Banks to set their own lending targets for SSIs
Mumbai: Banks will set individual lending targets to small scale industries (SSI) to boost growth in this sector. The target will be fixed keeping in view the outstanding credit to this sector, the previous year’s achievement and overall trends in growth of net bank credit. This was decided at a review meeting on SSI credit, held at RBI’s Mumbai office on June 2. The meeting chaired by deputy governor Vepa Kamesam, was attended by the secretary and additional development commissioner of the ministry of SSIs and top-level officials of major public sector banks, Small Industries Development Bank of India and the National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development. At the meeting, it was proposed that banks should double their limits for composite loans. In order to meet the term loan and the working capital requirements of SSIs, the bank officials present at the meeting were also agreeable to enhance, on merits, the limit for composite loan from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 lakh on usual terms. Further, several banks felt that the procedure for creation of charge on fixed assets of SSI units should be considerably simplified, especially where such assets were already charged to State Finance Corporations/State Industrial Development Centres.
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Om Kotak Mahindra premium collection jumps 400 per cent to Rs 40 crore in 2002-03
Kolkata: Om Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company Limited, a joint venture between Kotak Mahindra and Old Mutual Plc., said on Thursday that it has registered more than four times growth in premium collection to Rs 40.32 crore in 2002-03 as against Rs 7.65 crore in the previous fiscal. It declared a return of 7.50 per cent as against eight per cent last year adjusting to the falling interest rate scenario. MD Shivaji Dam, said 38 per cent of their total business came from Gujarat and Maharashtra.
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IDBI Bank’s new product group account by August
Bhubaneswar: IDBI Bank, whose products are getting a good response from the market, is planning to introduce a slew of new products in the second half of the current fiscal. “The Group Account is being given finishing touches and will be ready for launch by August, 2003,” bank regional head - east (retail banking) Gautam Gan, said. He said that under the scheme, a group of people would be able to operate through a single account. The marketing division in Mumbai is designing several other products, he added. Mr Gan said that the bank would go in for an expansion programme sometime after September, this year. “We are looking at opening as many as 11 new branches in the eastern region. Four of these would be located in Orissa. Cities like Cuttack, Sambalpur and Berhampur are preferred locations for new branches. Besides, a semi-urban branch either at Paradip or Angul, would be opened as part of the expansion programme,” he added.
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United Bank net rises 256 per cent to Rs 305 crore in 2002-03
New Delhi: Till recently dubbed as weak, Kolkata-based United Bank has clocked a staggering 256 per cent increase in its net profit during 2002-03. From just Rs 19 crore in 2000-01, the post-tax profit went up to Rs 119 crore the next year and stood at Rs 305 crore at the end of March this year. Said bank chairman and managing director Madhukar: “the turnaround of a bank whose closure had been strongly recommended has been an all-round surprise, even for me.” The revival has also been possible without any recapitalisation, public issue or by raising tier II capital. He asserted that the bank, constituted when four private banks of West Bengal “united” in 1950, made a total profit of Rs 80 crore in 52 years. Madhukar took charge in mid-2001, when the bank had shown a profit of only Rs 19 crore for 2000-01. Having managed to reconcile accounts in its 1,300 branches that had not been attended to for years, the bank released Rs 1,200 crore of blocked capital. Now the bank has effective capital reserves of Rs 1,000 crore, from just Rs 200 crore in July 2001. Accumulated losses that stood at Rs 1,600 crore have been nearly halved now.
Capital adequacy ratio improved in 2002-03 to 15.17 per cent from 12.02 per cent the previous year. Return on assets increased to 1.37 per cent from 0.54 per cent and return on equity to 32.89 per cent against 20.4 per cent, the previous year
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SBI Life posts 4-fold rise in premium income
Mumbai: SBI Life Insurance Company has recorded a jump of 391.6 per cent in premium income at Rs 72.75 crore for the financial year ended March 31, as compared to Rs 14.8 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. R. Krishnamurthy, managing director, SBI Life, ascribed the growth to the large untapped potential for life insurance in the country. The company has settled 8 individual policy claims, which amounted to an outgo of Rs 5.5 lakh and settled 200 claims on the group insurance segment, amounting to an outgo of Rs 2.4 crore. Total sum assured has crossed Rs 4,000 crore and over 5 lakh lives have been covered. According to Krishnamurthy, the company has cornered a 30 per cent share of the aggregate premium income of Rs 35 crore that private players generated.
