New Delhi, September 16
Home, auto and corporate loans are likely to become expensive, with the RBI today raising key short-term lending and borrowing rates by 0.25 and 0.50 percentage points, respectively, to combat inflation.

In its maiden mid-quarterly monetary policy review, the central bank upped repo, under which it lends short-term funds to banks, to six per cent and reverse repo, the short-term borrowing mechanism, to five per cent.

The hike in the policy rates, the fifth this year, to cool inflation that is hovering at 8.5 per cent may lead to an increase in commercial lending and deposit rates.

"In early October, interest rates could be revised and chances are there it could be revised upwards," state-run Bank of Baroda's Executive Director R K Bakshi said.

Bankers said they will hold on to the rates till September 30, which is the half yearly closing of the banks.

High interest rates could temper demand for loans and thus curtail consumption, while on the other hand fixed deposits could earn better returns. The government expects inflation to cool to six per cent by December.

"Rate of interest may have to go up. Pressure is there to increase rates in the near term," Bank of Maharashtra CMD Allen Pereira said.

Short-term funds would get little costlier and there is possibility that the short-term (deposit) rates could also go up in the future, bankers said.

Central Bank of India CMD S Sridhar said, "Bankers will adopt a calibrated approach. The examination of interest rates is on cards as cost of funds for banks is increasing."

However, a few bankers ruled out increase from October 1 as they will wait for further policy action of RBI.

"EMIs are not going to go up from October 1. The quarter percentage increase in policy rates were expected. Further rate hikes by bank will depend on the next policy review," HDFC Chief Executive Keki Mistry said.

He said a further increase in rate in the second quarter review in November could lead to higher rates.

Following an identical hike in repo and reverse repo rates in July, 40 banks raised deposit rates and 29 lending rates.

The RBI too wants deposit rates to go up as there is a need to make the real interest rates, the difference between inflation and deposit rate, positive. "...real interest rates need to move in the direction of encouraging bank deposits", the central bank said.

Industry chamber Ficci also expressed the fear that rising interest rates would hit business.

"Increasing repo rate is another signal of rising the cost of borrowing...hopefully it is the last such...restrictive action towards growth. We hope to see this restrictive policy eased in the next round", said Ficci secretary-general Amit Mitra. — PTI

New Delhi, September 16
Costlier essentials pushed up food inflation to 15.10 per cent in early September as rains disrupted supplies and the new composition of wholesale price index took effect, vindicating RBI's move today to tighten its lending and borrowing rates.

Inflation during the week ended September 4 is not strictly comparable with the previous week's figure of 11.47 per cent, as it was calculated on a new series based on 2004-05 prices with different weightage assigned to food items in the updated index.

In the corresponding week last year, food inflation was 14.64 per cent, as calculated under the new series.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, meanwhile, that inflationary pressures are still there in the system.

On yearly basis, cereals prices rose by 7.16 per cent driven mainly by higher prices of pulses, rice and wheat, compared to the same period last year.

Economists also attributed rise in inflation to new series against the old one, which was based on 1993-94 prices. — PTI

Mumbai, September 16
Cairn India, which is in the process of being taken over by Vedanta, today said it has appointed a two-member committee of its independent directors to look into the interests of its minority shareholders. The two independent directors, Omkar Goswami and Ed Story, will interact with shareholders in discussions with SEBI, the company’s chairman Bill Gammell told reporters after the AGM of the company.

Vedanta, which is buying the majority stake in Cairn India from the UK-based Cairn Energy, is paying Rs 405 per share, including a non-competing fee of Rs 50 per share. However, Vedanta’s Indian arm Sesa Goa will pay Rs 355 per share for 20 per cent of the stake in Cairn India. Institutional shareholders, including mutual funds, have raised objections to this.

"We believe it was important to have an independent committee of the board that the shareholders could talk to in any discussions that may relate to the SEBI and different pricing based on our receiving an additional price for a non-compete within India," Gammell said.

The SEBI, which is yet to approve the deal, is said to be opposed to the idea of a non-compete fee to Cairn Energy.

However, Gammell hoped that the deal would close at the end of this year.

Earlier, Gammell told shareholders that output from Cairn India’s Rajasthan oil fields could go up to 2,40,000 barrels of oil per day from the current level of 125,000 bopd. This would place the oil field on par with ONGC’s Bombay High oil fields, according to Gammell.

