All of us are very well aware of the pesky calls that one receives from banks and telecom services, providing us with information about products which we never want to buy. If that is irritating, then how irritating would a call from a recovery agent be? Gone is the “Yes, sir” or “Sorry, Madam” to be replaced by threats and in extreme cases, even abuses. Those who have been on the receiving end of such...

Have you ever wondered what the difference between a floating home loan rates and fixed home loan rate is?

Is the difference as apparent as it seems to be, or is there more to what lies inside that meaning?

Is the ‘fixed’ rate of interest really fixed?

Gone are the days when taking loans was an unheard of exercise. These days, taking loans is one of the most common practices seen in not only urban,...

The largest private sector lender ICICI bank has decided to hike its interest rates on Foreign Currency Non-Resident External (Banks) deposits and Non Resident External (NRE) term deposits with effect from July 1.

The bank said in a press release issued here that from now, the FCNR (B) deposits in Euro, having a maturity of one to two years, will now attract an interest rate of 4.64 percent against 4.34 percent a month ago.

For...

Yes bank has followed other banks’ initiatives by hiking their lending and deposit rates. The new developments as announced by the private sector lender would be a hike in the bank’s prime lending rate by 50 basis points and the deposit rates by 25 basis points. These changes would be effective from July 1, a senior official said. The new PLR stands at 16.50 %.

This hike in the PLR is the second by the...

The governing bank of the country, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) conducted a one day repo auction. RBI has injected Rs 397.55 billion in the 1-day repo auction held on Jul. 9, 2008.

However, the reverse repo auction wasn’t conducted and like on 8th July 2008, remained suspended for the day.

On the previous working day, i.e. Jul. 8, 2008, the RBI had injected Rs 287.35 billion in the 1-day repo auction via 26 bids....

Cases of frauds continue in the city, as the Delhi police arrested a 77-year-old NRI businessman on Monday. The accused, identified as Harbhajan Singh Chopra, was arrested for allegedly duping a Mumbai-based company by procuring a loan of Rs 10 crore. A case of cheating and forgery has been registered against the accused, his son and wife on the complaint of the company. The investigations have been handed over to Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of...

Continuing with the hikes in the lending and deposit rates, private-sector lender Development Credit Bank (DCB) today increased its benchmark prime lending rate by 75 basis points (100 basis points = 1 percent). DCB officials said that following tight monetary policy of the Reserve bank of India, the bank has decided to hike its BPLR by 0.75 percent.

A bank spokesman said that compared with the earlier 14.5 percent, DCB's prime lending rate now stands...

In news which would come as a shock to banks and as a warning to customers, a bank manager combined with fraudsters to dupe the bank of crores of rupees. Cases of fraudsters making duplicates of one’s fixed deposit receipt and take loans in their name are not very common. However, even less common is the involvement of a bank employee in such a case.

This new method was brought to light by the bank...

Adding to the woes of the consumers, the banks today ruled out any further increase in deposit rates in the near future even though high inflation was eroding the return on deposits. This news becomes more worrisome as the inflation stands at a 13 year high of 11.63 percent.

Confirming this news, Indian Bank's Chairman and Managing Director M S Sundara Rajan said, "Banks have already responded to the RBI cues by hiking their rates....

One sector which is definitely making banks happy despite the various rate hikes by RBI is the education loan sector. 2007-08 saw a growth of about 30-40 per cent in the education loan portfolio of banks, and if insiders are to be believed then this growth is going to increase even further. According to senior bank officials, the education loan portfolio of banks is set to witness a growth of about 40 per cent in...

Expressing optimism and giving hope to the country, the Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram said that the economy would bounce back. Speaking after laying foundation stone for Indian Bank's new head office, the FM said that a "right attitude and patience" could help the country face the problems like soaring inflation.

Saying that it is common for fast growing countries to see a patch of inflation, Chidambaram said, "Fast growing economies (like India) will...

07th July 2008 was a historic date for ICICI Bank as it made a variety of changes to accommodate technology into banking. The bank launched a pure online account where deposits above Rs. 5,000 are automatically swept into a term deposit scheme with interest rates in the region of 8-8.5%.

The bank also launched its cardless cash transfer initiative, which allows customers of the bank to transfer funds to anyone in the country having a...

Following its decision to hike its interest rate on term deposits, Bank of Rajasthan (BoR), announced a similar revision in its non-resident (external) rupee deposits (NRE), and foreign currency non-resident deposits (banks) or FCNR(B). The bank has decided to make the new rates effective from July 1, it said in a statement.

The bank said that for NRE deposits, for maturity period of one year to two years, the annual interest rates have been revised...

Interest rate hikes are continuing with the Bank of Rajasthan (BoR) and IDBI Bank also announcing their respective hikes in deposit and lending rates.

Effective from July 1, private-sector lender, Bank of Rajasthan (BoR), has decided to hike its Benchmark prime lending rate (BPLR) by 0.5 per cent to 15 per cent.The bank has also decided to revise its deposit rates by the same margin, hiking it by upto 0.5 per cent across various maturities.

Following in the footsteps of country’s largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), four more public sector banks have taken a call on their lending and deposit rates. These steps have been in response to RBI’s hike in the repo rate and CRR last week. Repo rate is the cost of borrowing by the banks from the RBI. Cash reserve Ratio (CRR) is the amount of funds that the banks have to keep with RBI....

The largest public sector bank and the country’s largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI) is celebrating its foundation day in style. The bank, which is celebrating its foundation day today, on July 1st, has decided to open 101 new branches which would run core banking solution (CBS). However, the fun doesn’t end there. SBI would also be the first state-owned bank to offer mobile banking when it launches its mobile banking the same day.

The bad news in the car segment doesn’t seem to end. If the rising oil prices and hike in car prices wasn’t enough, the customers would now have to deal with yet another hike in the auto loans. Following the RBI’s lead in increasing their lending rates, the banks and top financial corporations have decided to make their auto loans even more expensive. This hike would hold for all existing as well as new borrowers...

If insiders are to be believed, then the decision taken by the RBI on Tuesday will adversely affect the auto loans industry. The dual hike in key rates as announced by the RBI, will hike the auto loans by a minimum of 5000 Rs. a month, on a car loan of Rs 3 lakh for a period of three years.

Most of the major banks are planning to hike interest rates on auto loans by...

Are high interest rates in the car loans segment spoiling your plans for a new car? Has the recent hike in price of cars dented all plans to purchase a big car? Is the hike in fuel prices drilling a hole in your pocket?

Sadly, this seems more of a red light than a speed bump. If conditions in the Indian market remain unaltered, not much is going to change...

The banks have absorbed and have started reacting to the sensational RBI move of increasing key rates in the economy. As stated earlier by many bankers, that the question is no longer if the rates would increase or not, but by how much would the banks increase their interest rates. As was expected, all loans will become dearer, housing, car, consumers and even corporate loans. Industry insiders say that banks, on an average, would hike...