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Rupee weakens - bonds decline
Mumbai: The rupee weakened against the dollar falling to an intra-day low of 43.68, but recovering to end at 43.64/65, weaker than Wednesday's close at 43.58/59.

Forwards market: The 12-month closed at 1.28 per cent and the 6-month ended at 1.46 per cent (1.45).

G-Secs: The 7.27 - 8 year-2013 paper, which was recently auctioned, closed at Rs101.13/17 (7.08 per cent YTM), down from Wednesday's Rs101.38 (7.04 per cent). The 7.38 - 10 year - 2015 paper closed at Rs101.60 (7.16 per cent YTM), lower than Wednesday's Rs101.85 (7.12 per cent YTM).

Call rates: The inter bank rates remained unchanged at 5 per cent.

CBLO market: 196 trades, put through in the rate range of 4.97-5.30 per cent, aggregating Rs7,426.30 crore, were realised.
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RBI amends accident cover norms for Kisan credit cardholders
Mumbai: Banks, excluding RRBs, can now approach any general insurance company to provide personal accident cover to Kisan Credit Cardholders, a circular issued by RBI has said.

As per the earlier arrangement, banks had to be serviced by designated general insurance companies on a zonal basis.

Banks are now allowed the discretion to approach either a GIPSA (General Insurers' Public Sector Association of India) member company or any private sector company to take advantage of the competitive rates they offer.

However, banks have been asked to work out an appropriate premium sharing formula, coverage etc while negotiating with the insurers.

RBI hopes that with banks having the freedom to opt for any insurance company, they can play a proactive role in providing social security cover to farmers.
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HDFC Bank sets out expansion plans
Kolkata: HDFC Bank plans to set up a non-banking finance company (NBFC) to undertake fund-based activities.

According to bank officials, the bank has examined the issue of establishing an NBFC in line with the current regulatory framework, subject to clearances by the board. The proposed company will take advantage of the relatively different norms set by the banking regulator for non-banking finance outfits.

While the exact particulars of the proposal are not clear at this stage, it is pointed out that the NBFC will help the bank tap a completely fresh set of opportunities. HDFC Bank currently has a balance sheet size of roughly Rs51,000 crore, which, officials said is expected to go up further.

The bank has also proposed to undertake a large branch expansion programme. It now operates from 467 branches and extension units, which will be shortly increased to 500 or so. The number of ATMs run by the bank has increased to nearly 1,150 - up from 900 or so at the end of 2004-05.

As for credit cards, HDFC Bank officials said that 1.5 million cards have been distributed so far, which is likely to reach the two million mark in the near future.

Gross non-performing assets stand at 1.5 per cent, while net non-performing assets are at 0.2 per cent.

HDFC Bank has also decided to scale up its involvement in the capital market from five per cent of its advances to eight per cent in the coming days, officials said. They said that the current limit set by the Reserve Bank of India had been exploited entirely.
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Oriental Insurance wrests NTPC cover from New India
New Delhi: The Oriental Insurance Company has taken over the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) insurance contract from New India Assurance, with the total premium set at Rs42 crore for all its 16 power plants.

The contract will be effective from July 1.

NTPC apart, Oriental Insurance would also service the Air India insurance account along with the other three state-owned insurance companies. The company is also hoping to get a couple of more insurance contracts of the new low-cost carriers.

Earlier, the company had also bagged the insurance contract of SpiceJet.

Meanwhile, the company recorded a net profit of Rs330.52 crore in 2004-05 as compared to Rs316.47 crore in the previous fiscal. The gross premium showed a 6.58% growth touching Rs3090.55 crore in 2004-05, against Rs2899.74 crore in 2003-04. The net claimed incurred claim ratio, however, increased to 86.04% in 2004-05 from 78.09% in 2003-04.
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Infosys' Finacle tool for Philippine bank
Bangalore: Infosys Technologies Ltd, TIM Corporation and Sun Microsystems Inc have announced that Union Bank of the Philippines has gone live with the Finacle core banking solution, making it the first bank to successfully replace its mainframe legacy with a new generation open systems based solution.

Among the top ten banks in the Philippines, Union Bank of the Philippines had entered into a strategic partnership with Infosys in July 2004, through its local partner TIM, to achieve greater business agility and lower total cost of ownership.

The Finacle core banking solution, running on Sun infrastructure, has been successfully deployed in over 110 branches of the Bank across the country.
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TMB introduces RTGS facility in all branches
Madurai: The Tuticorin-based Tamilnad Mercantile Bank Ltd. has introduced real time gross settlement (RTGS) system for customer transactions from Friday, in all its branches.

It had introduced the system in 45 branches in January, says a release.
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