Rupee declines
Mumbai: The rupee declined by around 10 paise due to corporate demand for demand. The currency opened at 44.20/25 and touched an intra-day low of 44.45/46. It, however, closed at 44.35/36 against Tuesday's close at 44.24/25.

In forwards, the 6-month closed at 3.62 per cent (3.15) and the 12-month at 2.94 per cent (2.69).

Bonds: Bond prices opened the day's trade bullish on lower call rates. Total traded volumes on NDS-order matching system were also less than Tuesday's at Rs 3,580 crore (Rs6,290 crore). Concerns are growing over the second phase of the CRR hike (0.25 per cent) effective Saturday, which could drain around Rs6,750 crore of bank funds.

G-secs: The 8.07 per cent 10-year 2017 benchmark paper opened at Rs103.86 (7.52 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs103.71 (7.54 per cent YTM) against the previous close of Rs103.77 (7.53 per cent YTM).

The 7.59 per cent nine-year 2016 opened at Rs100.4 (7.53 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs100.29 (7.54 per cent YTM) against the previous close of Rs100.35 (7.53 per cent YTM) against the previous close of Rs99.80 (7.62 per cent YTM).

Call rates: Call rates eased to close at 6.25-6.75 per cent against Tuesday's close of 8-8.5 per cent on expectations of Government spending and inflows from the special deposit schemes.

Reverse repo: Under the first liquidity adjustment facility auction, the Reserve Bank of India did not receive any reverse repo bids. In the repo auction it received and accepted four bids for Rs1,010 crore. In the second auction it received and accepted 24 bids for Rs8,100 crore under reverse repo and one bid for Rs450 crore under repo.

CBLO: The CBLO market saw 404 trades aggregating Rs19,098.60 crore in the 5.40-6.8 per cent range.
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SBI Life launches unit-linked pension product
Mumbai: SBI Life Insurance Co has launched Horizon II, a unit linked pension product. The product offers Automatic Asset Allocation (AAA), an algorithm-based active investment allocation mechanism.

Higher exposure to equities for the initial years, followed by increasing exposure to debt and money markets as the pension plan nears maturity, is automatically allocated by the AAA to ensure better returns to investors.

The company has also hiked its capital base by Rs75 crore to Rs500 crore to fulfil its needs for expanding its distribution network. The solvency margin is now 2.9 times higher than the liabilities, above the mandatory 1.5 times.

SBI Life's authorised capital limit is at Rs500 crore. In the current fiscal, the company registered a growth of 211 per cent in new business premium to Rs1,150 crore.

SBI Life was the first insurance company to post a profit of Rs2.02 crore at the end of last fiscal.

Unit-linked insurance plans, which contributed just 25 per cent of the new business last year, now brings in around 60 per cent.
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