State Bank of India (SBI) on Thursday extended its controversial special interest rate home loan product (teaser loans) till further notice. The product, which has faced flak from the sector regulator Reserve Bank, will continue to be sold till further notice from the lender, a highly-placed bank official said. The apex bank feels that teaser loans attract new customers with low interest rates, but existing customers who have to pay more are disadvantaged vis-a-vis the new ones.
UK-based Vodafone on Thursday acquired 33 per cent stake of its Indian partner Essar in the joint venture Vodafone Essar for USD 5 billion and may go for a new ally or opt for public offering to remain FDI compliant. “Currently we (Vodafone) are having 42 per cent stake in Vodafone Essar and after acquiring Essar’s additional 33 per cent stake in the joint venture our holding will go up to over 75 per cent”, Vodafone’s spokesman Ben Padovan said.
The Netherlands-based Rabobank on Friday said it has received approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to establish banking presence in the country through a maiden branch in Mumbai. Rabobank is present in India through a wholly owned subsidiary, Rabo India Finance (RIF), which is registered as a non-banking finance company (NBFC).
The Supreme Court today issued notices to Subramani Gopalakrishnan, partner of the global auditing firm PriceWaterhouse (PW) and V S Prabhakar Gupta, internal audit head of scam-hit IT firm Satyam Computers, over a plea by CBI seeking cancellation of their bail granted by the Andhra Pradesh High Court. A bench of justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan issued notices to Gopalakrishnan and Gupta directing them to file their replies by April 13.
The Reserve Bank has missed the deadline to issue the much-awaited guidelines for giving new banking licences. “I am sure we are not issuing it (licence) today,” RBI Deputy Governor K C Chakrabarty told PTI. In the Budget 2011-12, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had said the RBI plans to issue guidelines for the grant of new banking licences before the close of this financial year.
The government has capped service tax on foreign exchange transactions at Rs 5,000, which is seen as a bid to pacify market players, who feared a significant drop in the country’s forex volumes due to high levies on such transactions. As per a notification, tax for foreign exchange transactions will be calculated “at the rate of 0.1 per cent of the gross amount of currency exchanged for an amount up to Rs 1,00,000, subject to the minimum amount of Rs 25”.
Pune-based stud-farm owner Hasan Ali Khan, accused of money-laundering and stashing away huge amounts in foreign banks, on Thursday approached the Supreme Court challenging a lower court’s order allowing the ED to interrogate him in its office while being in judicial custody.
Investors had lost around Rs 250 crore after their money was invested by Citibank fraudster Shivraj Puri in Nifty options, said a police chargesheet filed in the Rs 400 crore scam. As per the chargesheet filed in the Civil Senior Division Court here on Tuesday, a sum of Rs 292.68 crore, fraudulently obtained from investors, was invested by Puri in Religare Security Ltd, Bonanza Portfolio Ltd and India Infoline Trader Terminal, out of which around Rs 250 crore were lost, Gurgaon Police Commissioner S S Deswal said.
An Indian businessman has been sentenced to prison in California on charges he fraudulently tried to get H-1B work visas for workers from India to fill non-existent jobs in the US. Srinivasa Chennupati has been sentenced to six months in prison and three years of supervised release for making false statements on 11 applications for the high-technology worker visas, the Department of Justice said in a statement.
EXPORTS (including re-exports) : Exports during February, 2011 were valued at US $ 23597 million (Rs. 107215 crore) which was 49.7 per cent higher in Dollar terms (46.9 per cent higher in Rupee terms) than the level of US $ 15758 million (Rs. 73002 crore) during February, 2010. Cumulative value of exports for the period April-February 2010 -11 was US $ 208229 million (Rs 949278 crore) as against US $ 158497 million (Rs. 753384 crore) registering a growth of 31.4 per cent in Dollar terms and 26.0 per cent in Rupee terms over the same period last year.
