US-based company, General Chemical Industrial Products is in a process to get 300 million non-recourse loans from various banks. The company is a subsidiary of Tata Chemicals and it wants this sum to repay loan taken by the company from Valley Holding to acquire the American firm earlier this year.

It has approached Standard Chartered Bank, ABN Amro, ANZ Banking Group, HSBC, Calyon Bank and SBI and the process is going on for loan approval through various channels.

The largest state run bank, State Bank of India, today signed an agreement with Insurance Australia Group (IAG) to expand its network in insurance sector. It would set 74:26 joint ventures with AIG for general insurance business in the country. The bank would soon approach the Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority to get necessary approval for joint venture. It has already got administrative approval to forge a JV with Societe Generale for the custodial business.

Airways, Kingfisher and Air India have decided not to levy any transaction fee on air tickets from tomorrow. It would result in cheap air tickets from the airline office or website but customers have to pay Rs 350-Rs 10,000 more if they purchase tickets from travel agent. The representatives of all leading air carrier held a meeting with Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) and apprised them about the decision.

Indian banking franchise of Citi bank has taken a sense of relief, following bail out package announced by the US government. It would help the bank to come out of credit crisis and help to recover its strong market position. The bank’s local workforce is still living under threats of lay-offs but now it can expect some thing better in future.

Back-office firm Firstsource Solutions has revised its dollar revenue guidance for 2009 to 21% following international financial crisis and volatility in the stock market. Earlier, it had projected 33-38 per cent revenue guidance for the ongoing fiscal.

Managing Director and CEO of country’s third largest pure play BPO, Mr Ananda Mukerji said, “There is a slowdown everywhere and hence volumes are not as robust as we would have liked it to be. Though seven of our top 10 customers have increased their business with us, the increase is not to the degree we had anticipated.”

Goldman Sachs expressed concerns over the slowdown in Indian reality sector following global slowdown. It has stressed the need to cut reality prices by 30% to increase demand. However, it can affect the annual economic growth rate but the price reduction would increase affordability of people.