Rupee gains
Mumbai: The rupee was range-bound against the dollar and traded between 44.62 and 44.56.

Volumes in the spot market were moderate ahead of the long week-end. The rupee opened at 44.58/60 and closed at 44.56/57 against the previous close of 44.60/62.

The six-month premia closed at 3.69 per cent (3.26 per cent) and the one-year closed at 3 per cent (2.77 per cent).

Call rates: Spurred on by a liquidity squeeze, the inter-bank call rate soared to 11 per cent before closing at 9-9.25 per cent, up from Thursday's 8.2-8.3 per cent.

Reverse repo: In the first four-day RBI repo auction under the liquidity adjustment facility, the central bank received 23 bids and lent Rs11,765 crore to banks and in the second auction it accepted 33 bids for Rs11,315 crore. The first and second four-day reverse repo auctions saw one bid for Rs 65 crore and six bids for Rs2,735 crore, respectively.

CBLO: The CBLO market saw 402 trades aggregating to Rs15,571.90 crore in the 1 per cent-9.95 per cent range.
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Forex reserves up by $75mn
Mumbai: Forex reserves have increased by $75 million to $175.519 billion, for the week ended December 15, due to a rise in foreign currency assets against a drop of $45 million to $175.444 billion last week according to the RBI Weekly Statistical Supplement.

Foreign currency assets expressed in dollars include the effect of appreciation or depreciation in non-US currencies (such as euro, sterling and yen) held in reserves. Foreign currency assets have increased by $79 million to touch $168.479 billion, "The rise in foreign exchange kitty was due to revaluation of overseas currencies against the dollar," said a dealer at a private bank.

Gold and SDRs were unchanged at $6.494 billion and $1 million, respectively. India's reserve position in the IMF has decreased by $4 million to $545 million. Dealers expect the rupee to be in the 44.40-45 range next week.
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Swiss Re completes Yes Bank deal
Mumbai: Global reinsurer Swiss Reinsurance Company (Swiss Re) has completed the acquisition a 3.57 per cent stake in India's Yes Bank paving the way for possible collaboration in future for launch of insurance and other businesses jointly.

The other businesses in which Yes Bank and Swiss Re could partner are agriculture and weather derivatives, weather insurance, risk mitigation products for microfinance and also in sustainability initiatives.

Swiss Re acquired the stake for Rs120 crore at a price of Rs120 a share. Yes Bank shares closed at Rs132.25 per share on Friday, down 0.90 per cent.

The private placement of the stake is part of Yes Bank's plan to raise a total of $150 million of tier-I and tier-II capital by March 30, 2007. The bank has already raised about $90 million.

The paid-up share capital of the bank has now increased to Rs280 crore. The total capital base of the bank, including tier-I and tier-II, is now over Rs1,000 crore.
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Allahabad Bank`s five party non-life JV to start by May `07
Kolkata: The five-party non-life insurance joint venture led by Allahabad Bank is expected to start operations by April-May 2007. The business plan has been formulated and the board of the newly formed joint venture is expected to meet in the first week of January.

Allahabad Bank said it had obtained the certificate of commencement from the Registrar of Companies (RoC) and the application to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) would be filed by the second week of January.

The bank hopes to get the Irda approval by March and start business by April-May.

The joint venture company has been formed under the name of Universal Sompo Non-Life Insurance Co.

Japanese insurance major Sompo Japan Insurance Co (Asia) Pvt Ltd is the knowledge partner in the venture with a 26 per cent stake, while Allahabad Bank will have 30 per cent. The other partners are Indian Overseas Bank (19 per cent), Karnataka Bank (15 per cent) and Dabur (10 per cent), which is the only non-banking Indian shareholder in the JV.
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Bank of Maharashtra in insurance foray
Mumbai: Bank of Maharashtra has decided to establish a three-way venture for general insurance with Shriram Financial Services Holdings and Sanlam of South Africa. The bank will hold an equity stake of 15 per cent. The bank plans to approach the regulatory authorities for necessary approvals shortly according to a BSE announcement.
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