SBI tops customer complaints : RBI data

SBI has emerged as the bank with the maximum number of customer complaints in 2006-07 (April-March), followed by ICICI Bank, according to data available with RBI. SBI - the largest bank in the country - had a whopping 8,579 complaints in 2006-07. As against this, ICICI Bank has 5,048 complaints against it - a distant second. This is the first time the central bank has come up with such an exhaustive and dis-aggregated data on customer complaints. Total complaints against public sector banks stood at 21,660, out of which the SBI group alone accounted for more than half - 11,117. Of the 9,036 complaints against private sector banks, more than 90 per cent were against new generation banks - 8,211. In the credit cards segment, complaints against SBI stands at 0.73 per 1000 - much higher than ICICI Bank's 0.19.

12 banks sign financing documents for Delhi airport

Delhi International Airport Pvt Ltd, which is taking up the modernisation of Delhi airport, signed key financing documents with its project lenders for Rs 3,650 crore and foreign currency loan of $350 million. The total debt requirement has been financed by Canara Bank (Rs 600 crore), IIFCL (Rs 500 crore), Union Bank of India (Rs 500 crore), Oriental Bank of Commerce (Rs 400 crore), Central Bank (Rs 400 crore), Andhra Bank (Rs 250 crore), Vijaya Bank (Rs 250 crore), IDFC (Rs 250 crore), Bank of India (Rs 250 crore) and PNB (Rs 250 crore). The loan of $350 million has been financed by ICICI Bank, Singapore - $200 million and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Abu Dhabi - $150 million.

5 PSBs to have majority stake in Payments Corp

Five public sector banks - State Bank of India, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda and Union Bank of India - will have the majority stake in a new company to be incorporated to undertake the payment and settlement work, currently being done by Reserve Bank of India. Initially the company, to be incorporated under Section 25 of the Companies Act, will have nine shareholders - five PSU banks, two private and two foreign banks. The non-PSU banks are likely to be ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Standard Chartered and HSBC. Initially, the proposed company-National Payments Corporation of India-will take over the RBI-run clearing houses in the four metros-Mumbai, Delhi Chennai, and Kolkata. The employees of these clearing houses will also be transferred on deputation to the new company.

BoE cuts rates by 25 bps to 5.5%

The Bank of England cut interest rates for the first time in more than two years on Thursday, after a week of feverish speculation over whether it would act to shore up economic growth in the face of the global credit crunch. The Bank said it had cut its key rate by a quarter percentage point to 5.5 per cent. The European Central Bank left interest rates at 4.0 per cent on Thursday, as expected, resisting a growing global bias towards monetary policy easing.

HDFC plans mobile wallets, remittances

HDFC Bank, which already provides mobile banking facilities, is now planning to foray into mobile wallets. These will enable customers to use their mobile phones for transactions instead of carrying the debit or credit cards. “Our mobile banking users has doubled in less than six months of this year and with the growing trend, we are planning to introduce mobile wallets and remittances soon,” said HDFC Bank executive vice-president, retail banking, Rahul N Bhagat at the Banktech Congress in Mumbai. “We are looking at getting debit-card and credit-card services on mobile phones for transactions and introduce it in the rural areas,” he added. The bank is also focusing aggressively on ATM expansion. Kotak Bank has invested around Rs 20 lakh for developing mobile banking services. Currently, there are 1.6 million mobile banking users in India

Trust banks to draw up your will and execute it too

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.More and more banks are keen on offering services such as will drafting, execution and trusteeship for management of property of the deceased. For customers, it perhaps makes more sense to entrust their wealth to a bank, which already has experience in handling financial matters. For banks, it is an opportunity to earn fee income and also cross sell other investment products. Some banks such as Canara Bank and Bank of Maharashtra have been offering the service for quite some years now and the latest entrant in this segment is Centurion Bank of Punjab (CBoP). CBoP offers this service through its joint venture, Centurion Executorship, Trusteeship, Real Estate Management and Advisory Services Pvt Limited (CERMA) and Bank of Maharashtra through its fully-owned subsidiary, Maharashtra Executor and Trustee Company (METCO). While CBoP caters to customers with a net worth of $1 million, Canara Bank and Bank of Maharashtra offer this service to everyone. Charges for drafting range from Rs 3,000-Rs 5,000. For execution and management of trusts, banks charge about 1-2 per cent of the value of the assets as fees.