RBI announces level of borrowings

The Reserve Bank would endeavour to conduct the auctions in a calibrated manner and distribute the borrowings evenly throughout the quarter

The Reserve Bank of India, in consultation with the State Governments, announces that the indicative quantum of total market borrowings by the State Governments and the Union Territory of Puducherry, for the quarter April to June 2015, is expected to be in the range of Rs. 45,000 crore to Rs. 55,000 crore.

The amount will be raised through auction of State Development Loans (SDLs) generally on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month. The Reserve Bank would endeavour to conduct the auctions in a calibrated manner and distribute the borrowings evenly throughout the quarter.

The actual amount of borrowings would be intimated by way of press release two/three days prior to the actual auction day and would depend on the requirement of the State Governments, approval from the Government of India under Article 293(3) of the Constitution of India and the market conditions. 

Indices to open flat

Investors may prefer to wait and watch ahead of the results season before immediately committing fresh capital.

The indices may have ended flat on Tuesday after twisting and turning through the day. But that does not take away the fact that the Sensex and Nifty managed to post their best fiscal year gain since FY10. In fact, the recent subdued days saw higher delivery of shares, so much so that March delivery-based buying hit a two-year high. Counters which fell from their recent 52-week highs were in demand.

The outlook is a flat to negative start. The indices may be cautious ahead of a long weekend. Markets are closed on Thursday and Friday and will not be able to react to global cues and data till Monday. Investors may prefer to wait and watch ahead of the results season before immediately committing fresh capital. Global cues are also subdued. US indices closed in the red.  Dow Jones fell 1.11%, S&P shed 0.88% and Nasdaq dropped 0.94%. Energy shares were among the biggest drags as crude oil fell.

The Asian markets are mixed, the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was up by half a percent after Chinese manufacturing activity in March were better than expected. The Shanghai index in China was trading higher by 0.6%. While, the Nikkei index in Japan was down by 0.7%.

The country’s external debt stood at $461.9 billion as of end-December, up 3.5% from end-March 2014, data showed.  Meanwhile, February data for core sector growth fell to 1.4% as against 1.8% mom and 1.6% yoy. The culprits here were steel and natural gas. On the bright side, coal, cement and electricity output grew. This could attract some buying in cement and power shares.

Due to a fall in global prices, gas produced in India will cost 8% less during April-September, the govt said in a statement, due to a decline in global prices.

OMCs could remain in focus after IOC Chairman said the company will not have any inventory losses in the March quarter.

Sebi has reportedly proposed to ease listing norms to enable startups raise funds through initial public offerings (IPOs).

Former SAP Labs India MD Anirban Dey has joined Infosys subsidiary EdgeVerve as global head for software products.

The sharp rally in stocks during financial year 2014-15 has boosted the value of stock market investments of many companies with strong treasury operations, says a report.

In about 150 companies, the market value of the investments in stocks has more than doubled in the fiscal 2014-15, a report in ET added.

Reliance has signed a production-sharing contract with Myanmar's state-owned Myanmar Oil & Gas Enterprise for two offshore blocks that it bagged through competitive bidding in 2013.

The cabinet has reportedly recommended re-promulgation Of Land Acquisition Ordinance.

HCC Ltd has been awarded contract worth Rs 392.13 crore from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highway (MoRTH) for 4-laning of 26km long road on NH52 between Jamugurihat to Biswanath Chariali by-pass in Assam. The project will be completed in 36 months.

State Bank of India has announced that the Executive Committee of the Central Board (ECCB) has on March 30, 2015 authorised divestment of SBI's stake in SBI Life Insurance Co Ltd by up to 10%. 

eClerx Services has announced that its board approved entering into agreement to acquire 100% of CLX Europe for 25 mn Euros.

GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd ended higher by 16% at Rs 9.51. Later in the day, the stock hit 20% upper circuit. The company is planning to file a draft prospectus for an up to $250 mn initial public offer (IPO) of its airport unit soon, according to reports. 

GMR Infrastructure Ltd stock ended higher by 5% at Rs 16.60. As part of its ‘Asset Light, Asset Right’ approach, the company continuously explores the possibility of selling full/part stake in some of its operational Energy and Highway projects 

ITC stock ended 1% lower to Rs. 325 amid high volumes. The stock has hit a high of Rs 328 and a low of Rs 323.

Petron Engineering Construction hit the 20% upper circuit at Rs. 261 on news report that the company received an Order from KSS Petron for civil, structural & underground piping works for Integrated Refinery Expansion Project (IREP) of BPCL, worth Rs. 84.71 crore.

