Rupee falls marginally
Mumbai: The rupee marginally fell against the dollar on Monday closing at 44.23/24, down from Friday's close at 44.19.

Forwards: In the forward premia market, the six-month ended at 1.83 per cent (two per cent) and the 12-month closed at 1.5 per cent (1.65 per cent).

G-secs: The 8.07 per cent 11-year 2017 paper closed at Rs105.53 (7.32 per cent YTM) against the previous close of Rs105.40/41 (7.34 per cent YTM).The 10.25 per cent 15-year 2021 paper closed at Rs125.39 (7.44 per cent YTM), against Rs125.3 (7.45 per cent YTM).

Call rates: Call rates stood at 7-7.25 per cent (6.5 per cent).

Repo auction: In the first one-day auction, the RBI received no bids for reverse repo but received 13 bids of Rs14,605 crore in repo. In the second one-day reverse repo auction, it received one bid for Rs 100 crore and in the repo auction, 16 bids for Rs3,315 crore.

CBLO: In the CBLO market, there were 322 trades for Rs17,151.5 crore in the 6.40-6.50 per cent.
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UCO Bank looks at ways of floating hybrid instruments
Kolkata: After the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) announcement that banks could meet capital requirements by floating specialised hybrid instruments, the UCO Bank is exploring ways to exercise that option without floating equity or bonds.

Senior company officials said if the cost for raising funds through hybrid instruments was in the comfortable zone, then it would raise capital without delays. However if the costs were high, the issue would be postponed.

The bank is raising Rs250 crore for meeting Tier 2 capital requirement, which would be open for subscription from tomorrow.
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PNB launches signature debit cards: no plans of hiking interest rates
New Delhi: The Punjab National Bank (PNB) has recently launched signature-based debit cards in association with MasterCard International.

Speaking at the launch PNB executive director C P Swarankar said, PNB did not plan to raise lending rates ''for the time being'' though there was pressure to hike sub-benchmark prime lending rates (sub-BPLR).

He said the coming budget should address the problem of de-acceleration of deposits in the banking system, "If interests rates do not firm up further in the system, we do not have any plans to hike the rates. But if they further go northwards, then we will review the present rate structure," he said.

Talking about pressure on interest rates in the system, he said it was definitely building up on the sub-BPLR, but card rates would remain intact at the moment.

PNB has hiked interest rates on domestic term deposits by 0.4-0.57 per cent last week, said the coming budget should contain measures to ease availability of deposits to meet increase in credit offtake necessitated by booming economic growth.
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Corporation Bank to open offshore offices
Mangalore: The public sector bank, Corporation Bank, plans to open representative offshore offices.

The bank proposes to set up an office in Dubai and in Hong Kong, China and US within five years, said V K Chopra, Corporation Bank CMD.
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Follow-on public issue from Union Bank of India to open on Feb.15
Chennai: The Union Bank of India has said that its follow-on public issue would open on February 15.

The issue, comprising 4.5 crore equity shares of Rs10 each for cash at a premium, to be decided through the book building process, would remain open for subscription till February 21.

Union Bank of India executive director R Rathnakar Hegde said the price band for the issue would be announced on February 14.
Post-issue, the government's stake in the bank will come down to 55.43 per cent from 60.85 per cent now.
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IRDA for changes in insurance Act
New Delhi: The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) proposes major changes in the Insurance Act of 1938, which may include a provision for setting up an appellate authority to settle disputes and hefty penalties for breach of contract by insurers.

The regulator will submit its report to the Government by this month end, IRDA chairman, C S Rao said.

He said based on the feedback of two committees set up for the purpose, the IRDA will take up with the government the amendments required.

The main differences between the two committees are on settlement of disputes. While the Law Commission has proposed a grievance redressal authority and an insurance appellate authority, the KPN panel has favoured continuing with the existing system of ombudsman and making use of the securities appellate tribunal, Rao said.
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CUB registers 26 pc higher Q3 net
Chennai: The City Union Bank has posted a 26 per cent increase in net profit at Rs12.43 crore for Q3 this fiscal. The bank's operating profit also saw an increase of 93 per cent ending the third quarter at Rs26.10 crore compared to Rs13.56 crore during the corresponding period last year.

Officials said the bank would end the current financial year at a net worth of Rs300 crore and that the figure was expected to touch Rs1,000 crore by 2010. CUB is also exploring the possibility of raising Tier I and Tier II capital. The bank would raise Rs130 crore of Tier II which would help the bank increase its capital adequacy ratio (CAR) by about 2.5 per cent. The CAR of the bank at present is 12.01 per cent, against RBI's minimum stipulated level of nine per cent.

The bank has also applied to RBI for opening 15 more branches in India, of which six will be opened by March this year.
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Budget expectations; FDI in insurance likely to be hiked to 49 pc
Bangalore: Highly placed sources said the Union Government is expected to raise the cap on foreign direct investment to 49 per cent for private sector insurance players in the country in the Union Budget for 2006-07.

Foreign equity stake in insurance companies is capped at 26 per cent. Foreign joint venture (JV) partners have consistently been asking for raising the ceiling beyond this level. There is a feeling that insurers would be required to recapitalise to comply with solvency requirements of 150 per cent prescribed by IRDA.

Already the foreign partners have been bringing in capital through indirect means to comply with IRDA guidelines. The favoured method is through warehousing of the foreign equity with the domestic joint venture partners.
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