Private sector lender Kotak Mahindra Bank has announced a rise in interest rates of savings deposits. For deposits above Rs 1 lakh, interest offered would now be 6% while for deposits below Rs 1 lakh, interest would stand at 5.50%.

With regulator Reserve Bank of India taking a stand in favor of deregulation of savings bank account rates, all lenders are in a race to raise their respective rates in order to allure more...

Kerala capital, Thiruvananthapuram has set up 2 lakh savings account for wage labourers under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

The lead bank in this case in public sector lender, Indian Overseas Bank.

During the state level banker's committee meeting, it was suggested to all banks that they increase their branch count in the rural and semi urban areas.

Public sector lender Bank of India has lodged a complaint against one of its officials on charges of fraud.

The official posted in the Civil Lines branch of Allahabad has been accused of illegal transfer of funds worth Rs 34 lakhs from several accounts to a single account which turned out to be a fraudulous one.

The accused official named Ajay Mahendra is however absconding.

He opened the fake account in the name of Shahid Ali Siddiqui...

South based private sector lender Dhanlaxmi Bank seems to be in a fix. The employees of the bank have shot charges against the lender for adopting window dressing measures.

The All-India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC) is worried that the profitability of the bank is under pressure.

The AIBOC has thus expressed its concerns in writing to regulator Reserve Bank of India.

"If the present management continues to be at the helm, the situation may deteriorate further," said...

Public sector lender State Bank of Travancore has announced a rise in interest rates of NRI fixed deposit rates.

The revision in interest rates has been brought across NRE and FCNR deposits with effect from October 02, 2011.

For NRE deposits having tenor between one year to less than 2 years, the interest rate has been revised to 2.61%, while those having tenor of 2 years to less than 3 years will be offered 2.31%...

Public sector lender State Bank of Mysore is keeping the concern of customer satisfaction at its utmost priority. In order to adhere to customer grievances in a quick and better manner, the bank has adopted the SMS technique of grievance notification.

All that an aggrieved customer has to do is to type 'UNHAPPY' and send it via SMS to a number given by the bank for this very purpose. In response to the text message,...

Private sector lender YES Bank has joined hands with the Indian Army in order to open salary accounts for army personnel.

The salary accounts would be named YES Vijay Salary Account.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed in this regard by MD and CEO of YES Bank, Mr Rana Kapoor and Lt. General S.P. Kochhar, Signal Officer in Chief, Indian Army.

Private sector lender Federal Bank has chalked out plans for expanding its business in the coming 2 years span. The lender aims to increase its branch count by 245.

With the new addition, the total branch count of the bank would sum up to 755.

"Our branch network would grow to 1,000 by the fourth quarter of 2012," said CMD of the bank, Mr Shyam Srinivasan.

It is also planning to give a boost to its ATM...

The incidence of tax is a priority concern for every tax payer. Every tax payer wishes to save his hard earned money to the utmost possible level. The validity as well as justified logic behind this thought of the tax payer led to the government in coming up with a variety of reliefs, deductions as well as allowances which could help a person save tax under the Income Tax Act.

The act of arranging financial resources...

Public sector lender Bank of Maharashtra targets to receive capital infusion worth Rs 800 crore from the government in this fiscal.

Capital infusion is expected to aid the bank in increasing its capital adequacy ratio (CAR) to 14% as against the present figure of 13.35%, said CMD of the bank, Mr A S Bhattacharya.

"We have approached the government for additional capital infusion of Rs 800 crore. This is under process and we expect to get...

The lucrative nature of banking jobs seems to be evident with the huge count of candidates coming up for a bank job whenever a vacancy appears. Mostly the number of applicants way supercedes the number of vacancies thereby indiacating the interest harbored by candidates in bank jobs.

Speaking on similar lines, Mr V. P. Iswardas, Chief Executive, Catholic Syrian Bank, and Mr Shyam Srinivasan, Managing Director and Chief Executive of Federal Bank said that it can...

Global payments service provider, Western Union is eyeing to increase its presence in the state of Kerala. The idea is supported by the considerably visible rise in the remittance market in the state.

The company is shortly going to complete 17 years of operations in India. It has presence across 7500 Indian locations and aims to reach out more. Given Kerala being in the top five markets for the company as well as a big contributer...

Public sector lender Punjab National Bank has set up its first representative office in Sydney, Australia.

With setting up of this office, PNB becomes the fourth Indian bank to enter into Australian domain.

The office was inaugurated by Mr Namo Narain Meena, Minister of State for Finance. He said that this would enmark the growing trade relationship between the two nations.

Speaking at the launch, CMD of PNB, Mr K R Kamath said that Sydney happened to...

The largest private sector lender of the country, ICICI Bank has lowered the pace of deposit growth from foreign markets. It has decided to focus on growth of deposits from local grounds.

"We are hardly growing retail deposits in these markets. While we are getting a lot of deposits, we are not taking that many because we cannot use these funds to lend to Indian companies. The growth in our international operations is now coming...

Public sector lenders Allahabad Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce have announced a hike in interest rates of fixed deposits.

The rate hike by the lenders has been upto 30 basis points.

OBC has raised interest rates of deposits having tenor in the range of 1-2 years to 9.75%.

Allahabad Bank has raised rates of deposits in range of 91-179 days to 7.30%, a 30 bps rise.

Remaining interest rates remain same for both lenders.

Lenders are increasingly finding out ways to increase their presence in customer segments at affordable costs. One such method being readily applied by banks today are roadside kiosks which are set up to open bank accounts for customers.

The idea behind setting up these kiosks is to give a rapid mobilization to the current and savings account (CASA) ratios of these lenders.

These kiosks are located at busy places especially near office complexes wherein customers can be...

Public sector lender Bank of Baroda has announced a hike in interest rates of fixed deposits across selected maturities. The interst rate hike has been in the range of 25-50 bps.

Deposits having tenor between 1 year to less than 3 years will now have interest of 9.25%.

Interest rate of deposits of maturity between 3 years to 5 years will now be 9%.

The tax saving scheme having tenor of 5 years will now have...

The largest private sector lender of the country, ICICI Bank is on a hiring spree this fiscal. The lending major has aimed to recruit as many as 6000 professionals in this financial year keeping in mind its growth prospects for the fiscal.

"Our business is growing between 18 and 20 per cent and we are also adding branches...its expected that we would hire between five to six thousand people in our workforce," the Managing Director...

The revised education loan scheme implemented on all banks would now make loan disbursal mechanism a related factor to the repayment potential of the borrower. Thus it no longer will be the parental income or family wealth of the borrower which will be the decisive factor.

The employability assessment of the candidate and his repayment capacity will be the only factor deciding the loan amount.

The scheme called 'model education loan scheme' will thus definitely bring...

Banking and monetary regulator Reserve Bank of India has taken away the banking license from yet another cooperative bank; the name this time being Andhra based Tandur Mahila Cooperative Bank.

After seeing no further scope of revival for the bank, the central bank finally went ahead to take this decision.

A corresponding order has been passed to the registrar of cooperative societies of the state that the relevant processes related to the winding up of the bank...