Exim Bank extends line of credit to Djibouti bank
Mumbai: The Export Import Bank of India has extended a line of credit of $10 million to the Central Bank of Djibouti to support India's exports. An agreement regarding this was signed in Mumbai on Thursday by R M V Raman, executive director, Exim Bank, and Djama M Haid, Governor of Central Bank of Djibouti.

Under the line of credit, importers from Djibouti will be required to make an advance payment of 10 per cent of the contract value to the Indian exporters. The remaining amount will be reimbursed by Exim Bank to the exporters upfront upon the shipment of goods. The credit period available to the importers through the Central Bank of Djibouti is up to 10 years.
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South Indian Bank bond issue fully subscribed
Kochi: The subordinate bond issue on private placement basis of the Thrissur-based South Indian Bank has been fully subscribed.
The Rs 65-crore issue carries a coupon rate of 7.7 per cent for a period of 80 months.
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Union Bank launches multi gains scheme in Coimbatore
Coimbatore: Union Bank of India has launched its `Multi Gains Savings Account Scheme' in Coimbatore region. The scheme would be implemented in 10 out of 46 branches in this region before the end of September, C Abraham, Regional Manager, said. While the Union Flexi Deposit Scheme launched earlier was a combination of savings and fixed deposit scheme, the latest one offers a bouquet of benefits to the savings bank depositors, who maintain a minimum balance of Rs 25,000 in their accounts. The freebies include credit card, ATM card, interest at the rate of 3.5 per cent at quarterly intervals, instant credit for local and outstation instrument, 10 chequebooks etc.
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UBI proposes fast-track for SSI, farm credit
Kolkata: United Bank of India is planning to establish a fast-track system for processing credit applications from small-scale and agriculture sectors. This will necessitate a minor reorientation of its administrative structure, an exercise aimed at reducing delays in handling of queries. In keeping with the plan, the bank has proposed to bring together a few key centres - Kolkata North & South, Mumbai, Chennai and New Delhi - which will have direct access to its headquarters.

The idea is to reduce the time required for processing. The bank, said Madhukar, CMD, had decided to establish a special business group, to operate under a general manager, for handling new business proposals exceeding Rs 10 crore. He was speaking at a seminar organised under the banner of `United Udyogshree Yojana' on Friday. UBI has further proposed to empower female relatives of borrowers based on recommendations made by its customers.
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Syndicate Bank to distribute Allianz Bajaj Life products
Hyderabad: Syndicate Bank has signed a memorandum of understanding with Allianz Bajaj Life Insurance Company for the distribution of insurance products through the bank's branch network. In the first phase, the bank will sell Allianz products through 11 branches and subsequently the services will be extended all over the country, according the bank's executive director,. K. M. Shet.

Shet said the bank is targeting an income of about Rs 1.5 crore this year and about Rs 5 crore per annum by 2006 through the sale of life insurance products. The Bancassurance Agreement was formalised on Thursday between Michael Bastian, chairman of Syndicate Bank and Rahul Bajaj, chairman of Allianz Bajaj. Shet said that the bank would be opening 140 additional branches across the country. For the current fiscal, it had targeted a business of Rs 57,000 crore, comprising Rs 37,000 crore of advances and Rs 20,000 crore of deposits.
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Tata AIG declares 4% bonus
Mumbai: Tata AIG Life Insurance Company Ltd has announced a reversionary bonus of 4 per cent of the sum assured for its customers, for the financial year 2002-03. The bonus is applicable for eligible participating plans, reaching their first and second policy anniversary. The reversionary bonus declared by Tata AIG, was on the "sum assured or face value" of the policy, and not on the premium paid and on a compounded basis.

"We are proud to announce one of the highest bonuses among the private insurance companies for the second consecutive year. This was achieved in a falling interest rate scenario and is a testament to the commitment that we make to all our policy-holders," said Ian J Watts, managing director, Tata AIG Life Insurance Company Ltd.
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Five PSBs to share ATMs
Chennai: About 3 million customers of five banks - Bank of India, Indian Bank, Union Bank of India, United Bank and Syndicate Bank - will have access to all the ATMs of all the five banks from tomorrow, when the `shared ATM network' of the five banks, interlinked by the switch provided by India Switch Company, is to be launched.

"This is the first of its kind among the PSU banks who have taken a customer-centric initiative to share their IT resources," says D. Krishnamurthy, general manager, Bank of India. The banks have a common logo for this service, called "CashTree". This logo will be displayed in all the member Banks' ATMs additionally so that the customers can easily identify and do the transactions. The network will provide about 500 ATMs to its clients now to start with. "More banks are likely to join the network in the next one month and will make available about 1,200 common ATMs for all their clients", Krishnamurthy has said.
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HDFC Group to follow Standard Life investment policy
Mumbai: The HDFC group wants to follow the investment strategy of its foreign partner, Standard Life, which bet on equities in the long term, Deepak Parekh, Chairman, HDFC, said. But, in India, investment in equities by life insurance companies is restricted by IRDA. Insurance companies can invest only up to 15 per cent of its corpus in `un-approved' securities. HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company Ltd has just started investing in equities, Parekh said.

Standard Life of UK, which has 18.4 per cent stake in HDFC Standard Life, invests up to 75 per cent of its funds in equities. According to Iain Lumsden, group chief executive, Standard Life Group, equities yield better returns if the investments are for a longer period, say more than ten years. Lumsden, who is in India to attend the board meeting of HDFC Standard Life, however, said that policyholder should be informed about the risk in investing in equities.
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ICICI Bank Q1 net profit up 34%
Mumbai: ICICI Bank has posted an over 34 per cent jump in its net profit for the first quarter ended 30 June 2003 at Rs 340.2 crore, up from Rs 252.9 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. "Our profits are driven by our strong growth in net interest income. This has been due to an 18 per cent growth in retail assets and lowering cost of funds for the bank,'' said Kalpana Morparia, executive director. The net interest income (i.e., interest earned-interest expended) for the first quarter was up 24 per cent to Rs 416 crore (Rs 336 crore) and other income increased 40 per cent to Rs 643.81 crore (Rs 459.07 crore).

Net interest margin increased to 1.7 per cent (1.2 per cent.) In this quarter, the bank repaid Rs 2,300 crore of erstwhile ICICI's liabilities as it fell due in accordance with the terms of repayment. Cost of deposits declined to six per cent for the quarter compared to 6.8 per cent for the year ended 31 March 2003. Interest earned by the bank decreased to Rs 2,256.06 crore from Rs 2,395.55 crore. Total income rose by a mere 1.5 per cent to Rs 2,899.87 crore (Rs 2,854.62 crore) and total expenditure decreased by 2.7 per cent to Rs 2,434.11 crore (Rs 2,502.05 crore). The treasury gains of the bank include Rs 190 crore earned from proprietary trading of bonds and securities and a gain of Rs 76 crore from selling equity shares.
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Canara Bank starts net banking
Bangalore: The Internet and mobile banking services launched by Canara Bank will cover 300 branches in the country, said Canara Bank chairman and managing director R V Shastri. "Internet banking could be accessed by both retail and corporate customers in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata." Shastri said this is the first phase of the project. Through this customers can avail themselves of services such as deposit and loan account viewing and access to last six months data, request for issue of cheque books, renewal of deposits, corporate administration, change in mailing address and loan/deposit modelling.

Mobile banking with SMS and WAP services provide balance enquiry, details of last five transactions, change of passwords and others. The second phase of Internet and mobile banking would cover fund transfer, utility bill payments and other financial services, Shastri said. He also said that the bank plans to tie up with five or six banks for ATM sharing. At present it has 261 ATMs.
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