The Reserve Bank is unlikely to cut key interest rates at this point of time following drop in bond yield. The yield on 10-year bonds was 7.50% early this week and 8% in October.

Bond prices and yield are moving in opposite direction to each other leaving no room for interest cut by apex bank. The overall situation has changed after the collapse of Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers Holding Inc. in mid-September.

Mark Robinson has been appointed as a New CEO of Citi south Asia, replacing Sanjay Nayar, who is taking charge of Indian operations of world's leading buyout firm; Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR). Nayar was heading the Indian operations since 2002. 

KKR is interested to expand its base in India in private equity, infrastructure, mezzanine and distressed funds. It has already invested over $1 billion in the Flextronics International and Bharti Infratel, the telecom tower arm of Bharti Airtel.

Berlin  - Three reeling German banks tapped state funds for billions of euros in aid Friday.

Hamburg-based HSH Nordbank said SoFFin, a federal government agency which has a 480-billion-euro war chest, had agreed to provide it with up to 30 billion euros (37 billion dollars) in guarantees to rescue it.

Chief executive Dirk Jens said the shareholders, which include two German states - Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, would also provide equity to the battered institution that announced weeks ago it was seeking SoFFIn aid.

Berlin  - Two reeling German banks tapped state funds for billions of euros in aid Friday.

Hypo Real Estate (HRE), the first German bank to nearly collapse in September, said it won 20 billion euros (25 billion dollars) in guarantees from Soffin, a federal government agency with a 480-billion-euro war chest.

HRE said the underpinning from Frankfurt-based Soffin would improve its liquidity and help it refinance debt that falls due up to January 15, 2009.

The Munich-based mortgage lender was rescued by an earlier, 50-billion-euro batch of guarantees from the government and other commercial banks.

The other bank needing a bail-out was one of Germany's nine landesbanks, which are run by various state governments.

Berlin  - German state-owned Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg (LBBW) is to receive a 5-billion euro (6.3-billion-dollar) capital injection, the bank announced Friday, amid reports that the world financial crisis had forced it deeper into the red.

The LBBW's owner, the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, is to provide the capital support for the bank, which, shareholder sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, is likely to run up a 2-billion-euro loss in the current year.

In announcing the capital injection, LBBW became the latest German bank to seek out state aid to help it limp through the current financial crisis.

Tokyo - The Bank of Japan decid