Barclays Global Retail Bank (GRB) India has launched a unique semi-fixed loan against property. These loans against property have a fixed interest rate for the first two years, after which the rate becomes variable for the rest of the tenure. This is an important step considering most loans against property have a variable rate of [...]

SBI Card launched mShop – a service to enable its customers shop from over 100 merchants across the country, with the help of their mobile phones. mShop is a mobile application that helps a SBI Card customer to make purchases and pay by SBI Card. Customers can download this application on their mobile phones and [...]

DSP BlackRock has launched yet another fund – DSP BlackRock World Mining fund – targeting energy sector, after DSPBR World Energy Fund. It is an open-ended fund-of-funds scheme which helps investors diversify their portfolio by investing in the world’s best mining companies. The scheme mainly invests in the BlackRock Global Funds (BGF) – World Mining [...]

HDFC Bank cut interest rates on used cars by 1.5 per cent, from 15 per cent to 13.5 per cent. Market experts hope that this move will encourage customers to buy used cars instead of new cars. In the previous month, the market saw new car rates falling to 10-11.5 per cent. In India, used [...]

Bank credit witnessed a 9.6 per cent rise at Rs. 23,147 cr during the fortnight ended Nov. 6. During this period, banks disbursed a total loan of Rs. 28,91,713 cr, an increase of Rs. 23,147 cr from the last fortnight figure. Previous fortnight ended October 23 saw a decline of Rs. 21,750 cr in bank [...]

Salman Khurshid, corporate affairs minister, launched an Internet-based e-voting platform to help shareholders cast their votes and thus participate in company decisions. The system, provided by CDSL Ventures, will allow swift, cost-effective and wide shareholder participation in a company’s decision-making process. There are about 3,000 listed companies and 15.8 million shareholders in the country. At [...]

The market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has asked mutual fund houses to join hands against errant companies and take them to task on behalf of harried shareholders. In the meeting with ICAI, officials from fund houses and investor associations, SEBI urged fund houses to play an active role in ensuring superior [...]

Fidelity Mutual Fund has launched an open-ended diversified equity fund – Fidelity India Value Fund. This is the sixth equity fund by the fund house which is looking to expand its equity fund offering. Fidelity India Value Fund will invest in Indian and international equities, especially undervalued stocks. It will allocate 80-100 per cent of [...]

Axis Mutual Fund has made ambitious plans to launch 8-10 fixed maturity plans (FMPs) over the next two months. “We plan to be ready with around eight-10 FMPs by January 2010. This is the season for double-indexation benefits and we want our investors to gain from it,” said Rajiv Anand, CEO of Axis Mutual Fund. [...]

Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund has declared a 15 per cent dividend under its scheme Sundaram BNP Paribas Select Mid Cap Fund. This is the third dividend declared on this scheme in the financial year 2009-10, earlier being on April 24, 2009 and Sept 04, 2009. The record date for distribution of dividend has been [...]