Andhra Bank Mumbai Zone General Manager today announced the bank's expansion plans with emphasis on increasing exposure to the SMEs, lending to farmers and launching a life insurance product by next year.

Andhra Bank forays into insurance sector

Press Trust of India

Four of the five Regional Rural Banks (RRB) in Orissa have recorded growth in their net profit in the last fiscal.

Four regional rural banks record growth in net profit

Business Standard

The Royal Bank of Scotland's (RBS&rsquo;) effort to complete the sale of its Asian business, including India and China, is facing hurdles and may fetch a smaller price than expected, says a media report.

RBS' sale of Asian business hits hurdle, says WSJ report

The current economic slowdown doesn&rsquo;t seem to have affected the entrepreneurial zeal in India.

Start-ups help VCs beat slowdown

Having burnt their fingers in the secondary market crash of 2008-09, private equity (PE) funds are shying away from private investments in public equity (Pipe) deals.

Private equity shies away from Pipe deals

Riding on the back of rising auto sales last month, the non-life insurance industry has recorded a marginal rise in premium collection.

Non-life premium collection up, courtesy rising auto sales

IDBI Bank is expected to formally shelve its plan to become the first public sector lender to introduce variable pay for its employees.

IDBI Bank may shelve variable pay plan

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S Bernanke, who led the biggest expansion of the central bank&rsquo;s power in its 95-year history to battle the worst economic slump since the Great Depression, will be nominated to a second term by President Barack Obama.

Bernanke to be Fed chief for second term

The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) is scouting for institutional advisors to help the regulator in framing guidelines for the pension sector.

Pension regulator scouts for advisors

The Federal Reserve must for the first time identify the companies in its emergency lending programmes after losing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Fed ordered to disclose loan details

The rupee weakened for a third day on speculation the country&rsquo;s importers bought foreign currency to meet month-end payments.

Re declines on dollar buying by importers

A high-base effect due to strong credit growth in the year-ago period is the main reason.

Bank credit growth slips below 15 per cent

Banks didn&rsquo;t have room to further cut lending rates as of now and, in fact, they might look at raising them once credit offtake picked up, ICICI Bank&rsquo;s Chairman KV Kamath said today.

No room for lending rate cut now, says Kamath

State-run Union Bank of India has seen a robust growth in retail credit so far in the current financial year, but since overall loan growth remains muted, meeting the bank&rsquo;s earlier projection of 25 per cent credit growth for 2009-10 may be a challenge.

Union Bank may fail to achieve projected credit growth of 25%

ICICI Bank has asked the government not to take into account overseas securities such as American Depositary Receipt (ADR) and Global Depositary Receipt (GDR) while deciding on a bank&rsquo;s nationality.

ADR, GDR shouldn't decide a bank's nationality: Kochhar

After a lull of almost a year, some banks are beginning to pull out their databases to contact potential credit card customers. Having cleaned up their credit card portfolios and sensing a change in the economic environment, issuers such as SBI Cards, Standard Chartered and HSBC are seeing an increase in their credit card base at a marginal pace.Others such as HDFC Bank, which was dependent largely on its own set of customers, are maintaining the tempo.

Issuers see rise in card base

The government is considering a Rs 900-crore capital infusion plan to Dena Bank for meeting its capital requirement and business growth.

Dena seeks Rs 900-crore funding

It took 56 years for United Bank of India (UBI) to reach a business of Rs 50,000 crore. That was in 2006. The milestone had prompted the then finance minister, P Chidambaram, to set the next Rs 50,000 crore target for the next five years. The Kolkata-based lender exceeded Chidambaram&rsquo;s expectation by crossing the Rs 1 lakh-crore mark this month. Chairman and Managing Director SC Gupta tells Manojit Saha that the bank intends to raise Rs 450-500 crore through an initial public offer (IPO) while another Rs 550 crore is expected from the government, which will subscribe to its preference shares.

'We are likely to double business in next 3 years'

The euro traded at the highest level in more than 11 weeks against the pound ahead of a report on German business sentiment that may add to prove the recovery in the 16-nation region is gathering pace.

Euro rises versus dollar, pound ahead of German sentiment report

Export Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) is looking at promoting a grassroot business fund, an initiative of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), for financing small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Exim Bank set to unveil IFC-promoted SME fund

ING Groep, the biggest Dutch financial-services company, has asked for final bids for its private banking operations and is seeking about $1.8 billion, two people familiar with the matter said.

ING to seek $1.8 billion for private bank units

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