Rupee remains unchanged
Mumbai: The rupee remained more or less flat on Wednesday. The Indian currency opened at 40.55/57, traded in a range of 40.53-40.61 and finally closed at 40.57/58 against the previous close of 40.57 on Tuesday. A dealer said the rupee had strengthened to 40.53 on strong dollar supplies during the day but RBI's intervention brought down the rupee to 40.60/61. Dealers said the rupee was likely to trade in the range of 40.50-40.60 this week.

In forwards, the six-month premia closed at 4.41 per cent (4.13 per cent) and the 12-month ended at 3.8 per cent (3.66 per cent).

Bonds: Bond prices on Wednesday fell by around 20 paise ahead of the Rs8,000-crore government security auction on Friday. Total traded volumes on the order-matching system were at Rs2,090 crore (Rs2,280 crore).

G-secs: The 8.07 per cent - 10 year-2017 paper opened at Rs99.70 (8.11 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs99.54 (8.14 per cent YTM), lower than the previous close of Rs99.73 (8.11 per cent YTM).

The 7.49 per cent-10 year-2017 paper opened at Rs95.56 (8.15 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs95.40 (8.17 per cent YTM), down from Tuesday's close of Rs95.56 (8.15 per cent YTM).

Call rates: Call rates ended at 7.7 per cent to 7.8 per cent on Wednesday against the previous close of 7.6-7.8 per cent.

Reverse repo: There were no repo and reverse repo bids in the first liquidity adjustment facility.

In the second one-day repo auction, the RBI received and accepted five bids for Rs5, 775 crore. In the second one-day reverse repo, the central bank accepted and received one bid for Rs10 crore. The CBLO market saw 445 trades aggregating to Rs27,541.8 crore in the 7.41-7.72 per cent range.
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Capgemini to set up financial services unit in Pune
Pune: Technology and outsourcing services major, Capgemini plans to set up a financial services and strategic business unit (FS SBU) here.

According to officials the new unit will increase the company's global network of financial services professionals to 14,000 employees. Officials said the new unit will enhance Capgemini's domain knowledge to be a leader in the financial services sector. This will create a global IT services firm with unparalled expertise in the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) vertical, along with consulting and technology specialisation.

As part of the growth plan for the FS SBU, Capgemini will increase its investment in training and development of the professionals, a company release said here.

The company has revamped its training and development centre in Pune. The centre has a 152,000 sq foot state-of-the-art training facility located within the FS SBU campus at Talwade near here.
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GoM not to list PSU non-life insurance companies
Mumbai: The government which is considering making draft amendments to insurance acts is not in favour of allowing the four public sector non-life insurance firms to list on the bourses mainly as the four public sector general insurance companies have over Rs1,000 crore of reserves each, officials said.

The draft amendments, prepared by the finance ministry, had proposed to amend the General Insurance Business Nationalisation Act to allow the four general insurers to raise equity capital from the market.

The finance ministry was considering to allow listing of the general insurance companies so that they have access to capital to meet solvency margins and also fund business expansion, including overseas.

The officials said that for FY07, National Insurance, which was earlier making losses, has shown improvement and the insurers have adequate reserves for expanding overseas operations.

Further there was also a move to bring down the minimum capital requirement for health insurance companies to Rs50 crore from Rs100 crore. The paid up capital of the public sector insurers in 2005-06 is Rs5 crore. Of the four PSUs, National Insurance reported a net loss of Rs106.25 crore in 2005-06, while Oriental reported lower net profits at Rs283.92 crore, New India and United have reported higher profits at Rs716.38 crore and Rs425.23 crore respectively.

As per IRDA norms, insurers have to maintain a required solvency margin (excess of the value of assets over the liabilities) of 1.5 times.
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PNB bottom line hit by 17 pc due to higher provisioning
New Delhi: India's second largest public sector bank Punjab National Bank's net profit fell by 17 per cent to Rs238 crore in the fourth quarter ended March 2007 from Rs288 crore reported a year ago mainly due to higher provisioning.

The bank made a provisioning of Rs635 crore in the January-March quarter towards retirement benefits and standard assets.

The bank's net profit rose 7 per cent to Rs1,540 crore for the financial year 2006-07. Last financial year, provisioning was Rs1,691 crore towards tax, non-performing assets (NPAs), standard assets, depreciation in government securities portfolio, gratuity and pension.

The board of the bank has announced a 60 per cent final dividend, taking the total dividend for the last financial year to 100 per cent.
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Temasek, Singapore govt investment arm can buy stake in ICICI Bank
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed Temasek and Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) to acquire 10 pc equity each in ICICI Bank as a "one-off case."

The regulator has taken a stand that this cannot be "quoted as a precedence" for the Singapore government's investment arms and any other foreign investor to pick up stakes in other private sector banks. The move assumes significance given ICICI Bank's $5-billion equity offering in June.

Even though the government has been in favour of allowing the Singapore entities to hold higher stakes in ICICI Bank, RBI had earlier said that Temasek and other investors associated with the Singapore government, like GIC and Monetary Authority of Singapore, were all 'related entities' and could together hold a maximum 10 pc stake.

The tussle between RBI and the Singapore government owes its origin to the Comprehensive Economic Co-operation Agreement between India and Singapore. The agreement says "...for investments into India's capital markets, India shall regard GIC, Temasek and their investment vehicles as independent and unrelated legal entities, for the purpose of application of the Sebi legislation, including rules, regulations and guidelines governing investment limits on Foreign Institutional Investors..." Further, Annex 7 of the treaty says, "Each legal entity shall be allowed to purchase up to 10 pc or the prevailing threshold under these regulations, whichever is higher, of the issued capital of any company."
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