Mumbai: Commercial banker Subhash Sheoratan Mundra has assumed office as the fourth deputy governor of the Reserve Bank Thursday for a three-year term.

When contacted, Mundra, who led the country's second largest lender Bank of Baroda as chairman and managing director, confirmed the development, saying he has taken charge Thursday.

However, an official notification from the Reserve Bank or the government is awaited.

Mundra fills the vacancy created by the retirement of KC Chakrabarty in April, two months before his five-year tenure was come to an end. He was to retire from BoB today following superannuation.

Mumbai: Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) on Wednesday entered into a partnership with a US government body to help and advice domestic companies interested in investing in the world's largest economy.

Exim Bank Chairman and Managing Director Yaduvendra Mathur signed a memorandum of intent (MoI) with 'SelectUSA', a trade facilitation body under the US Commerce Department which has a mandate to attract investments in America.

London: In a controversial move, global private banking major HSBC has closed a number of "risky" accounts belonging to Muslim groups and individuals in the UK.

HSBC has written to one of London's biggest mosques at Finsbury Park and other organisations, including an Islamic think tank, saying that to continue providing services would be outside the bank's "risk appetite".

It said decisions to close accounts were "absolutely not based on race or religion".

New Delhi: State-owned IDBI Bank has said it is not considering any proposal to merge Kolkata-based United Bank of India with itself.

"We confirm that so far no proposal for merger of United Bank of India with IDBI Bank has been discussed at IDBI Bank's board meeting and also no communication from Government of India in respect of the above has been received by the bank," IDBI Bank said in a statement.

Meanwhile in separate statement, United Bank of India said that there is no negotiations taking place for merger of the bank.

Mumbai: State lender Bank of Baroda's standalone net profit rose by 16.6 percent to Rs 1,361.88 crore in the first quarter ended June 30, 2014, on lesser provisioning and decline in NPAs.

The bank said its net profit in the April-June quarter last year stood at Rs 1,167.87 crore.

"Total income has increased from Rs 10,717.49 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2013, to Rs 11,682.5 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2014," it said in a filing to the BSE.

Mumbai: State-run lender Central Bank of India has said it is in the process of selling 4 percent of its stake to Life Insurance Corporation through an institutional placement for Rs 581 crore to meet its capital requirement of Rs 2,000 crore this fiscal.

"We will be needing Rs 2,000 crore for our business plans this financial year. We did go to LIC and we are getting around Rs 581 crore from them," chairman and managing director Rajeev Rishi said here over the weekend.

He however, did not specify a timeline for the deal with LIC.

New Delhi: State-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) on Friday reported 10 percent growth in net profit to Rs 1,405.12 crore for the April-June quarter of 2014-15.

In the year-ago period, the bank had reported a net profit of Rs 1,275.32 crore, PNB said in a regulatory filing to the stock exchanges.

The bank's total income increased to Rs 12,825.13 crore during the first quarter ended June 30 from Rs 11,746.59 crore in the same period last year.

Mumbai: Private sector lender Yes Bank on Wednesday said it has reported a 9.6 percent jump in its net profit at Rs 439.5 crore for the first quarter ended June 2014, driven by higher net interest income.

The bank had reported a profit after tax of Rs 400.8 crore in the year ago quarter.

"Profits were higher, driven by a 13 percent increase in net interest income," Yes Bank Chief Financial Officer Rajat Monga told reporters here.

He said the profit would have been higher by around 10 percent in Q1 had it got the similar gains it had realised on account trading in the year ago quarter.

Mumbai: Private sector Axis Bank Tuesday reported 18.3 percent growth in net profit at Rs 1,667 crore for the first quarter ended June 2014.

The bank had earned a net profit of Rs 1,409 crore in the April-June quarter of 2013-14, Axis Bank said in a statement.

Total income of the bank rose to Rs 9,980.47 crore during the quarter under review as against Rs 9,059.12 crore in the same period last year.

The net interest margin for the bank rose to 3.88 percent in the April-June quarter, against 3.86 percent in the same period of the previous year.

Mumbai, Jul 21  Private sector lender Kotak Mahindra Bank, which has decided to buy a 15 per cent stake in commodity bourse Multi Commodity Exchange from Financial Technologies Ltd (FTIL), on Monday said it would be a long term investor in MCX and the deal will create value for the bank's shareholders.

"The franchise (MCX) is great. As of now, we are coming in as a financial investor. We believe in long-term franchise of MCX and we will take it along as it goes," Bank's Head, Group Strategy, Paul Parambi said.

Mumbai: Private sector lender HDFC Bank on Monday reported 21.1 percent growth in net profit to Rs 2,233 crore for the quarter ended June 2014.

