Rupee loses marginally
Mumbai: The rupee weakened by around 3 paise against the dollar on Wednesday to close at 42.01 on reports of intervention by the Reserve Bank of India. The currency opened at 41.98, saw an intra-day high of 41.80 before closing at 42.01 against the previous close of 41.98.

Forwards: In the forwards, the six-month premia closed at 6.28 per cent (6.21 per cent) and the 12-month closed at 4.78 per cent (4.68 per cent).

Bonds: Bond prices rose by 20 paise and yields fell by four basis points on comfortable liquidity in the banking system.

G-secs: The 8.07 per cent-10 year-2017 paper opened at Rs99.83 (8.1 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs99.96 (8.07 per cent YTM) against Tuesday's Rs99.77 (8.11 per cent YTM).

The 7.38 per cent- 8-year-2015 paper opened at Rs95.10 (8.2 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs95.39 (8.15 per cent YTM) against Rs95.05 (8.21 per cent YTM) on Tuesday.

Call rates: Call rates closed lower at 11-12 per cent on Wednesday against the previous close of 15-16 per cent. In the first one-day reverse repo auction, the RBI received and accepted one bid for Rs10 crore. In the first one-day repo auction, the RBI received and accepted 22 bids from banks for Rs9,085 crore.

CBLO: The CBLO market saw 342 trades aggregating Rs16,894.50 crore in the 7.70-9 per cent range.
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Banks should hike Tier-I capital to confirm to Basel II norms: RBI
New Delhi: The big public and private sector banks would have to increase their Tier-I capital by about Rs51,255 crore within March 31, 2009, including raising Rs45,521 crore from the capital market to meet the Basel-II requirements on minimum capital adequacy of 9 per cent the Reserve Bank of India told the Government after conducting a simulation study of 50 public and private sector banks. The banks include the entire lot of 19 nationalised banks, State Bank of India and its 7 associate banks, 7 new private sector banks and 16 old private sector banks.

The RBI has also said that besides raising the Rs45,521 crore from the market, the remaining amount required to meet the minimum capital requirement would have to be infused by the RBI itself (Rs3,161 crore) and the Government (Rs2,573 crore). This would be due to the requirement on the part of the RBI to retain its holding in State Bank of India at 55 per cent and for the Government to retain its holding in the nationalised banks above 51 per cent.
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Fortis plans broking foray
Mumbai: European banking and insurance company Fortis is planning a foray into wealth management and equity broking business in India to tap the growing rich and super rich individuals of one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

Fortis' operations are divided into six businesses - three in banking (retail, merchant and commercial banking & private banking) and three insurance businesses (Insurance Belgium, Insurance Netherlands and Insurance International). Fortis ranks among the twenty largest financial institutions in Europe with a market cap of ¤ 39 billion.

Last year, Fortis Insurance International entered into a joint venture with Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) and Federal Bank to form a life insurance company here.

IDBI has 48 per cent ownership in the joint venture while Federal Bank and Fortis hold 26 per cent each, which is the maximum allowable shareholding for foreign insurers under FDI regulations.
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