CanBank to go in for brand makeover

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.Canara Bank, which recently turned 100, is in for a brand makeover. The Bangalore-based PSU bank will be the latest in a long list of banks and financial institutions to rebrand themselves in their pursuit to stay ahead of the times. Ray+Kesavan has been assigned the task of the bank’s makeover. The bank will soon sport a trendier logo in place of the familiar ‘flower and palm’ one with the tag ‘serving to grow, growing to serve’. The new tagline will be ‘business to profit, profit to business.’ It is also learnt that the formal launch of the new logo would in all probability coincide with the bank’s foundation day later this month. It is not known whether Canara Bank would go in for a brand ambassador although it had been using the services of Venkatesh Prasad, Indian cricket team’s bowling coach, as a model for some of its products. Prasad, it maybe recalled, is an employee of Canara Bank.

Your family photo on your Deutsche Bank credit card

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it. Would you like to put your family photo on your credit card? Customer-chosen photo on the plastic is something that Deutsche Bank is planning to bring out soon. Deutsche Bank is the new kid on the block in the Indian credit cards business. It launched its cards business only about a year-and-a-half ago and has issued since 350,000 cards. Mr Shameek Bhargava, Director & Head of Credit Cards, Asia Pacific, Deutsche Bank, says (without sharing numbers) that spends on the cards are better than the industry average. But what if you want a picture of your choice on the card ? According to Mr Bhargava, the bank is in the process of putting in place a mechanism for screening the pictures so that less-than-honourable pictures do not get on to Deutsche Bank’s credit cards. Once the mechanism is in place, customers would have the facility

DCB asked to cut promoter stake

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it. The RBI has asked Development Credit Bank Ltd to gradually reduce promoter's stake in it to 10 per cent by 2009. Currently, promoters hold 25.1 per cent stake in the bank. Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Development Credit Bank, Mr Gautam Vir, confirmed the development.

SBI has strong case for rights issue, says Chidambaram

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it. The State Bank of India’s long awaited ‘rights issue’ of shares to raise additional capital would appear to have received official blessings with the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, strongly endorsing the bank’s proposal. The bank’s board is understood to have made a presentation to the Minister in Mumbai on its capital requirements. The Government had acquired the 59.73 per cent stake of the bank from the Reserve Bank of India at Rs 35,531 crore in June this year. A senior official of the bank said, “We have an immediate requirement of Tier-I capital of Rs 10,000 crore in order to make ourselves Basel II compliant by March 31, 2008.” He also said that the bank has a long-term capital need in order to fund its growth. The bank’s Capital Adequacy Ratio was 12.85 per cent (12.63 per cent) as on September 30.

Religare, Corporation Bank tie up

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it. Religare, an integrated financial services provider, announced that it will be tying up with the Corporation Bank to further strengthen its Bancinvest Channel. This tie-up will focus on offering Religare’s Internet trading services platform to the bank’s customers. The facility will be part of a value-added 3-in-1 offering for the bank’s savings account customers, offering them a savings and a DP account from the bank along with Internet trading account, powered by Religare.

IDBI cuts term deposit rates

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it. IDBI has reduced interest rates on some of its term deposits with effect from November 12. The interest on its 360-day deposits have been reduced by 0.75% from 9.5% to 8.75%, the bank said. For deposits of 500 and 800 days as also on deposits of five years, the bank has reduced its interest rates by 0.5% from 9.5% to 9%.

DCB to sell HDFC home loans

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it. Development Credit Bank (DCB) has tied up with HDFC for a strategic alliance to market the latter’s home loans. This is the second bank after HDFC Bank to market HDFC’s home loans. DCB MD & CEO Gautam Vir said, “Home loan is not the most profitable business because these are long-term loans. Also it’s not our area of expertise.” The bank is also likely to get more time to reduce the 25% stake of AKFED in the bank to 10%. The bank is looking at increasing the retail portfolio of its advances from 45% to around 55% by the end of next fiscal.

