Rupee dips below 46 mark
Mumbai: Sustained demand for dollars pushed the rupee below 46 level against the greenback on Monday, ending at 46.09/10, against the previous close of 45.88/90. the rupee lost 20 paise in the process.

Forwards: The six-month premium closed at 06.3 per cent (0.70 per cent) and the one-year premium at 0.82 per cent (0.89 per cent).

G-Secs: The 7.59 per cent 2016 10-year benchmark paper closed at Rs99.59. The 7.94 per cent 2021 15-year paper closed at Rs99.65 (7.98 per cent YTM).

Call rates: The inter bank rates were steady at 5.5-5.6 per cent (5.5-5.6 per cent).

Reverse repo: In the first one-day reverse repo auction under LAF, the Reserve Bank of India received and accepted 25 bids amounting to Rs33,455 crore and in the second auction, 32 bids for Rs26,475 crore. There were no repo bids.

CBLO market: There were 313 trades, aggregating Rs18,156.5 crore in the 4.68 - 5 per cent range.

Gold weak, silver steady
Mumbai: Silver ruled steady, while gold ruled weak on the local bullion market on Monday. Standard gold prices were down Rs20 at Rs9,680 per 10 gm from Rs9,700.

Pure gold (99.99 fineness) was down Rs20 to close at Rs9,735 per 10 gm from Rs9,755. Silver (.999 fineness) price was up Rs5 to close at Rs19,370 from Rs19,365 a kg.
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CIBIL launches commercial bureau
Chennai: The Credit Information Bureau of India Ltd (CIBIL) has launched its commercial bureau which will cater to corporate, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and other types of business entities.

The complied database would contain the credit history of borrowers, with details such as the name of the company or partnership, full address, registration number, names of directors or partners, credit facilities availed, amount outstanding against each facility, and other relevant information.

Lenders would be able to query the database for a fee and base their decision to lend on the credit information report. Apart from the reduction in loan processing time, the facility would help borrowers with a good track record to get adequate credit at affordable rates, CIBIL officials said.

According to officials, 37 lending institutions had so far provided their commercial borrower data to CIBIL and about 6 lakh records had been uploaded into the database. They also said that CIBIL would soon have a database of one million records.
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Employees association asks for national RRB entity
Hyderabad: The All India Regional Rural Bank Employees Association has asked that regional rural banks (RRBs) across the country be converted into one seamless organisation of national stature, dealing exclusively with rural credit. Such an organisation would, they said, would be able to fully tap the core competencies of the RRB system.

Disclosing the demands of the RRB bank staff, the association general-secretary, D. K. Mukherjee, said the association was against piecemeal measures of the Government to form bigger RRBs under the same sponsor banks.

A press release issued by the association says that though the banking industry implemented the Eighth Bipartite settlement in June last year, the Government was yet to implement the same fully in RRBs.
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Weather insurance from ICICI Lombard for Pune grape farmers
Pune: ICICI Lombard General Insurance has launched a weather insurance policy for grape cultivators in the Pune district to help them minimise financial loss and safeguard production costs from a possible crop failure due to uncertain weather conditions.

The scheme will be applicable for ten months for the period, June 1, 2006 to March 31, 2007. A salient feature of the policy will be that the compensation amount would be delivered at the farmers' doorsteps without having to file for claims in case of losses, officials said.

A single policy unit has been designed, keeping in mind the input costs for one acre of cultivated land. The units would be approximately of Rs1,00,000, for export oriented grape fields, and Rs50,000 for domestic grape fields. Farmers growing grapes for exports can buy two units or more.

The insurance for grapes would cover policyholders against six principle weather perils related to rainfall and temperature, including excessive rainfall, deficit rainfall, continuous rainfall, unseasonal rainfall, high temperature and diurnal temperature in seven different phases.

Weather data would be regularly procured by the Indian Meteorological Department station or other weather stations established by National Collateral Management Services Ltd (NCMSL) and submitted to a professional weather data-cleaning and enhancing agency for verification.

ICICI Lombard offers weather insurance for various crops including cotton, soybean, paddy, wheat, and oranges in various states including Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu or Rajasthan.
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