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 The bank has already withdrawn all its special schemes with lock-in-period and special rates of interest.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.