Pref allotments trimmed, clarifies ING Vysya Bank

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it. The ING Vysya Bank has clarified that it raised only Rs 192.50 crore through the preferential placement of 62.09 lakh shares with qualified institutional buyers (QIB). The Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) last week had approved the issue of 74.75 lakh shares to QIBs. The final allotment to QIBs was done at a price of Rs 310 a share at a premium of Rs 300. Similarly, ING Vysya also pared the preferential placement to the ING Mauritius Holdings and ING Mauritius Investments, subsidiaries of the ING Groep, Netherlands

ICICI Bank, Delhi varsity tie up

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it. The Delhi University along with ICICI Bank is planning to launch a three-month-long certificate course on banking. The course, named as Foundation on Banking, would be launched by the Commerce Department of the University, which was recently entered into a partnership with the banking major. Specifying eligibility criteria for getting admission in the proposed course, it said the candidates must have 50 per cent marks in aggregate in B.Com degree.

Credit Agricol plans insurance, MF foray

Credit Agricol (CA), the second-largest French bank, is all set to enter the Indian insurance and asset management business. The group, through its subsidiaries, Predica, the life insurance company, and Pacifica, the non-life insurance company, is in talks with a couple of top Indian players for a foray into insurance businesses. The Indian rules require foreign companies to hold not more than 26 per cent in Indian insurance ventures. Credit Agricol Asset Management (CAAM) is in talks with a local brokerage house for a tie-up to launch the AMC business, according to a group executive in India.

ING Vysya Bank raises Rs 232 cr via pref issue

ING Vysya Bank has placed its preferential issue to qualified institutional buyers (QIB) at Rs 310 a share that translates into a discount of Rs 28.5 over the 52 week average price. The bank through its QIB (banks, mutual funds, provident funds, venture funds and foreign institutional investors) placement raised approximately Rs 231.74 crore.

UBI to recruit 1,200 staff

Union Bank of India will add 1,200 personnel, close to 5 per cent of its existing employee strength, in specialist functions such as information technology and rural development during this financial year. This fresh intake will cover three aspects - branch expansion, sales growth and marketing and attrition through retirement and resignations. The bank’s manpower strength is 26,000.

State Bank, Canara halt loans at lower rates

State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest bank, and Canara Bank, the third-largest public sector bank, have rid their balance sheets of large amounts of short-term loans at substantially lower interest rates in the third quarter of 2006-07. The banks have taken this move to ease pressure on their net interest margins (NIMs). Both the banks declined to roll over about Rs 8,000 crore of loans each on maturity as borrowers did not agree on higher interest rates. SBI has decided to price its loans “aggressively” and not succumb to pressure from corporates to lend at lower rates. There is an aggressive move within the bank where pricing of assets is concerned,” said SBI Chairman O P Bhatt at an analysts’ meet to review the bank’s second-quarter results recently. Till a year ago, banks had been extending short-term loans up to one year at rates of 6.5-8 per cent. However, their cost of raising incremental deposits has gone up by 250-300 basis points as banks have been offering up to 9.5 per cent on one-year deposits. While SBI’s NIM dipped to 2.84 per cent at the end of September 2007 from 3.02 per cent a year earlier, Bangalore-based Canara Bank’s NIM fell to 2.36 per cent from 3.15 per cent over the same period.

BoI cuts deposit rates by 50 bps

Bank of India has reduced the rates on its term deposit rates by 50 basis points with effect from November 12. The effective rate for a deposit rate for one to two years will be 8.5 per cent and for deposits of five years and above it will be 9 per cent. For deposits above Rs 15 lakh and less than Rs 5 crore, the rates remain unchanged for periods up to one year. The bank has already withdrawn all its special schemes with lock-in-period and special rates of interest. Earlier this week, ICICI Bank had cut interest rates on special deposit schemes by 25-50 basis points and also realigned rates in some segments. Other banks that have reduced interest rates on term deposits include Union Bank of India, which cut rates between 25 and 100 basis points and Centurion Bank of Punjab, which cut rates by 25-50 basis points on deposits of varying maturities.

