Andhra Bank pays Rs87.5-cr as dividend to Govt.
Hyderabad: Andhra Bank has announced a dividend of 35 per cent for its shareholders for 2005-06.

In a release, the bank said that its chairman and managing director, K. Ramakrishnan, and the executive director, Kalyan Mukherjee, met the union finance minister, P. Chidambaram, and presented a dividend of warrant for Rs87.5 crore as amount payable to the Government of India.
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SBI not to hike home loan rates
Bangalore: State Bank of India has ruled out any immediate hike in home loan rates from the current levels, despite RBI's increased risk perception of the real estate sector.

Speaking to presspersons , SBI chairman, A.K. Purwar, said, "the increase is made on changed risk perception, but need not necessarily mean increase in rates." The RBI had hiked the risk weightage on real estate lending, to 150 per cent on May 26, barely three weeks after the last increase.

He said that that group was also looking for a greater presence in the international syndications market, through SBI Caps. So far SBICaps had syndicated Rs10,000 crore for domestic corporates, and intended to syndicate at least Rs20,000 crore in the current fiscal. These included funds for utilities, such as power and infrastructure entities.
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SBI to continue with acquisitions abroad
Bangalore: The country's largest public sector bank, the State bank of India (SBI), will be continue with its strategy of overseas acquisitions in the current year as well.

"The rapid pace of overseas acquisitions we initiated last year will continue this year and the coming years as well and we are looking at acquiring at least 15-20 banks outside India in the next four-five years," A K Purwar, chairman of SBI, said here on Saturday.

"Our aim is to be among the top 50 banks of the world and top 5 banks of Asia in 4-5 years," Purwar said.

In FY06, SBI has acquired a majority stake in three overseas banks in Mauritius, Indonesia and Kenya. Indicating that Asian and Africa are going to be the focus areas of the bank in future acquisitions, Purwar said the bank's Asian operations, especially in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal were doing extremely well.

"We also plan to open an office in Pakistan as soon as we get permission from the government of India," Purwar said.

Domestically, SBI is well-positioned as the financial supermarket of the country - being the third-largest credit card company, the third-largest life insurance company, the second-largest merchant bank and the sixth-largest broking firm, Purwar said.

"Going forward, we are planning to enter the pension market in the near future and also the general insurance market, though not immediately," Purwar added.

About the huge difference between the credit and deposits growth, Purwar said, the credit growth of 29% was very huge. "But with the deposit growth of around 15-16%, there is the problem of generating resources. "So far we have been successful in generating resources, but how long that is going to continue is a question mark," Purwar added.
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