ICICI cuts interest rates on loans, bonds
Mumbai: ICICI has cut interest rates
on its loans as well as its latest Safety Bond offering. The prime lending rate has been
cut by half a percentage point to 12.5 per cent and the yield on five-year Safety Bonds
has been cut by one whole percentage point to 10 per cent.
The decision follows the governments move to cut the benchmark interest rate on
small saving schemes and public provident fund scheme by 1.00-1.5-percentage points and
the RBI decision to cut the Bank Rate in two stages.
ICICIs short-term prime rate now stands at 12.5 per cent. The STPLR is applicable
for loans of a variable maturity and is re-set annually. The medium term PLR, applicable
for loans up to three years and long-term prime lending rate also stand at 12.5 per cent.
The ICICIs decision to unify all three lending rates comes at a time when leading
banks have introduced variable interest rates for short and long-term loans.
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Relief bonds rates down
to 8.5 per cent
New Delhi: The ministry of finance (MoF) has announced reduction of interest rates
on relief bonds by 0.5 per cent to 8.5 per cent. Besides, rates on loans to government
employees for purchase of houses, vehicles and computers have come down by 1 per cent. The
rates on relief bonds have been reduced from 9 to 8.5 per cent from March 15. The 1 per
cent reduction on the loans to government employees will be effective from April 1.
The rates have been slashed in the face of reduction in interest rates on general
provident funds, special deposit schemes and other small savings scheme.
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RBI opts for fresh valuation on
UTI Bank-GTB merger
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has sought a second valuation
exercise for the UTI Bank-Global Trust Bank (GTB) merger, following the controversy over
alleged price manipulation in the GTB stock. The new valuation will now factor in the
alleged price manipulation. UTI Bank too is reportedly in favour of a second opinion on
valuation, which is now expected in about a week's time from Deloitte, Haskins &
Sells.
The initial valuation had taken into
account four factors - market value, book value, earnings per share and maintainable
profits. The earlier swap ratio was four shares of GTB for every nine UTI Bank shares
held, and some circles found it to be loaded in GTB's favour. Now Deloitte has been given
complete freedom by the two banks to decide on the ratio based on whatever parameters it
deems fit.
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Government relaxes crude
import norms
New Delhi: The government has decided to liberalise crude import norms,
thereby enabling Indian PSUs to buy crude from MNCs like Shell, BP-Amoco and Exxon-Mobil,
on term contracts. The decision, aimed at taking advantage of competitive prices
worldwide, also ends the monopoly of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), which till now had the
manadate for worldwide crude shopping on behalf of other PSUs.
The government move comes in the wake of
scheduled dismantling of all controls on the oil sector by April 2002. India was expected
to import up to 90 million tonnes of crude during 2001-02. The government has also
enlarged the scope of imports by permitting term contracts, even with those national oil
companies of producing nations that were not offering crude on official selling prices.
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