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Insurance cover for rickshaw pullers in AP
Hyderabad: Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has announced that the Andhra Pradesh Government has remitted a premium of Rs 2 crore to the insurance company for providing insurance coverage for two lakh rickshaw pullers across the State. The Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, had recently announced free life insurance coverage for the welfare of rickshaw pullers in the State during the Telugu Desam Party conference held at Tirupati last month. According to LIC, a group insurance for one year through its LIC Janashree Bima Yojana Scheme would be implemented shortly. The benefits under the scheme include Rs 20,000 sum assured for natural
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Dhanalakshmi Bank net up 49 pc
Kochi: The net profit of the Thrissur-based Dhanalakshmi Bank has grown by 49 per cent to touch Rs 15.02 crore for 2002-2003, up from the Rs 10.07 crore recorded last year. The Board of Directors has recommended a dividend of 15 per cent. Total income grew to Rs 259.38 crore (Rs 239.86 crore), while the total expenditure was Rs 195.86 crore (Rs 189.27 crore). Reduction in the cost of deposits and growth in other income enabled the bank to sustain the growth in profits, an official statement from the bank said. Operating profits touched Rs 63.52 crore (Rs 50.59 crore).
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Tata cos to merge auto finance biz
Mumbai: Two Tata group companies, Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company Ltd and Tata Finance Ltd, are working on an `organisational merger' of their auto finance divisions in a bid to increase their market share in this business. As per the proposed plan, the Bureau of Hire Purchase and Credit (BHPC) of Tata Engineering and the Asset Finance Division of Tata Finance Ltd would be merged. The new entity would be christened as Tata Auto Finance (TAF), a Tata Engineering source said. When contacted, a Tata Engineering official said details of the merger were being worked out but "it will be only an organisational merger and not a legal merger.''
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Syndicate Bank loans for Dakshina Kannada SHGs
Mangalore: Syndicate Bank, which has chalked out its targets for priority sector lending in the current fiscal, has decided to disburse a sum of Rs 5 crore to around 900 women's self-help groups in the Dakshina Kannada district by the end of September.
According to a press release issued here, this is to make credit available to women's groups, the bank's regional manager, M.M. Mallya, said. Mallya was speaking after inaugurating a one-day workshop on credit to women's self-help groups organised by the Mangalore Regional office of Syndicate Bank and the Department of Women and Child Welfare at the bank's regional office here.
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i-flex solution for Brunei bank
Bangalore: i-flex Solutions, provider of technology solutions to the financial services industry, said on Thursday that its flagship product, Flexcube, had been selected by Brunei's Baiduri Bank as its new core banking system. "Flexcube will provide the technology platform for Baiduri Bank, thus enabling it to ramp up retail banking operations while consolidating its corporate banking functions. In addition to Flexcube, Baiduri Bank will also implement the Revenux CRM and profitability analytics solution," said a company press release.
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HSBC arm may exit debt broking
Mumbai: HSBC Securities & Capital Markets (India) Pvt Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd, is likely to discontinue its debt brokerage business. Company officials said that thin margins and low volumes were responsible for the likely closure of this business. The company has intimated several of its clients, banks and primary dealers of this development. Said Naina Lal Kidwai, vice-chairman & managing director, HSBC Securities & Capital Markets, onfirming the development, "We may not continue in debt brokerage since it is too small a business compared to the scale of our operations. There are low volumes and marginal profits in this area. Therefore you will see no banks in this business and we are also considering an exit."
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IRDA okays Web-based training
Hyderabad: The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) has accorded approval to Web-based training for insurance agents developed by the Hyderabad-based C&K Management Ltd (CKML). Disclosing this in a press release here , CKML said so far the IRDA approvals were given to the institutes providing offline or traditional classroom-based training. CKML said the classroom model was not sufficient to cover large numbers, especially in a scenario where each new insurance company would need at least 5,000 agents to be trained. The company claimed that its Web-based model - www.themanagementor.com - offered a very cost-effective learning solution for the insurance companies.
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