ICICI Prudential Life Q3 income rises 211%
Mumbai: Private life insurer ICICI Prudential Life Insurance on Thursday reported 211 per cent growth in its premium income for third quarter ended December 2003 over the corresponding period last year and said it has become the first private insurer to cross the Rs 1,000 crore milestone in received premiums.

Growth in number of policies issued was about 103 per cent while sum assured growth was 43 per cent, the company said in a release. Total number of policies issued stand at more than 5.5 lakh and total sum assured is in the excess of Rs 13,000 crore, it said.
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RBI bonds auction for Rs 8,300 crore
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India on Thursday announced a market borrowing of about Rs 8,300 crore in the coming fortnight. The exact amount of the loan, coupon rate and other details are to be notified later.

The Rs 8,000 crore borrowing will constitute a debt swap scheme for all State Governments excepting Uttaranchal of about Rs 6,000 crore and a regular market borrowing by the Central Government of about Rs 2,000 crore, said the RBI in a press note. Prior to this, the Government of Maharashtra will be tapping the market to raise Rs 300 crore by way of auction on January 12.
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UTI Bank appoints 100 employees for expansion
Mumbai: UTI Bank has recruited close to 100 people after HSBC's announcement to buy 20 per cent stake in it. The private bank has been on a major recruitment drive this financial year with plans to take on close to a thousand people out of which almost 700 have already joined the organisation. The staff strength of the bank now stands at 3,000 and will end the fiscal even higher.

"Just after HSBC's announcement to buy UTI Bank's shares from CDC Capital Partners in December, 97 people joined the bank. Most of the offer letters that were sent out have been accepted. At the job interviews about 20 per cent of the people enquired about the `HSBC issue'. So we told them that nothing is known about HSBC's future plans other than what has appeared in the newspapers,'' responded S Bhattacharya, Senior Vice-President, Human Resources, UTI Bank.
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Centurion Bank gets nod for managing Bhutan PF money
Kolkata: Centurion Bank has been mandated to manage Bhutan's provident fund money, the first instance of the bank branching out to investment advisory services of this nature. The bank, now led by a new set of investors, is expected to become consultants for what is being billed as a significant project. As advisor, however, it will not take the responsibility of assuring returns. Instead, it will work out a set of investment options for the PF organisation to follow.

Jayanta Gupta, Regional Head (East) at Centurion Bank, said the present PF set-up is of fairly recent origin in Bhutan. The bank, which already has a lot of business interests in Bhutan, sees the latest project as one that can be leveraged for more opportunities.
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