Forex reserves fall
Mumbai: Forex reserves dipped by $1.320 billion to touch $165.138 billion, for the week ended September 8 according to the RBI's Weekly Statistical Supplement. In the previous week, reserves increased by $1.132 billion to touch $166.458 billion. Foreign currency assets decreased by $1.317 billion to touch $157.835 billion during the week.

The reserve position in the IMF decreased by $3 million to stand at $764 million, Gold reserves and Special Drawing Rights remained unchanged at $6.538 billion and $1 million, respectively.

"FII inflows also slowed down in the week under consideration," said a dealer at a private bank. There was an FII inflow of around $165 million ($ 316.60 million) into the bourses during the week.
Some dealers are expecting the home currency to trade below 46 levels.
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Rupee gains against dollar
Mumbai: The rupee gained against the dollar on Friday.
The rupee opened strong at 46.08, touched an intra-day low of 46.15 to end at 46.12. On Thursday, the rupee had closed at 46.17.

Bonds: Bond prices fell by around 30 paise as traders turned jittery ahead of the announcement of the 6-monthly government securities auction calendar.

G-secs: The 7.59 per cent-10 year-2016 paper opened at Rs98.5 (7.81 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs98.42 (7.83 per cent YTM), against Thursday's Rs98.59 (7.7996 per cent YTM).

The 8.07 per cent-11 year-2017 paper opened at Rs101.46 (7.86 per cent YTM) and ended at Rs101.36 (7.87 per cent YTM), lower than Thursday's close at Rs101.54 (7.84 YTM).

Call rates: Call rates on Friday were at 6.05-6.15 per cent against 6-6.10 per cent yesterday.

Reverse repo: The RBI received and accepted 11 bids amounting to Rs10,230 crore in the first three-day reverse repo auction under LAF and 34 bids for Rs12,665 crore in the second. In the second three-day repo auction, the apex bank received and accepted one bid amounting to Rs275 crore.

CBLO: The CBLO market saw 327 trades amounting to Rs16,860.45 crore in the 3.01-6.11 per cent range.
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Bank service charges may be reviewed
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has released the report of a Working Group to formulate a scheme for ensuring reasonableness of bank charges.

For basic charges rendered to individuals, the Group has recommended that banks will levy charge as per the value of the transaction (ad valorem) but it will be subject to a cap.

Also, it has recommended lower charges for individuals compared to non individuals and for people of special categories such as senior citizens, rural customers, pensioners and the like.

The Group has enumerated 27 services related to deposit accounts, loan accounts, remittance facilities and cheque collection as basic banking services and has defined low value transactions for cheque collection and remittance upto Rs 10,000 in each case and upto USD 500 for forex transactions.

Observing that banks, in general do not use cost to fix their charges, the Group has recommended RBI to take suitable steps to determine the costs to banks for providing basic services as the reasonableness of service charges of banks cannot be tested on the basis of cost.
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SREI raises $45mn syndicated loan
New Delhi: SREI Infrastructure Finance has raised a long-term syndicated loan of $45 million (Rs210 crore) from the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO). While FMO accounts for $15 million of the loan, Fortis-Bank of Belgium and Cordiant Bank Canada, account for $15 million each.

The company said the funds would be used for infrastructure lending. The tenor of the term loan is five years.

The company has a $200-million exposure in India ($100 million this year and $100 million next year). On a sectoral basis, he said FMO has invested in sectors, including infrastructure, telecom, equipment finance, steel and cement.
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Bank of India raises $240mn via bonds
Mumbai: Bank of India has raised $240 million from the overseas market through its medium term note programme. The 10-year upper Tier-II bond issue was oversubscribed to over $1 billion, said a press release from the bank. The bank exercised the green shoe option to retain $40 million over the planned $200 million. The issue saw an overwhelming response from Asia (41 per cent), the UK (39 per cent), Europe (19 per cent) and the US (1 per cent). The investors comprised banks (51 per cent), asset management funds (34 per cent), insurance (8 per cent), retail and others forming the rest. The coupon was fixed at 6.625 per cent.

The notes have a maturity up to September 2016.
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International roaming to be levied with service tax
New Delhi: Domestic telecom operators would have to pay service tax on the international roaming services provided by them to people coming in from abroad.

A draft circular from the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has said that the service tax would be applicable on the amount received through the home network on account of service provided to such international roaming subscribers.

It has noted that this service to in-bound roamers is delivered and consumed in India and therefore cannot be treated as export of service.

T.V. Ramachandran, president Cellular Operators' Association of India said that service tax is already being charged from inbound international roamers since April 2006.

"The operators have incorporated the 12 per cent service tax as part of the roaming tariffs charged from international roamers coming into India. Since this does not impact Indian cellular users in any way we have not raised any objections to the move to collect service tax from inbound roamers," he said.
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e-filing becomes mandatory from today
New Delhi: e-filing of annual return, balance sheet and profit and loss account would become mandatory for companies from September 16, the Ministry of Company Affairs has said. An official release said that all electronic filings require director identification number (DIN) to be furnished as part of the e-forms. DIN is mandatory for all existing directors and those intending to be directors of companies.
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