Rupee closes flat
Mumbai: The rupee closed flat as the dollar strengthened against all the major currencies. The rupee closed at 44.1350, slightly higher than Friday's close of 44.14/15.

Forwards: In the forward premia market, the six-month premia closed between 2.80 and 2.85 per cent (2.7 per cent) and the one-year closed at 2.2 per cent (2 per cent).

G-Secs: The 8.07 per cent -11 year-2017 paper closed at Rs104.87 (7.41 per cent YTM), 40 paise higher than Friday's Rs104.46 (7.47 per cent YTM.) The 9.39 per cent-5 year-2011 paper ended at Rs110.73 (6.97 per cent YTM), up from Friday's Rs110.41 (7.04 per cent YTM).

Call rates: The call rate closed at 6.75-7 per cent but touched an intra-day high of 7.60-7.75 per cent.

Repo auction: In the first one-day reverse-repo, RBI received no bids but there were 28 bids for Rs10,955 crore in the repo auction. In the second one-day reverse-repo auction, it received four bids for Rs3,036 crore and eight bids for Rs2,285 crore in the repo auction.

CBLO: In the CBLO market, there were 365 trades for Rs18,232.80 crore in the rate range of 6.26-7 per cent.
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PNB net up 18 pc in Q3
New Delhi: The Punjab National Bank has recorded a net profit of Rs370 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2005, a 17.9 per cent rise over Rs314 crore recorded during the corresponding period in the previous fiscal.

The operating profits for the third quarter rose by 27.3 per cent to reach Rs548.36 crore (Rs430.75 crore). Its total business on December 31, 2005, stood at Rs1,72,939 crore (Rs1,47,162 crore).

Addressing a press conference the chairman and managing director, PNB, S.C. Gupta, said that net profit for the nine-month ended December 31, 2005, stood at Rs1150.64 crore, a growth of 9.6 per cent over the net of Rs1049.49 crore during the corresponding period in the previous fiscal.

Gupta said that the improved results were due to the bank's focus on reduction in cost of deposits (as a result of implementing centralised banking solutions) and improvement in yield on advances.
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HSBC offers home loan with flexible EMI
Mumbai: HSBC has launched `My Home,' a home loan with flexible equated monthly installment (EMI) payments. Borrowers can either increase or decrease their EMIs up to 15 per cent once a year and every year during their loan period depending on cash flow.

The home loan is targeted at the below-30 age group.

HSBC's share in home loans as of 2004-05 was four per cent, based on absolute figures. Existing customers can also avail the facility by paying two per cent of the balance outstanding as conversion fee.

HSBC's home loan category has grown over 50 per cent in 2004-05.
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Aviva Life signs agreement with Centurion Bank of Punjab
Mumbai: Aviva Life Insurance Company has entered into a bancassurance agreement with Centurion Bank of Punjab. This is Aviva's 18th tie-up in the bancassurance category.

Currently 66 per cent of Aviva Life's business in India comes from bancassurance. Of the 18 tie-ups with banks, ABN-Amro brought in the maximum premium senior officials of Aviva said.

The tie up with Centurion Bank of Punjab is tie-up is a referral bancassurance arrangement, which means that Aviva Life will deploy around 300 people to sell in the former's branches.
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Indian Bank offers credit card
Chennai: Indian Bank has launched a Visa Global Credit Card hoping to garner a good share of its 20 million strong client base.

The bank says it is not too worried about being a late entrant into the card business and was entering the business at a "tipping point" when the infrastructure for the cards business has attained a sufficient size.

The bank said that on the day of the launch, 10,000 cards were approved for issue. The bank has also decided to allow balance transfer from other cards, at a rate of 1.79 per cent a month.
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Banks show improved performance in third quarter
New Delhi: The banking industry has reported a 65 per cent rise in net profit and a vast improvement in quality of assets, leading to substantial fall in non performing assets (NPAs) during the third quarter of this fiscal year-on-year, according to Assocham Eco Pulse study.

The increase in the net profit margins can be attributed to growth in low-cost deposits in banks like Dena Bank. Also, banks have kept their margins high by attracting huge share of low cost deposits, such as in the savings accounts.

The percentage of "No frill" accounts bank deposit has gone up between 9 to 63 per cent. At the same time, there is less drag on the balance sheet because of reduction in the NPAs.

Syndicate Bank suffered a loss of Rs 78 crore in Q3 of 2004-05, which got converted into a positive bottomline of Rs 188 crore in Q3, 2005-06. Other banks which made profits are Dena bank (263 per cent), Centurion bank of Punjab (228 per cent), and Bank of India (110 per cent).
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Chinese bank chooses TCS-FNS core banking solution
Mumbai: China's Hua Xia Bank (HXB) has selected TCS's core banking solution of financial network services (FNS) to facilitate its technology-powered business transformation.

TCS said, "The BANCS solution, which includes deposit and loans, domestic and international payments, treasury management, corporate accounting and a multi-channel front-end solution for tellers and customers is designed to enable HXB to manage all transactions through the one integrated solution," in a press release.

The software would help HXB streamline its operations, better manage costs, increase profitability and reduce operational risk, it said.

TCS had acquired Sydney-based FNS for US$26mn in November last year.
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UTI Bank seeks banking license in Sri Lanka
Colombo: UTI Bank has applied for a commercial banking license from Sri Lanka's Central Bank and has tied up with a local investment bank to enter to Sri Lanka's capital markets, officials said.

Officials said Sri Lanka's liberalised equity markets are easier to enter than commercial banking, which is tightly regulated by the island's Central Bank.

UTI will have to put down 25 million dollars in capital to meet Central Bank's guidelines. All banks operating in the island have to raise their capital to 25 million dollars by the end of 2007. Under previous conditions, a foreign bank could have opened a branch in Sri Lanka with a capital of five million dollars.
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