Get ready to pay a fee for inter-bank transactions conducted through mobile phones from April 2011, as the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) intends to charge lenders Rs.0.25 per transaction from the next financial year. “NPCI will be providing services to member banks free of charge till March 31, 2011. Thereafter, a switching fee of Rs.0.25 per transaction will be levied by NPCI on member banks,” Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain …

The government has set up a high-level panel to review issues related to export incentives and slowdown in industrial output growth, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said Thursday. “I have set up a seven-member working group. It will do a comprehensive review of all the issues related to exports. It includes policy as well as institutional changes,” Sharma told reporters after the second meeting of the reconstituted Board of Trade here. …

The government will soon introduce a bill in parliament aimed at regulating micro finance institutions, Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena said Tuesday. “The Department of Financial Services proposes to introduce the Micro Finance (Development and Regulation) Bill, 2010 after taking into account the views of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Malegam Committee recommendations,” Meena said in a written reply to a question in the …

Axis Bank, the country’s fourth largest lender, Wednesday said it is to acquire investment banking and securities unit of Enam Financial, a closely held firm, in an all-stock transaction valued at Rs.2,067 crore. “We have done exchange of shares and are not walking away with any cash. Our entire balance sheet and network is getting transferred,” Vallabh Bansali, co-founder and chairman of Enam Financial Consultants, told reporters here. Enam shareholders …

The Israeli army plans to block several leading social networking websites, including Facebook and Twitter, for security concerns, an official said Tuesday. According to Xinhua, Gadi Abadi, head of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) intelligence corps information security department, said that computers in army bases and offices would be denied access to social networking sites, citing concern over the possible leakage of classified information onto …

Emaar MGF, the private developer of Commonwealth Games Village, Wednesday denied that the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) had confiscated its bank guarantee worth Rs.183 crore. The company said that the guarantee had only been extended till Dec 31 at the behest of the DDA. Emaar MGF’s clarification came after reports that the DDA had confiscated its bank guarantee on account of deficiencies in the village. “It is incorrectly being reported in …

Canara Bank said Wednesday its net profit rose 10.69 percent to Rs.1,007.88 billion in the second quarter of the current fiscal. The bank has posted a net profit of Rs.1007.88 crore for the quarter ended Sep 30, 2010 as compared to Rs.910.52 crore during the corresponding quarter last year, it said in a statement. The public sector lender’s total income increased to Rs.6,077.06 crore in the second quarter of fiscal 2010-11 from Rs.5,602.1 crore …

Non-banking finance company Magma Fincorp clocked a profit after tax (PAT) of Rs.26.36 crore in the second quarter (July-September) of 2010-11 compared to Rs.15.75 crore during the corresponding period last fiscal, a rise of 67 percent. “We have recorded 28 percent growth in disbursement and 67 percent growth in PAT,” Sanjay Chamria, vice chairman and managing director, told reporters here Tuesday. The net interest margin of the company was at …

Employee productivity is the lowest at the State Bank of India (SBI), the largest lender in India, according to statistics laid out in a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) analysis on domestic and foreign banks. The business brought in by each employee of SBI and its associates during 2009-10 stood at Rs.7.35 crore, much less than the average of all scheduled commercial banks at Rs.8.73 crore, according to the RBI’s “A Profile of Banks.” SBI and its associates …

Shivani Anand, 28, was mystified when she didn’t receive transaction alerts after swiping her credit card in a shopping spree. A concerned Shivani called up her bank’s (ICICI) helpline, only to find out she would not be getting any updates or alerts from the bank on her transactions till Sep 30. The bank’s automated voice response system informed customers that they would not be receiving any alerts in the in the wake of the government banning …