Indian state banks sell rupees
Mumbai: State owned banks sold rupees for dollars on behalf of the Reserve Bank of India mainly as the rupee has risen rapidly to its highest level in nearly eight months, dealers said. At 1:55 p.m the rupee stood at 44.61/62 per dollar from 44.35 per dollar earlier it's highest since late March. It had closed local trade on Thursday at 44.56/57 per dollar.

The Reserve Bank of India did not comment on the day-to-day movement of rupee. Dealers said RBI's intervention started at around 44.40 per dollar. As the dollar gained, it forced those who had been buying rupees to unwind their positions. The market was taken by surprise by the scale of the intervention.

According to a JP Morgan index the rupee is overvalued by nearly 9 per cent compared to about 7 per cent a month ago.
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SBI Cards second largest credit cards company after ICICI Bank
New Delhi: Non-banking finance company (NBFC), SBI Cards has 3 m cardholders to its credit. While the credit card industry is growing at 35 pc in the country, SBI Cards is growing at 70 per cent annually and recently overtook Citibank to become the second largest credit card issuer after ICICI Bank that has over 5 million cards in the market. SBI Cards, a joint venture between SBI and GE Money, has nearly $100 million under its portfolio per month.

According to the VISA International, at the end of 2005, the market in India stood at $6 billion, compared to Korea's $140-bn market .
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India, Pak likely to ease banking, visa regulations
New Delhi: India and Pakistan are likely to soon relax banking and visa regulations.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) have reached an understanding on granting permission for opening two branches of banks on a reciprocal basis.

Both countries have agreed to set up banks in each other's territories and the Indian government has expressed its willingness to ease visa restrictions for Pakistani businessmen.

New Delhi has also agreed to introduce a new category of 6-month multiple-entry business visa with a maximum stay of 90 days.

The identified banks from India are Bank of India (BoI) and the State Bank of India (SBI).
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