Mumbai, Nov 6 : State Bank of India loans will now be cheaper with the bank deciding to cut its Prime Lending Rate (PLR) by 0.75 per cent from Monday.

SBI Chairman O P Bhatt told reporters in Mumbai on Thursday that the bank''s PLR will now stand reduced to 13 per cent from 13.75 per cent.

Several public sector banks such as Punjab National Bank, Union Bank, UCO Bank and Syndicate Bank have already effected a cut in their PLRs.

On Tuesday, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram met heads of public sector banks following which bankers had promised to cut their lending rates by up to 0.75 per cent.

San Francisco - Wells Fargo, the biggest bank on the US west coast, said Wednesday it would issue 10 billion dollars in stock to help pay for the takeover of Wachovia Corp.

Wells Fargo triumphed in a bitter takeover struggle against Citigroup weeks ago to acquire the troubled Wachovia - a takeover that came amidst massive turmoil and bankruptcies in the finance industry.

The cut in cash reserve ratio (CRR) and statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) by the RBI is seen by experts as a positive move while financial entities Goldman Sachs and Citigroup Global stated that more needs to be done. The reserve bank of India, on Saturday, cut mandatory cash deposits, banks need to keep with the RBI by 100 basis points (bps) and the short term lending rate by 50 basis points.

SBI Card would release a financial package for defaulting clients. SBI card is the joint venture company of State Bank of India and GE Money. SBI card intends to help those customers who have been good at repaying in the past, but have failed to repay following the turbulent global financial conditions. The company y would restructure its card-portfolio to check further defaults.

Public sector lender UCO Bank has notified that it would cut prime lending rate by 50 basis points by next week.

The bank has stated in a release that it has decided to cut PLR by half a per cent and ALCO (Assets and Liability Committee) of the bank would meet on November 10 to review the interest rate scenario.

US credit card and banking giant, American Express is likely to start retrenchment drive in India and other locations. It would retrench about 10 percent workforce, cutting around 7,000 jobs. The staff would be eliminated in all business units, including markets and staff groups. Some staff in its Indian operations is also likely to be laid off.