Mastek moved higher on receiving approval from NYSE Listing Committee for listing of company's subsidiary, Majesco's shares on the NYSE market. The stock ended higher by 9% to a high of Rs. 432 and a low of Rs 386.

ECE Industries too was locked at the 20% upper circuit at Rs. 135 on news that its promoter hiked stake in the company.

Ramky Infrastructure zoomed to hit the 20% upper limit at Rs. 39.10 after the company's board approved its debt restructuring programme and lenders will be converting 25 per cent of some term loans into equity.

 

Valecha Engineering closed 9% higher after media reported that the company has bagged orders worth Rs. 125.50 crore.

TD Power Systems soared over 5% to Rs. 359 on winning fresh order for supply of 10 Traction alternators from Diesel Locomotive Works, a production unit of Indian Railways.

Bajaj Hindustan Sugar surged 4.7 per cent to Rs. 14.40 after the company allotted 17 crore shares at Rs. 20.77 per share on conversion of Funded Interest Term Loan (FITL) to JLF Lenders.

Oricon Enterprises rallied over 5 per cent to Rs. 54.35 on reports that the company has acquired 70 per cent shares of Oriental Containers from its joint venture partners OC Holding, Mauritius, for Rs. 105 crore.

Snapdeal announced its foray into financial services with the acquisition of a majority stake in RupeePower, a leading digital financial products distribution platform. Snapdeal will now offer consumers a financial services marketplace – a first of its kind initiative in the e-commerce industry.

Trends in FII flows: The FIIs were net buyers of Rs3.56bn in the cash segment on Tuesday.

 The domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were also the net buyers of Rs2.83bn, as per the provisional figures released by the NSE.

Sudden crash in Sensex, Nifty

NTPC and UltraTech Cement have slipped nearly 1.5 per cent each to Rs. 146 and Rs. 2,902, respectively.

There was a sudden crash in Sensex and Nifty. The Sensex slipped 11 points at 27,964, while NSE Nifty is also down 4 points at 8,487.

The India VIX (Volatility) index is up 0.9 per cent at 14.3875.

BPCL has soared nearly 5 per cent to Rs. 805, and Tata Power has surged nearly 4 per cent to Rs. 77.

Tata Motors has rallied around 3.5 per cent to Rs. 559. Reliance Industries, Hindustan Unilever and Gail India have advanced around 2 per cent each to Rs. 828, Rs. 880 and Rs. 388, respectively.

Dr.Reddy's. Maruti, Coal India, Axis Bank, Sun Pharma, Wipro, NMDC and Lupin are the other prominent gainers in the Nifty-50 space.

On the other hand, NTPC and UltraTech Cement have slipped nearly 1.5 per cent each to Rs. 146 and Rs. 2,902, respectively.

TCS clarifies reports on buyouts

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd clarified that TCS is a global company and the among the largest in terms of market capitalization. 

The Exchange had sought clarification from Tata Consultancy Services Ltd with respect to news flash on ET Now on March 30, 2015 titled "Tata Consultancy Services show interest in buying Sierra Cedar that operates in US, Canada & India. HCL & Tech Mahindra also looking for buyouts"

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd clarified that TCS is a global company and the among the largest in terms of market capitalization. There is lot of interest in the Company from the media and analyst community, which tracks and reports on the M&A deals in the IT sphere.

We do not have any specific comment to offer with regard to the above news item.

We would like to affirm our commitment to fair disclosure."

Infosys Foundation, ACM honor pioneer in Cryptography

This ushered in a new area of cryptography research to which Boneh’s contributions have been central.

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the Infosys Foundation announced that Dan Boneh is the recipient of the 2014 ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences for his contributions to the ground-breaking development of pairing-based cryptography and its application in identity-based encryption. His work helped establish the field of pairing-based cryptography, a dominant area in cryptography for the last decade, by demonstrating the use of pairing functions to solve wide variety of problems in cryptography. Boneh, with Matt Franklin, showed how pairings could be used to develop a fully functional identity-based encryption scheme (IBE).

This ushered in a new area of cryptography research to which Boneh’s contributions have been central. Pairing-based cryptography makes security mechanisms easier to use and deploy, and improves computer security to keep data, devices and critical systems safe, private and accessible.

The ACM-Infosys Foundation Award recognizes the finest recent innovations by young scientists and system developers in the computing field. An endowment from the Infosys Foundation provides financial support for the $175,000 annual award. ACM will present the ACM Infosys Foundation Award at its annual awards banquet on June 20 in San Francisco. 

