Rupee flat
Mumbai: The rupee was flat against the dollar and closed at almost the same level as on Wednesday. The rupee opened at 46.54/55 and weakened to 46.58 during the day. However, it recovered to close at 46.52/53, unchanged from the previous close.

There was a good amount of FII inflow into the domestic equity market, which ended more than 100 points higher, said dealers.

Bonds: Bond prices gained about 40 paise on Thursday.

G-secs: The 7.59 per cent-10 year-2016 paper opened at Rs97.4 (7.98 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs97.8 (7.92 per cent YTM) against the previous close of Rs97.34 (7.99 per cent YTM). The 8.07 per cent-11 year-2017 paper opened at 100.3 (8.02 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs100.78 (7.96 per cent YTM) higher than the previous close of Rs100.20 (8.04 per cent YTM).

Call rates: C all rates were between 6.00 and 6.10 per cent against Wednesday's rates of 6.05-6.15 per cent.

Reverse repo: In the first one-day reverse repo auction under LAF, the Reserve Bank of India received and accepted 18 bids amounting to Rs19,480 crore and in the second one-day reverse repo auction, 21 bids for Rs11,015 crore. There were no repo bids.

CBLO: The CBLO market saw 267 trades aggregating Rs14,882.10 crore in the 5.98-6.10 per cent range.
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Barclays looks for acquisitions
Chennai: UK's Barclays Bank is planning to acquire a number of small banks in India which will support its organic expansion in India. Recently Barclays acquired the Chennai-based Rank Investment and Credit Ltd for $7.5 million.

Bank officials said the acquisition of Rank offers Barclays a good opportunity to create a platform for further organic expansion of these operations. Rank Investment and Credit Ltd is a non-deposit taking non-banking finance company.

Barclays had earmarked $370 million for its Indian operations.
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S&P assigns BBB rating to Tata Steel's $750-m loan facility
Mumbai: Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has assigned its `BBB' rating on Tata Steel Ltd's $750-million equivalent, seven-year, senior, unsecured bank loan facility.

Tata Steel plans to use the proceeds for meeting its capital expenditure programme for expansion and also for its overseas acquisitions.

The steel company's recent acquisitions of Singapore's NatSteel Ltd and Thailand's Millennium Steel Co. widened its manufacturing base in South-East Asia.
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Prudential Life introduces new products aimed at elderly
Kolkata: ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co has introduced two new products aimed at offering more security to investors, especially retired people.

The first is a premium-guaranteed market-linked plan, which ensures that investors will gain from upsides in the market without incurring losses when the market declines. The second is an annuity product that will guarantee income for life - for retired people who have crossed 45.

According to the company the premium-guarantee product is a first of sorts in the Indian market. Titled InvestShield Life - New, it offers retail investors long-term capital appreciation and protects them from capital erosion as well. Billed as an `investment-cum-insurance' plan, it will invest up to 40 per cent in equities. It will be available for a minimum premium of Rs8,000 per year for a policy term between 10 and 30 years.

Immediate Annuity, the second product, will help retirees get an income for life. It will further provide an annuity card.
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IRDA to monitor solvency of general insurance cos on quarterly basis
Mumbai: IRDA will monitor the solvency status of general insurance companies on a quarterly basis once the free pricing of insurance products is allowed from next year. Currently, IRDA inspects the books of insurance companies once a year.
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Cabinet approves lower RBI stake in SBI
Mumbai: The Union Cabinet has given its approval for a follow-on public issue of equity shares by State Bank of India, the country's largest commercial bank, by giving its nod to the SBI (Amendment) Bill.

The amendment proposes to lower the floor for the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) holding in SBI to 51 per cent from 55 per cent. The RBI now holds a 59.73 per cent stake in State Bank.

The lowering of the floor for the RBI stake will create ample headroom for the bank to hit the capital market with a follow-on offer.

A government statement said, "The SBI (Amendment) Bill will enable the bank to attract a large number of small individual investors."

Tomorrow being the last day of the current session, the Bill will be placed before the floor of Parliament at its next session.

The State Bank of India (Amendment) Bill also proposes to allow the bank raise Rs5,000 crore of capital through issue of preference shares. This will help the bank meet capital adequacy needs for growth, and also be prepared for implementing the revised capital adequacy norms, which are referred to as Basel II.

The bank's capital adequacy at the end of June 2006 was 11.97 per cent, against the minimum requirement of 9 per cent. The implementation of Basel II norms is estimated to reduce the capital adequacy of banks by about 2 percentage points.
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Car insurance could turn cheaper from January
Mumbai: The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDA) has decided to go ahead with the lifting of controls on premium for motor insurance, along with other risks, from January 2007. Hence from from January 2007, insurance premiums for commercial vehicles may rise rise, while those for private vehicles may fall.

This is because the claims ratio in the commercial vehicle segment is 150-300 per cent, while private vehicles have an average claim ratio of 80 per cent.

In its roadmap for a tariff-free regime issued in September 2005, the insurance regulator had stated that free traiffs for fire and engineering would kick off in January 2007, but kept the decision on motor insurance in abeyance. The regulator had said it would take "a view on detariffing of motor insurance" later.
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PNB to raise Rs1,000-cr
Mumbai: Punjab National Bank is planning to raise Rs1,000 crore worth of capital through upper and lower tier II bonds this fiscal to augment its capital base.

S.C. Gupta, chairman and managing director, PNB, said the bank has already raised Rs884 crore through Tier II bonds in the first quarter. The bank has set a target 18-20 per cent growth in deposit and credit for 2006-07 and has achieved 30 per cent of the business by July 2006, he said.

The strong credit growth in 2005-06 was repeated in the first quarter of this fiscal Gupta said.

The bank also retired about Rs4,000-5,000 crore of high cost deposits in the first quarter and substituted it with low cost deposit.
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UCO Bank to focus small enterprises, retail banking
Mumbai: UCO Bank has set a target of attaining business worth Rs 1 crore per month for the small enterprises segment and Rs60 lakh business for the retail segment. Retail and small enterprises (SE) segment currently form 19 per cent of the bank's total loan book and bank is targeting to increase it to 30 per cent by the end of this year. To achieve this, the bank plans to increase the number of branches under core banking services from 14 to 125 by March 2007 and set up hubs for credit processing by December 2006.

The bank will launch an aggressive deposit mobilisation campaign from September 11 to November 10. During this period, the bank is planning to offer incentives for its staff such as foreign tours for the top 10 branch managers whose branches record highest growth with their spouses.

The bank which currently is held 74.98 per cent by the Government may come out with a follow- on public issue in the next fiscal.
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