Rupee gains
Mumbai: The rupee strengthened further by around 8 paise against the dollar and continued to remain close to the eight-year high mark for the third consecutive day. The currency opened at 42.87/88, saw an intra-day high of 42.76/77 and a low of 43.02 before closing at 42.83/84 against Monday's close at 42.91.

In forwards, the six-month premia closed at 5 per cent (5.13 per cent) and the 12-month closed at 4.04 per cent (4.08 per cent).

Bonds: Bond prices rallied by around 65 paise. Total traded volumes on the order-matching system stood at Rs6,535 crore (Rs4,655 crore). Dealers said, there was heavy demand from public sector banks such as Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda and Indian Overseas Bank for meeting Statutory Liquidity Ratio requirements. This fuelled the buying-sentiment for government securities.

G-Secs: The 8.07 per cent-10 year-2017 paper opened at Rs99.80 (8.10 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs100.32 (8.02 per cent YTM), against Monday's Rs99.68 (8.12 per cent YTM).

The 7.37 per cent - 7 year-2014 paper opened at Rs96.03 (8.12 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs96.47 (8.04 per cent YTM), against Monday's Rs95.94 (8.14 per cent YTM).

Call rates: Call Call rates eased further to close at 5 - 5.50 per cent on Tuesday against yesterday's close at 6.75 - 7 per cent. In the first one - day reverse repo auction, the RBI received eleven bids for Rs14,295 crore while it accepted Rs1,999 crore. In the second one - day reverse repo auction, RBI received twenty bids for Rs14,825 crore while it accepted Rs1,001 crore. There were no repo bids in the first and second one - day auction. The CBLO market saw 475 trades aggregating Rs24,224.85 crore in the 2.25 per cent - 5.56 per cent range.
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ICICI Bank fined for operating without license in Hong Kong
Mumbai: ICICI Bank has been fined Rs 2.2 lakh by Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) for working without licence in license.

The regulator has charged the bank with carrying on private banking business in Hong Kong without requisite licence, between June 15, 2004, and March 8, 2006.

The bank has also been ordered to reimburse investigation costs to SFC, which could be another HK$ 40,000.

The bank, based on the findings of an internal review conducted after the discovery of this incident in April 2006, has dismissed two employees, among whom was Arnab Basu, CEO, Hong Kong operations.

In January 2006, the bank was penalised along with select other banks by the Reserve Bank of India for violating know-your-customer guidelines in the IPO allotment scam in which multiple demat accounts were used by a string of investors to corner a large chunk of the retail portion in initial public offers.

ICICI Bank currently has subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, Russia and Canada, branches in Singapore, Bahrain, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and Dubai International Finance Centre and representative offices in the United States, United Arab Emirates, China, South Africa and Bangladesh. The total assets of the bank's international branches stood at around Rs40,300 crore ($9.1 billion) on December 31, 2006.
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