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Prudential
sets up offshore service centre in Mumbai
Bangalore: Prudential Plc, UK, announced on Wednesday
that it has set up its fully owned subsidiary - Prudential
Process Management Services (PPMS) in India with an investment
of $10 million. The new offshore service centre in Mumbai
is set up to improve customer contact service levels for
the Group's UK insurance operations, said a company press
release. The Mumbai centre is expected to start operations
by this end June with about 200 employees to begin with,
while it has a capacity of 850 employees, which it expects
to fill up by mid-2004. A third of the operations will
comprise call centre services and two thirds will be business
process related. "PPMS India is a logical extension
of the ongoing customer service transformation strategy,
outlined by Prudential in November 2001. We are working
to re-engineer our business and strengthen the Prudential
plc brand in the UK through a customer service focus that
is driven by quality, productivity and cost efficiency,"
said Philip Broadley, group finance director of Prudential
plc.
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State
Govt loans under debt swap
Mumbai: INnconnection with the first tranche of
the debt swap scheme this fiscal, all State Governments
will offer Rs 7,000 crore of state development loans on
June 12. The maturity of the loans is pegged at 10 years
with a coupon rate of 6.35 per cent, said an RBI press
release.
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CIDC,
SIDBI sign agreement for loans to small contractors
New Delhi: The Construction Industry Development
Council (CIDC) and the Small Industry Development Bank
of India (SIDBI) on Wednesday announced a new bills discounting
scheme for contractors engaged in construction activity.
"We will discount bills raised by a sub-contractor
on the main contractor. That would enable the sub-contractors
to get instant payment for their work and take care of
their working capital needs. All they would need will
be an approval for their bill from the main contractor.
The bigger contractor would then pay back the amount with
interest to us," said a senior SIDBI official, explaining
the scheme. While making the payments, SIDBI would take
into consideration the rating awarded to the contractor
by CIDC and his standing in the industry, apart from the
tenure of the bridge loan being sought. "The facility
would be available at an interest rate that would be in
the band of 2 per cent plus or minus our prime lending
rate, which for such short-term loans, is about 10.5 per
cent as of now," the SIDBI official said.
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Oriental
Insurance targets Rs 250-cr premium income
Bangalore: The public sector Oriental Insurance
Company Ltd has targeted a premium income of Rs 250 crore
for the current financial year. S. Gopalkrishnan, assistant
general manager, who heads the Karnataka zone of the company,
said during last year, the company had earned a premium
of Rs 197 crore. Bangalore, he said, had emerged as the
lead region for the company displacing Chennai in the
southern region, in terms of premium income earned. He
said low claim segments such as fire insurance recorded
an 18 per cent increase over 2001-02. He also said medical
insurance also showed big increases, mostly driven by
corporate covers.
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BOB
Housing Fin aims to disburse Rs 350 cr
Mumbai: BOB Housing Finance Ltd is all set to get
back into shape and is targeting disbursements of around
Rs 350 crore for the current fiscal, according to Anil
K. Khandelwal, executive director, Bank of Baroda. Speaking
to the pressperson about the future plans for the bank's
subsidiary, Khandelwal said although the bank would probably
merge its housing subsidiary with itself sometime in the
future, the immediate plan was to restore the health of
BOB Housing Finance (BOB HF). BOB HF, which is jointly
owned by Bank of Baroda and National Housing Bank, has
declared a 12 per cent dividend for 2002-2003. It has
received the necessary sanctions for a rights issue, but
doesn't plan to go in for it in the immediate future.
According to Khandelwal, there is no immediate requirement
to go in for a rights issue, as the subsidiary's present
capital position is quite comfortable, with the capital
adequacy ratio at 25.15 per cent, higher than the stipulated
norm of 12 per cent laid down by National Housing Bank.
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NHB
lowers refinance rate
New Delhi: National Housing Bank on Wednesday announced
a 0.25-per cent reduction in its refinance rate for rural
housing loans of up to Rs 5 lakh. As against refinance
of Rs 1,024 crore from July 2001 to June 2002, NHB hopes
to disburse close to Rs 2,500 crore in the same period
in the current year, an official release said here. The
release did not specify the new rates of interest.
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Tatas
hike stake in Tata Finance
Mumbai: The Tata group has increased its stake
in Tata Finance Ltd to 71 per cent, from 63 per cent.
The group's stake has increased following conversion by
Tata group companies of cumulative convertible preference
shares (CCPS) issued by Tata Finance in 2001. According
to a notice to the stock exchanges, the conversion has
been done at a price of Rs 45 per equity share (at a premium
of Rs 35) for each CCPS of Rs 100. The conversion has
been effected on May 25. Following the conversion, the
stake of Tata Industries Ltd in Tata Finance has gone
up to 37 per cent from 26 per cent while the stake of
Tata Engineering has come down to 21 per cent from 22
per cent.
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Individual
money transfers capped at $2,500
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India has capped the
amount for individual transactions under the money transfer
services (MTS) scheme at $2,500. The apex bank has also
said that under this scheme, amounts up to Rs 50,000 may
be paid in cash and any amount exceeding this limit shall
be paid by means of cheque, demand draft, postal order,
etc. or credited directly to the beneficiary's account
only. Indian parties (agents) who wish to apply for RBI
approval to enter into the money transfer services scheme,
must be authorised dealers, or full fledged money changers,
or registered non-banking finance companies or an IATA
approved travel agent with a minimum net worth of Rs 25
lakh.
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IDBI
Slaps Notices On 41 Defaulters
New Delhi: Industrial Development Bank of India
(IDBI) has cracked the whip on 41 defaulters. It has issued
notices to them for recovery of Rs 1,459 crore under the
Securitisation Act. IDBI has already seized the assets
of Suman Motels and Ganesh Benzoplast under the Act. IDBI’s
non-performing assets (NPAs) stood at Rs 4,287 crore as
on March 31, 2003. Confirming that assets of the two companies
had been seized under the Securitisation and Reconstruction
of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest
Act (Securitisation Act) 2002, an IDBI official said:
“However, pending the Supreme Court decision on disposal
of assets, no recovery has been made from these assets
till date.” “IDBI has also issued notices to
other defaulting borrowers under the Securitisation Act
and is planning similar action,” the source said.
IDBI is planning to take action against 31 borrowers,
involving principal amount of Rs 822 crore. “Of these,
20 borrowers have approached for amicable settlement of
dues and a few of them have submitted one-time settlement
(OTS) proposals,” it added.
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