reason could be the fact that SBI is a cash cow among all nationalized banks and has also been government's arm to facilitate major borrowing programmes like the Resurgent India Bond and the India Millennium Deposit.

New credit information bureau being planned
New Delhi: The State Bank of India (SBI), Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC), and Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) are planning a joint venture to set up a credit information bureau. Such a bureau, a normal practice in the west, would examine the creditworthiness of a prospective borrower.

The bureau would provide comprehensive data on corporate clients, which banks and financial institutions (FIs) could use