Rupee moves up
Mumbai: The rupee gained almost seven paise on Wednesday on sustained FII inflows into Indian markets. The home currency opened strong at 44.81/83, tracking the movement of yen against the dollar and finally closed at 44.80, against the previous close of 44.87 on Tuesday.

Forwards: In forwards, the six-month premium closed at 1.97 per cent (1.91 per cent) and the one-year at 1.82 per cent (1.78 per cent).

Bonds: Bond prices moved up due to increased liquidity. The total traded volume on the order-matching system stood at Rs6,470 crore (Rs8,515 crore).

G-secs: The 7.59-10 year-2016 paper opened at Rs100.75 (7.47 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs100.85 (7.46 per cent YTM), against Tuesday's Rs100.76 (7.47 per cent YTM). The 9.39 per cent - five-year-2011 paper opened at Rs 107.84 (7.35 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs108 (7.31 per cent YTM). The 8.07-11 year-2017 paper opened at Rs104.57 (7.42 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs104.58 (7.42 per cent YTM), against Tuesday's Rs104.54 (7.42 per cent YTM).

Call rates: Call rates ruled low between 6.25 per cent and 6.35 per cent against 6.65 and 6.75 per cent on Tuesday.

Reverse repo: In the first one-day reverse-repo auction under LAF, RBI received and accepted three bids for Rs160 crore.

There were no repo bids. In the second one-day reverse-repo auction, RBI accepted and received 17 bids for Rs23,400 crore.

CBLO: The CBLO market saw 338 trades aggregating to Rs19,169.60 crore in the 5.99-6.20 per cent range.
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Foreign banks select i-flex' banking tool
Mumbai: Peru-based Interbank and Singapore-based DBS Bank have selected the Reveleus Operational Risk (ROR) package, a banking tool offered by i-Flex Solutions. The company did not provide the financial details of the contracts.

ROR enables the creation of a comprehensive framework to manage enterprise governance, risk and compliance across the organisation. The tool enables firm-wide monitoring and management of operational risk in line with Basel II standards.
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PNB launches online share trading
New Delhi: Punjab National Bank (PNB) has launched online share trading services for its customers by tying up with IDBI Capital Market Services to enable the bank's customers to access www.IDBIpaisabuilder.in, a Web-based portal, for investing in equity, mutual funds and initial public offerings.

With this tie-up, a PNB customer can get an integrated 3-in-1 online account that includes bank, investment and demat accounts. One can even link existing savings and demat accounts.
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Railways offer ticket reservation facility at ATMs
New Delhi: The Railways would soon enable buying of reserved train tickets from ATMs, which are being set up at railway stations. The ATMs would have Internet access facility, using which passengers can book e-tickets.

The ATM site design and kiosk design for Internet access (to be used for e-ticketing) have already been approved. Setting up of ATMs with e-ticketing facilities will help in reducing long queues at the counters.

The railways earlier entered into an agreement with the State Bank of India to set up 682 ATMs at railway stations and followed it up agreement with six nationalised banks to set up another 711 ATMs at railway stations for passengers to withdraw cash. Out of the 711 ATMs, 473 will have e-ticketing facilities.

The banks include Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Dena Bank, Union Bank of India, Indian Bank and Punjab National Bank.
At present 86 ATMs have been installed at various stations and by the end of 2006-07, 250 ATMs are expected to be operational. The Railways aims to set up 4,000 ATMs at various stations.
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HSBC plans to realign business mix
Kolkata: HSBC India plans to realign its business mix to increase focus on segments other than corporate banking which accounts for an overwhelming part of its overall business in order to achieve a better mix.

Naina Lal Kidwai, Group GM and country head HSBC said that the bank is looking at a situation where corporate banking accounts for just about 50 per cent, with the rest coming from other areas.

The bank wants to concentrate on businesses that have significant growth potential. The bank, which has to contend with the Reserve Bank of India's norms on the opening of new branches, will scale up its presence in a graded manner to the extent possible. It currently has 47 branches in 26 cities. HSBC accounts for over 50 per cent of the foreign equity investments held in custody.
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SBI to offer online trading
Mumbai: The country's largest bank, State Bank of India (SBI), has entered into a strategic alliance with the Mumbai-based brokerage Motilal Oswal Securities to provide integrated e-trading platform to their customers. At present such services are only provided by broking firms in partnership with private banks.

Thus, a customer of SBI who opens a trading account with Motilal Oswal Securities for online trading in the stock market will have to pay the brokerage to Motilal Oswal Securities. SBI is expected to unveil the new plan soon.

Motilal Oswal Securities is one of leading players in securities trading business with a major presence in institutional as well as retail segment. The firm has an extensive network of 1,000-plus outlets spread across 375 cities in India.
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