ACM President Alexander L. Wolf said, “Boneh’s work on pairing functions and their application to identity-based encryption has revolutionized cryptography. He has added greatly to our understanding of important problems underlying modern cryptography systems. Boneh has produced new directions and given the field a fresh start.”

Dr. Vishal Sikka, CEO and Managing Director, Infosys, said, “Boneh has helped forge connections between academic and commercial cryptography, helping improve commercial products while increasing the relevance of academic research. His innovations made foundational contributions to both theoretical cryptography and cybersecurity.”

Boneh pioneered the use of new computational problems based on pairings to solve a broad range of problems in cryptography. This approach, called pairing-based cryptography, relies on complex problems arising from algebraic geometry (bilinear maps based on elliptic curves). Pairing-based cryptography has had tremendous academic and commercial impact.

Boneh demonstrated how pairings could be used to solve long-standing open problems in cryptography. Pairing-based cryptography, now amainstream tool in cryptography, has generated a large volume of research activity showing entirely new capabilities as well as solutions that are superior in functionality to ones already in use.

Identity-based encryption is a type of public-key encryption in which any arbitrary string (such as a user’s email address) can be used as a public key, enabling data to be protected without the need for long, randomly generated keys or certificates. Today, there are numerous standards for IBE based on Boneh’s work, including IEEE P1363.3 and several IETF RFCs.

In addition to pairing-based cryptography, Boneh developed cryptosystems with novel properties, mechanisms for enhancing Web security and security for mobile devices. He developed new privacy tools, contributed to the study of cryptographic watermarking and runs a popular MOOC on cryptography.

HDFC Bank, ICICI cut FD rates

HDFC Bank has cut its rates on fixed deposits of over Rs 5 crore and above effective from Sunday

ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank have cut rates by up to 25 basis points for specific fixed deposit schemes, according to media report.

ICICI Bank has cut rates for deposits of over Rs 1 crore by 25bps effective Monday. Fixed deposit rate of 121-150 days' maturity has been revised to 8% from 8.25% earlier.

Term deposit rate of ICICI for 61-90 days on fixed deposits of over Rs 5 crore and above has also been cut to 8% from 8.25%. Similarly, for term deposit of 91-120 days, the interest rate is 8%.

HDFC Bank has also cut its rates on fixed deposits of over Rs 5 crore and above effective from Sunday.

Indonesia's Mutual Fund Industry targets will be hard to meet: Cerulli

Cerulli sees OJK's moves as positive for the mutual fund landscape in the country. While the 2017 targets will be hard to meet, working toward them will certainly be beneficial for the industry in the long run. 

Indonesia has set bold targets for its mutual fund industry-seven million investors and assets under management (AUM) of IDR1 quadrillion (US$75.5 billion) by 2017.

On the surface, these seem to be realistic targets. Indonesia has the fourth-largest population in the world and has a strongly growing middle class. However, beneath these headline numbers, there is more sobering data.

Out of a population of 250 million, fewer than 300,000 are mutual fund investors. Further, mutual fund industry data suggest that the industry is largely dominated by institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs). This is because, with total AUM of about IDR231.4 trillion at end-2014, each investor holds an average of IDR0.9 billion (US$69,000) of mutual funds.

To achieve its targets, Indonesia's Financial Services Authority (OJK) has introduced, or is expected to introduce, initiatives that promote mutual funds to the mass retail public.

These include lowering minimum investment levels to help lower-income investors enter the market, as well as actively pushing for mutual fund road shows in office buildings, shopping centers, and universities. OJK has also begun to loosen restrictions on overseas investments for mutual funds (currently capped at 15% of a portfolio), and the initiative will start with Shariah-compliant funds.

Cerulli reckons it will be a challenging task for Indonesia to meet its targets by 2017. Indonesians have been spoiled by the high interest rates offered by savings accounts in banks. Even HNWIs put the bulk of their money in savings accounts. The key challenge will therefore be to change this mindset-that is, to convert savers to investors.

Nonetheless, Cerulli sees OJK's moves as positive for the mutual fund landscape in the country. While the 2017 targets will be hard to meet, working toward them will certainly be beneficial for the industry in the long run. 

Customers of private banks will now have to pay extra to avail of the bank's services

Banks are repeatedly asking their customers to furnish them with correct information on their email id, mobile number and address, so that customers can receive timely notifications.

Leading private banks like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank have decided to hike service charges from next month. They have already started intimating customers, through their websites, on changes in their service charges, with effect from April 1, 2015.