PSBs set to tap bond market for Rs 5,500 cr

Public sector entities are expected to swamp the domestic financial markets with bonds worth Rs 9,000 crore over the next four months. Public sector banks (PSBs) alone are expected to raise Rs 5,500 crore during the period. Banks in the fray to raise resources through bonds include Bank of India, State Bank of India, Union Bank of India, Vijaya Bank, UCO Bank and Dena Bank. Banks are raising the resources to beef up their respective Tier II capital, for propelling their asset growth and partly for offsetting the impact on capital standards after migrating to Basel II next financial year. Bankers said that almost all of them expected to push up their advances portfolio by 25 per cent over the last financial year. This was despite the fact that credit growth so far this year has not been very encouraging.

China raises bank reserve ratio again

China's central bank, battling to restrain growth in the money supply and inflation, announced it was raising the proportion of deposits that commercial banks must keep in reserve to a record high. The 0.5 percentage point increase in banks' reserve ratios, the ninth this year, will take effect on November 26 and bring the ratio for big banks to 13.5 per cent, the central bank said on Saturday.

ATM Frauds(test post)

This article aims at alerting those who use their ATM/Debit cards. In this world fraud can take place in any form. We should be ever vigilant to protect ourselves from that frauds. The technology has paved the way to many frauds. Today’s fraudsters are white collard people sitting somewhere and steeling from your pocket your hard earned money. E-mail and Internet related fraud schemes are being perpetrated with increasing frequency, creativity and intensity. A few methods adopted by fraudsters are; Skimming: Here the fraudsters make counterfeit ATM cards by using a skimmer, which is s card swipe device that reads the information on a consumer’s ATM card. Scammers insert onto an ATM, ready to swipe information from unsuspecting customers. They take a blank card and encode all the information from an ATM card when they swipe The skimmer catches the PIN through a small camera mounted on the ATM. Lebanese Loop: Here fraudsters insert a portable steel loop into an ATM card slot. The fraudster usually approaches the victim while at the machine, and poses as the person next in the line. Victims are advised to enter their PIN three times and then hit cancel to get the machine to accept the cards. The fraudster is able to memorize the PIN for future use and the machine keeps the card because of the excessive number of attempts to enter the correct PIN. The victim cannot get back the card as it is held in the loop. When the victim leaves the fraudster removes the loop and he has both card and pin. Spoofing: Here the attacker creates a misleading context to trick victim into making an inappropriate security relevant decision. For example, fraudster have set up bogus automated teller machines, typically in public areas or shopping malls. The machines would accept ATM cards and ask for PIN codes. Once victim gives the information. Fraudster has enough information to steel the money. Pretexting: Here the fraudster has some information about you and wants to have more information so that he can steel your money. He claims to be from victims bank and makes calls to victim to provide the needed information. Many a times victim provides the needed information and fraudster can make merry on that. Phishing: Here the fraudster sends emails at random, purporting to come from a genuine company operating on the internet and this mail requests the victim to provide his personal information like password etc to update the database. The link provided in the mail takes the victim to look alike website of the bank. When the victim provides the required information, fraudster can steel the money at his will. Protect yourself: 1. While using ATM see that no extra fitting is attached to Machine if any inform the security or the contact number of the bank provided on the ATM. 2. Never take the help of third person to operate your card. 3. Never disclose your PIN to anybody. 4. Never keep your PIN and card at same place. 5. Be cautious when third person comes to help you generously. 6. Never disclose your personal information over phone to bank unless you know Cent percent that this is genuine call. 7. Banks usually never call/mail you to take your personal information, when you receive Such call/mail take his number and confirm/inform the bank.

