Banking news update

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FinMin officials to meet PSB CEOs next week to chart out capital infusion plans: The government is exploring ways to infuse higher capital in public sector banks after the central bank said last week that Rs 7,940 crore capital infusion wasn't good enough. Senior officials from the finance ministry will be meeting CEOs of these banks next week to get a sense of their capital needs and consider alternative ways of infusing capital. (ET)

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Consensus eludes banks on debt restructuring: In April, two large banks called a meeting of the chief executives of 24 banks that together have an exposure, fund as well as non-fund based, of Rs 50,000 crore to Essar Steel to discuss the loan restructuring proposal of the company. (BS)

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Call money rates fall to over two-week low: Call money rates fell to an over two-week low on Tuesday because of comfortable liquidity due to bond maturities earlier this month to the tune of nearly Rs 90,000 crore. The weighted average rate (WAR) call money rate stood at 6.96 per cent on Tuesday compared with Monday's 7.09 per cent. The WAR stood at 6.91 per cent on May 30, 2015. (BS)

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Rupee near 21-month low ahead of US Fed meet: Ahead of the start of the two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the rupee weakened to a 21-month low despite the intervention of RBI. The rupee might weaken further and touch 65 to a dollar if the the US Federal Reserve  sounds hawkish, said foreign exchange market dealers. (BS)

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Exports plunge 20% in May: Goods exports from India fell for the sixth straight month in May — by 20.19% to $22.34 billion — as the slowdown in China added to the woes of the already struggling global economy. Imports during the month were 16.52% lower, at $32.75 billion, mainly due to a sharp drop in the petroleum import bill. (BL)

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RuPay credit cards coming next year: RuPay, India’s own payment system floated by NPCI, is set to roll out RuPay Credit Cards in 2016. Till date, banks have issued 160 million RuPay debit cards. NPCI is aiming to touch every Indian by 2020 and thereby support the growth of retail electronic payments in India. (BL)

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ADB to raise annual lending to India by 50%: The Asian Development Bank would step up annual lending to India by 50% to $3-4 billion to support India’s new initiatives such as Make in India, Skill India, Clean India and smart city projects, during 2016 to 2018 from $2-3 billion now, its president Takehiko Nakao said. (FE)

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SBI to re-hire retired officers for non-core jobs: To overcome the knowledge and experience gap arising from the retirement of senior officers, SBI has drawn up a comprehensive policy to engage former officers. Former officers will be hired on short-term assignments in select areas, such as inspection and audit, advances, bad loans management, and legal counselling. (BL)

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Design your own loan with HDFC Bank: In probably a first of its kind ‘loan against shares’ (LAS) offering, HDFC Bank is allowing customers to design their own loans. The entire loan offering is digitised and is aimed at reducing the time taken for the loan approval and disbursement from four to eight days (across the industry) to 24 hours. (BL)

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HDFC Bank cuts base rate to 9.7%, matches SBI: HDFC Bank, the country’s second-largest private sector bank, has cut its base rate by 15 basis points (bps) to 9.70 per cent. The new rates came into effect on Monday. Base rate is the benchmark rate to which all loan rates are linked. (BS)

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IDFC plans to open bank branches in a mix of metros, backward areas: IDFC, which is targeting full-fledged debut as bank by October, today said it is working on a "binary strategy" that will entail opening branches in metros as well as backward districts of the country. The infra lender, which was granted an in-principle nod to start banking operations last year, is aiming to start with around 25 branches. (FE)

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Bahrain wants more Indian banks to play role of ‘investment house’: Eyeing higher Indian investment in the financial services sector, Bahrain expects more Indian banks to start operations in the Kingdom, preferably taking up an active role as regional ‘investment houses’. (FE)