The bank had earned a net profit of Rs 1,844 crore in the April-June quarter of 2013-14, HDFC Bank said in a statement.

The total income of the bank rose to Rs 13,070.65 crore during the quarter under review, against Rs 11,588.56 crore in the same period last year.

The net interest margin for the bank declined to 4.4 percent in the April-June quarter, against 4.6 percent in the same period of the previous year.

New Delhi: RBI has advised boards of banks not to levy usurious interest rate including processing and other charges on loans.

"It is not proposed to issue any guidelines to the banks to offer loans to borrowers at uniform rate of interest in view of variation in their costs, business models, margins etc," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in a reply to the Lok Sabha.

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India has inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Monetary Authority of Hong Kong for exchange of supervisory information.

"The RBI on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for supervisory cooperation and exchange of supervisory information with the Monetary Authority, Hong Kong," RBI said in a notification.

The MoU with Monetary Authority, Hong Kong, was signed by Arthur Yuen, Deputy Chief Executive, Banking, the Monetary Authority, Hong Kong and Harun R Khan, Deputy Governor, RBI.

The signing ceremony was held at the Monetary Authority office in Hong Kong.

Kochi: Kerala-headquartered South Indian Bank has recorded the highest first quarter profit of Rs 126.65 crore profit in the first quarter ended June 30, registering a 10.28 percent growth on a year-on-year basis.

Announcing the first quarter results here, V A Joseph, Managing Director and CEO, said the bank's strategy of focusing on core deposits has yielded excellent results as the core deposits and CASA deposits registered impressive growth of 21.05 percent and 14.42 percent, respectively.

Total business increased by Rs 6,058 crore from Rs 75,123 crore to Rs 81,181 crore, registering a growth of 8.06 percent.

Mumbai - Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) have been allowed to accept e-KYC service as a valid process to verify identity and address proof of customers to reduce risk of fraud and forgery.

"In order to reduce the risk of identity fraud, document forgery and have paperless KYC verification, UIDAI has launched its e-KYC service.

"Accordingly, it has been decided to accept e-KYC service as a valid process for KYC verification under Prevention of Money Laundering (PML) (Maintenance of Records)," the RBI said in notification addressed to NBFCs Monday.

New Delhi: Public sector SBI and PNB could be among the first banks to tap capital market this financial year to raise funds to meet global risk norms Basel III, a top finance ministry official said here Friday.

Financial Services Secretary G S Sandhu also said no final decision has been taken yet.

"Which banks will go first, that we have to work out. We have asked all banks to submit their capital requirement plans. They have given their proposal and we are giving final touch to them. The schedule will be worked out soon," he added.

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank has relaxed norms governing import of rough, cut and polished diamonds by doubling the credit time period to 180 days.

"... It has been decided, in consultation with the government, that the Clean Credit i. e. Credit given by a foreign supplier to its Indian customer/ buyer, without any Letter of Credit (Suppliers' Credit)/Letter of Undertaking (Buyers' Credit)/Fixed Deposits from any Indian financial institution for import of rough, cut and polished diamonds, may be permitted for a period not exceeding 180 days from the date of shipment," RBI said in a notification.

Earlier, the time frame was of 90 days.

Mumbai: ICICI Bank will look at acquiring a bank if it finds one with the right size and right valuation, but is yet to find a takeover target that fits in its evaluation model, the bank chief Chanda Kochhar said.

ICICI Bank, which added 650 branches to its network in the last fiscal ended March 31, 2014, is as such adding business equivalent to the size of one bank in its ordinary course of business and any acquisition target would need to be of a relevant size, Kochhar said.

New Delhi/Zurich: As India steps up pressure on Swiss authorities in its pursuit of alleged black money, banks in Switzerland say they follow strict rules and the requests from Indian authorities must be "properly justified".

The Association of Foreign Banks in Switzerland, an over four-decade old grouping, is also of the view that a clear and transparent policy can help in dispelling "apprehensions" and the "conjectures" should not be allowed to dominate the public opinion.

To bring back illicit money stashed away overseas, India has recently made a fresh request to Switzerland to seek bank details of such entities.

London, July 1 : France's largest bank BPS Paribas has reportedly agreed to a record 9billion dollars settlement with US prosecutors over sanctions violations.

The settlement is said to be the largest for such a case in US history.

According to the BBC, the US Attorney General said the bank was involved in a complex and pervasive scheme to illegally move billions through the US financial system which was a deliberate attempt at violating the longstanding US sanctions.

France has been condemning the size of the fine, which almost equals BNP's entire pre-tax income of about 8.2billion euros of 2013. (ANI)