ICICI Bank will now charge Rs 350 per month from April 1, instead of Rs 250 per month, on the non-maintenance of minimum monthly average balance (MAB) in savings account, of above Rs 5,000 but below Rs 10,000, for metro and urban locations. In case your minimum monthly average balance of less than Rs 5,000, as a customer, you will be charged Rs 450 per month instead of Rs 350, from April 1 onwards. At the same time, customers in semi-urban locations will be charged Rs Rs 300 per month as against the earlier Rs 250 per month, on the non-maintenance of minimum monthly average balance in savings account of above Rs 2,500 and above Rs 5,000 and Rs 400 per month if the minimum monthly average balance in savings account is less than Rs 2,500, from the earlier Rs 350 per month.

The bank in its website stated, “In the event of non-maintenance of minimum MAB, the bank will notify the customer by SMS or email or letter that in the event of the minimum balance not being restored in the account in the subsequent month, non-maintenance of MAB charges will be applicable. In case the customer has not maintained MAB for any consecutive month, non-maintenance of MAB charges shall be applicable for all consecutive months. The Bank will notify the customer in the initial month only in case of non-maintenance of MAB in consecutive months.”

In case of HDFC Bank, its customers will have to pay Rs 75 for additional cheque book of 25 leaves. Kotak Mahindra Bank too has stated on its website that there will be an upward revision in its charges, depending on the type of account and balance, for customers.

“In the event of a default in maintenance of Average Quarterly Balance (AQB) as agreed to between the bank and customer for the quarter, the bank will notify the customer clearly of the default and that the AQB for the account has to be met in the subsequent quarter (referred to as ‘notice quarter’) else the NMC (non maintenance charges) for both the ‘default quarter’ and ‘notice quarter’ will be recovered,” Kotak Mahindra Bank said.

Banks are repeatedly asking their customers to furnish them with correct information on their email id, mobile number and address, so that customers can receive timely notifications.

In November 2014, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had asked banks to inform customers on the penalties for MAB. The RBI, in its notification, has clearly stated that banks will have to alert customers by way of SMS, email or a letter that in the event of the minimum balance not being restored in the account within a month from the date of notice, penal charges will be applicable.

“In case the minimum balance is not restored within a reasonable period, which shall not be less than one month from the date of notice of shortfall, penal charges may be recovered under intimation to the account holder,” it added.

Nifty above 8,500 levels

The broader market is out-performing the CNX Nifty index. The Midcap and Smallcap indices have gained 0.5 per cent each at 12,996 and 5,614, respectively.

Following monster ride of more than 500-point yesterday and mirroring strong global markets, the market has started the day on a firm note.

The BSE Sensex opened higher by almost 100-odd points at 28,070 and the NSE Nifty gained 35 points at 8,527.

At 9:30 AM, the S&P BSE Sensex is trading at 28,067 up 91 points, while NSE Nifty is trading at 8,513 up 21 points.
The broader market is out-performing the CNX Nifty index. The Midcap and Smallcap indices have gained 0.5 per cent each at 12,996 and 5,614, respectively.

Among sectors, the CNX Metal index has spurted 1.3 per cent at 2,358. The Pharma, Auto, Realty and Energy indices are the other notable gainers.

On the other hand, the FMCG index has declined 0.2 per cent at 19,827. The PSU Bank and Bank Nifty indices are also down 0.2 per cent each.

Sesa Sterlite and Dr. Reddy's are the top gainers in the Nifty space, the stock have surged almost 2 per cent each at Rs. 192 and Rs. 3,490, respectively.

Infosys, Reliance, NMDC, BPCL, Coal India, Tata Power, Cairn India and Lupin are the other significant gainers.

On the other hand, Ultratech Cement has slipped 1.5 per cent at Rs. 2,901. NTPC, ITC and ONGC have also dropped over a per cent each. 

SBI to divest 10% stake in SBI Life

The Executive Committee of the Central Board of SBI has authorised divestment of the bank's stake in SBI Life Insurance by 10% 

State Bank of India has informed BSE that the Executive Committee of the Central Board (ECCB) has on March 30, 2015 authorised divestment of SBI's stake in SBI Life Insurance Co Ltd by up to 10%.

SBI recently said, “The ECCB decided to initiate the necessary action as per JV (joint venture) agreement for dilution of SBI’s stake in SBI General Insurance from 76% to 51% with corresponding increase of stake of IAG from 26% to 49%, including appointment of a valuer to facilitate valuation and price discovery.”


Earlier this month, Parliament had passed the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2015 which seeks to increase foreign investment in private sector companies to 49 percent from existing 26 percent, among other things.

The proposal to increase stake comes in the backdrop of capital requirement of the company