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Nov 24, 2006

Bank Stock News

FIIs' investment in Yes Bank FIIs, NRIs and persons of Indian origin can now purchase equity shares andconvertible debentures of Yes Bank under the portfolio investment scheme upto 49 per cent of its paid-up capital, according to an RBI circular

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PNB credit cards foray by March Punjab National Bank (PNB) plans to come up with its own credit card byMarch next year. It would soon invite ex-pression of interest (EOI) for ajoint venture partner in the proposed credit card venture. Currently, PNBhas a co-branding tie-up with HSBC in which latter is the card issuer andplays the dominant role. Indications are that PNB would withdraw from thistie-up as soon as the joint venture company takes off. "We have alreadyroped in Ernst & Young, who will help us identify joint venture partner",said Mr K. Raghuraman, Executive Director, PNB. Oriental Bank ties up with IL&FS Investsmart for online trading Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) would soon offer online share tradingfacility to its demat account holders. For this purpose, the bank has signeda memorandum of understanding with IL&FS Investsmart on Wednesday.Initially, the online share trading facility would be available on a pilotbasis at Mumbai. Currently, OBC has more than 1 lakh demat accounts spreadover 111 branches. The MoU, also provides for the bank's customers toundertake share trading at designated branches. "Our customers walking intodesignated branches could trade shares and IL&FS Investsmart personnel atthese branches would provide support for share trading," an OBC officialsaid. ICICI Bank pact with Canadian agency ICICI Bank has signed a memorandum of understanding with Export DevelopmentCanada (EDC), a Canadian export credit agency, for financing support toIndian buyers of capital goods and professional services from Canada. "ICICIBank will leverage its international presence to provide holistic support toIndian corporates in their global aspirations," said Ms. Chanda Kochhar,Deputy Managing Director, ICICI Bank. The bank has a subsidiary in Canada(ICICI Bank Canada) with five branches. 4 insurers wooing Union Bank Union Bank of India is being chased by four new life insurance companies tomake the Mumbai-based bank a shareholder in their ventures. Italy's largestinsurer Generali, Japan's Dai-Ichi Mutual Life Insurance, which has tied upwith Bank of India, Germany's second largest primary insurer The ErgoInsurance Group, and interestingly, Bharti Axa life insurance company, whichcommenced operations in August, have already made presentations to UnionBank. Experts say that roping in a bank makes more sense for Bharti Axa asit will help get a committed partner with a wide reach for selling theproducts. Union Bank officials confirmed that they have been approached bythese insurers and said the public sector bank was interested in having23-26 per cent equity stake in a life insurance company. IDBI, BoR ink deal on e-trading services IDBI Capital Market Services Ltd inked an agreement with the Bank ofRajasthan to offer advanced e-trading services throughwww.IDBIpaisabuilder.in to the customers of the bank. United Bank to move govt with capital rejig plan again United Bank of India (UBI) will once again ask the Centre to consider itscapital restructuring proposal. Earlier, the government had rejected theproposal and had asked the Kolkata-based bank to submit a fresh formula. Thebank, however, has decided against any modification and will place the sameplan yet again. The UBI board has approved the move on November 21. Themanagement felt that this was in the best interest of the bank, sourcessaid. However, UBI chairman and managing director PK Gupta refused tocomment. The government had rejected UBI's original proposal, following anote from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) which is reportedly againstallowing more than 40% of bank's Tier-1 capital into preference shares. ButUBI's plan to restructure Rs 1,200 crore of equity capital intonon-convertible preference shares from the Tier-1 capital of Rs 1,600 croredoes not conform with RBI's thinking. It had proposed two other variationsof the restructuring plan. In both the cases, the conversion was in excessof 40% of the Tier 1 capital.

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'Reserve train tickets at ATMs' The Railways would soon enable buying of reserved train tickets from ATMs, which are being set up at railway stations. The ATMs would have Internet access facility, using which passengers can book e-tickets. After entering into an agreement with the State Bank of India to set up 682 ATMs at railway stations, Indian Railways entered into an agreement with six nationalised banks to set up another 711 ATMs at railway stations for passengers to withdraw cash. Out of the 711 ATMs, 473 will have e-ticketing facilities. The banks include Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Dena Bank, Union Bank of India, Indian Bank and Punjab National Bank. Currently, 86 ATMs have been installed at various stations and by the end of 2006-07, 250 ATMs are expected to be operational. The Railways aims to set up 4,000 ATMs at various stations. PNB offers online share trading Punjab National Bank (PNB) has launched online share trading services for its customers. It has tied-up with IDBI Capital Market Services to enable the bank's customers to accesswww.IDBIpaisabuilder.in, a Web-based portal, for investing in equity, mutual funds and initial public offerings. This alliance with IDBI Capital Market Services would help the bank to offer online trading in shares and, thereby, enlarge the number of demat accounts. With this tie-up, a PNB customer can get an integrated 3-in-1 online account that includes bank, investment and demat accounts. One can even link existing savings and demat accounts. PNB is now serving about 3.8 crore customers through its 4,500 branches. At present, the bank has about 35,000 demat accounts spread across 165 branches in 55 cities. It expects to add another 25,000 demat accounts by Mar'07. Bank of India's e-share trading Bank of India is launching online share trading jointly with broking firm Asit C Mehta Investment Intermediates Ltd. The broking firm would provide the online trading facility while the bank would offer banking facilities like demat and savings bank accounts. SBI too joins e-trading brigade, strikes pact The country's largest bank, State Bank of India (SBI), is slated to enter into a strategic alliance with the Mumbai-based brokerage Motilal Oswal Securities to provide integrated e-trading platform to their customers. This will possibly be the first entry by a large PSU bank in the online trading arena. At present such services are provided by broking firms in partnership with private banks. Players like ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank offer seamless trading with their subsidiaries ICICIdirect.com and HDFC Securities, respectively. This will broaden the scope of trading since the less-savvy IT customers, who have always been banking with a PSU bank, will now have an access to online trading facilities with the tie-up.