Debt Trap

How to get out of Debt Trap Every one of us take some debt for one reason or the other. Debt free persons are a few. So can we take as granted that every one is in Debt Trap?. The answer will be “no”. Then What is debt trap. The simple answer will be living beyond ones means or expenses not In proporation to earnings. Now a days getting into debt is very easy. There are so many banks behind you offering you Credit Cards, personal loans, vehicle loans, housing loans and many more. The grocery shop owner also gives loans. The shopkeeper where you purchase whitegoods, Software etc also gives you loans. In good old days you had to run to banks to get a loan sanctioned, sign the agreements, deliver the documents as required by the banks. Now the bankers come to your house to give you the loan. There is huge flow of credit cards from all the banks. And added to it there are huge discount offers/cash back offers all round the year . And also a devil called EMI. All these lures the common people like us to buy things where we commit our future income(by way of EMI/credit card purchases etc.) for the present. As we try to get more things the future incomes goes on reducing. The condition will worsen if we take more than one source for our finance. If we cross a limit of income which serves the debt ,we will loose our control on our finances and we are in debt trap. Methods to come out of debt trap: 1.Prepare monthly income/expense account. Note down your income stream like salary/business income etc and also list down what are your expenses. 2.See where your money is leaking and try to patch it. From above list you can easily see what are the unwanted items of expenses and try to avoid them. 3.Prioritize your debts from high int. bearing to low int. bearing. List down your debts, amount, interest etc. From this you can make out which debt is carrying high int. and which is carrying low int. 4.See how much amount you can set aside to clear your debts. From your income and expenses account you can easily make out how much amount you are left with to repay your debt. The higher the amount left with your earlier you will be debt free. 5.Calculate how much amount you can allocate to high int. bearing debt. If you pay high int. bearing debt first your interest outgo will be less and you will have more money at your disposal for repaying other loans. 6.See if you can get low int. bearing debt to pay high int. bearing debt. As said before early payment of high int. bearing debt has twin advantage. The int. outgo will be less and more amount will be at your disposal to pay other loans. So you can take Low int. bearing debt to immediately repay high int. bearing debt. 7.Make a commitment not to take any new debt. Make a commitment not to take new debt and stick to it. 8.Postpone any new high budget purchase. If you are making any idea to purchase any high value item kindly postpone it unless it is Very very essential for you. Good Habits you can develop: Have your monthly income and expenses budget. List out your income and expense and verify with above. Save at least 30% of income for future. Before taking any debt / using credit card think twice. Plan well about finance before investing in high value items. Hope this post is useful to you. Kindly leave your comments for making my posts more effective.

CRR hikes could be reversed

The rate decisions of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Federal Reserve dominated last week. The Indian central bank did not change its repo and reverse repo benchmarks, but increased the CRR to 7.5 per cent from 7 per cent, while the Fed snipped its rates 25 basis points. Overnight money market surpluses have dwindled to less than Rs10,000 crore. Coupling the impounded CRR and the reluctance of the Government to spend ahead of the financial year close, it would seem liquidity is set to tighten in the coming days and weeks. There is every possibility of the US economy sinking into the red this quarter itself. Further rate cuts are unavoidable. That might halt the RBI on its tracks. Reversing the series of CRR hikes, at least partly, is distinctly likely if liquidity contracts too much and call rates spill well out of the RBI’s corridor on the upside.

ICICI Bank cuts rates on special deposits again

ICICI Bank has cut interest rates on special deposit schemes by 25-50 basis points and also realigned rates in some segments, effective November 12. The interest rate on 390-day deposit will now stand at 8.50 per cent (9 per cent) and that on a 590-day deposit will be 8.75 per cent (9 per cent). This is the second time in less than a month that the bank has reduced interest rates on special deposits. The bank had earlier reduced interest rates by 50 basis points and consequently, the interest rates on the 390-day, 590-day and 890-day deposits came down to 9 per cent (9.5 per cent). The bank has also realigned interest rates for deposits of greater than 1 year up to three years at 8 per cent to meet its asset liability requirement, said Mr V. Vaidyanathan, Executive Director, ICICI Bank. Mr Vaidyanathan, however, said that the cost of funds would remain unchanged and that there will be no revision in lending rates. The bank has also discontinued the 890-day special deposit scheme. Earlier, Union Bank of India reduced deposit rates between 25 and 100 basis points and Centurion Bank of Punjab by 25-50 basis points on deposits of varying maturities.