As G-Secs rally the rupee holds steady
Mumbai: The domestic currency ended at 45.86 against the dollar on Thursday, almost unchanged from Tuesday's closing levels. Financial markets had remained closed in Mumbai on Wednesday due to State elections.

Forwards Market: The six-month premium ended at 2.52 per cent (2.66 per cent) and the one-year premium closed at 2.05 per cent (2.25 per cent).

G-Secs: The 7.37 per cent 2014 paper got dealt up to Rs104.30, while the 7.4 per cent 2012 got traded up to Rs103.95. The 7.38 per cent 2015 paper traded up to Rs104.05.

Call Rates: At around 4.5 per cent levels in the inter-bank market.

CBLO Market: 157 transactions were conducted for an amount of Rs5,599.75 crore in the rate range of 4.26 - 4.65 per cent.
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Montek: Planning Commission identifying weaknesses in economy
Mumbai: India's foreign exchange reserves were more than adequate and the Planning Commission was working out how it could be used, the Deputy Chairman of the Commission, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia has said.

The Planning Commission is also conducting an exercise to identify weaknesses in the Indian economy, which have to be overcome to achieve an 8 per cent annual GDP growth target, he said.

What India is delivering through the public system towards health and education are grossly inadequate and much below what other countries in Asia are doing, he said. Ensuring devolution of power to the local third-tier level of government and ensuring that resources actually provide benefits is a related concern, he said.

The second difficulty for India, he said, is that agriculture growth has decelerated from the mid-nineties onwards. Currently, a little over 2 per cent, it must double if India is to achieve 8 per cent growth. While subsidies to agriculture are rising, and going into loss-making power and irrigation system, actual investment in agriculture has gone down, he said.

The Planning Commission through its mid-term appraisal will identify areas around which policy could be developed to deal with these issues, he said.
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UTI Bank Q2 net down 28 per cent
Mumbai: UTI Bank Ltd's net profit for the second quarter of the current fiscal has shown a decline of 28 per cent at Rs46.22 crore as compared with Rs64.18 crore for the corresponding period in the previous year.

For the July to September quarter this fiscal, total income was Rs445.72 crore (Rs543.79 crore). Total interest earned increased by 14.04 per cent to Rs449.31 crore (Rs393.97 crore). Net interest income grew by 31 per cent to Rs180.72 crore on account of lower cost of funds, higher share of demand deposits along with growth in assets.

The advances of the bank grew to Rs10,498 crore from Rs7,430 crore, higher by 41 per cent.

Total expenditure (Excluding provisions and contingencies) also rose a little over 12 per cent to Rs403.33 crore compared with Rs362.78 crore in the previous second quarter.

Net non-performing assets (NPAs) declined to 1.33 per cent from 1.97 per cent in the second quarter for the previous fiscal.

The capital adequacy ratio of the bank also declined to 10.67 per cent from the previous corresponding figure of 11.24 per cent. This fall has been attributed to lower net profit for the quarter coupled with 'aggressive' growth in bank's assets.

The net profit for the half-year ended September 30 showed a marginal rise of Rs116.89 crore as compared to the corresponding figure in the previous fiscal, which was at Rs116.36 crore. Total income for the first half period was Rs983.35 crore (Rs1,091.67 crore).
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SBI overseas offices networking to be done by Datacraft
Mumbai: Datacraft India has won a $1-million contract to design, build, and manage a connectivity network for all of State Bank of India's (SBI) 57 overseas offices across 20 countries.

This network will run online centralised banking applications, and is the largest of its kind in terms of the number of foreign branches involved, said a news release from Datacraft.

Datacraft has already implemented Phase I and Phase II of `SBI Connect,' and the relationship has also been extended for the foreign office project.

The foreign office project will link SBI offices worldwide to the nearest regional data centre and to its primary data centre at Belapur, off Mumbai. The three regional data centres are Belapur (Asian, African and Nigerian locations), Tampa in Florida for US branches and Swindon for the bank's UK branches. Each regional data centre will have a corresponding disaster recovery centre.

The regional disaster centres planned will be in Chennai, in Houston, Texas and in Reading, UK.

The 57 overseas SBI branches will be connected by using a mix of multi-protocol label switching, international private leased circuits and very small aperture terminals. All traffic on the wireless area network (WAN) will be Internet protocol and will run applications such as core banking, treasury and Internet banking.

Datacraft's nationwide network for SBI connects nearly 4,500 branches across 400 cities.
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SBI's Indo-Nigerian looking for capital infusion
Mumbai: State Bank of India is seeking to inject additional capital or alternatively, for a joint venture partner for its subsidiary in Nigeria. The need for the bank has arisen in the wake of fresh guidelines issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria hiking the requisite capitalisation requirements for banks.

Indo-Nigerian Bank Ltd, which is a subsidiary of SBI, has been in Nigeria for the last 22 years and was set up with a capital of roughly $8 million. As per the latest regulations, SBI will have to inject an additional $180 million to keep the subsidiary up and running.

In a press release, SBI has said, "State Bank of India shall, having due regard to the business needs and other issues involved, put in its best endeavour, subject to legal and regulatory provisions, to keep the subsidiary in good standing so that the subsidiary is able to cope with the emerging changes."

SBI considers the emerging opportunities in West Africa and Nigeria in particular as encouraging, the release said. The bank expects overseas operations to contribute 15-20 per cent of its profits in the next two to three years.

SBI, which also has subsidiaries in Canada, Nepal and Bhutan, has applied to the Reserve Bank of India for opening new branches in Asia, Africa and Canada. Plans are under way to open 16 new overseas offices in the current financial year and raise the banks' presence to 36 countries with a total of 70 offices by March 2005.
At present, SBI has 54 offices across 28 countries and they contribute five-six per cent to its bottom line.
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