Mumbai, September 16
With a view to making trading in stocks simpler and easier, the Bombay Stock Exchange has invited broker-members to register with its wireless platform that will allow investors to place buy or sell orders using mobile phones.

The guidelines for wireless trading follows an August 27 circular by market regulator SEBI. The National Stock Exchange has already started trial trading via wireless technology for its members.

The facility will enable any registered broker or a client to trade from anywhere in the country to trade through their mobile phones. Clients can place orders, view positions and trade from anywhere in the country, said a person familiar with the matter. As per the BSE guidelines, the trading members of the bourse will have to submit an application that will be followed by a system audit.

Only on fulfilment of the requirements mentioned in the Sebi/BSE circulars, permission for commencing securities trading using wireless technology would be granted, it said. Once the exchange grants the approval, a member can start providing this mobile trading facility to clients.

Last month, market regulator SEBI had issued necessary guidelines for providing securities trading using wireless technology which includes devices such as mobile phone and laptops with data card.

Last week, an NSE official had said that the exchange is gearing up to launch trading over mobile phones through nearly 800 registered brokers in early October. — PTI 

Chandigarh, September 16
With curtains drawing on the unit- linked insurance plans (ULIPs) by Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), the index funds are catching the fancy of investors.

With the Sensex zooming past 19,000-mark earlier this week and Nifty at over 5,800, retail investors are getting lured by the various index funds by the fund houses. After launching index funds, which replicate the underlying index with 'passive' management, fund houses are now trying their hands at Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).

No wonder that more and more mutual fund companies are launching these funds. In the past few months, a fairly good number of index funds have been launched. Taurus Mutual Fund launched Taurus Index Fund; HDFC Mutual Fund introduced the passively-managed Sensex Plus Plan, IDFC Mutual Fund introduced its IDFC Nifty Fund in April 2010 and in May 2010, IDBI Asset Management Company (AMC) earlier launched IDBI Nifty Index Fund and Nifty Junior Fund earlier this month. Even ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund also floated a Nifty Junior Index Fund in June. Reliance MF, too, has come out with a Nifty Index Mutual Fund to cater to the conservative customers. Similarly, over 20 ETFs have been launched in the recent past.

“Since these are liquid funds and are relatively risk-free, people are getting attracted to these index and ETFs. Since 80 per cent of the money in these funds is invested in either the 30 scrips comprising the Sensex or the 50 scrips comprising the Nifty, the assets under management (AUM) of ETFs (including gold ETFs) stood at Rs 3,504 crore as on July 2010. During July 2010, ETFs saw net inflows of Rs 530 crore,” said Krishnamurthy Vijayan, CEO, IDBI Asset Management.

Amitabh Nijhawan, state head, Fortune Equity Brokers, too, said that Nifty has risen by eight per cent during this month itself, which is attracting more and more people to the index funds and ETFs.

An index fund or index tracker is a collective investment scheme (usually a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund) that aims to replicate the movements of an index of a specific financial market, or a set of rules of ownership that are held constant, regardless of market conditions. This fund closely tracks the stocks represented in the S&P CNX Nifty or the Sensex.

BRIEFLY

Airtel SMS pack
Chandigarh: Bharti Airtel on Thursday announced the launch of value SMS Pack exclusively for its Haryana pre-paid customers. Priced at Rs 74, the SMS Pack RC 74 (Easy Recharge) allows customers to send 350 local and national SMSes every day for 60 days. — TNS

Venus Remedies gets EU patent
Chandigarh: Venus Remedies has got the European Union patent for its researched anti-infection product “Sulbactomax”. The patent granted by European Patent organization (EPO) will cover the entire EU, including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. Sulbactomax, an innovative product of Venus, is capable of replacing a larger share of ceftriaxone market, which is the preferred antibiotic till now. — TNS

Compact Disc India
Chandigarh: Forbes Asia Editors have selected Chandigarh-based Compact Disc India Ltd. as one of the “Best Under A Billion” companies. Forbes Asia picked 200 companies out of a universe of nearly 13,000 Asia Pacific’s small and mid-size listed companies, looking at their profitability, growth, modest indebtedness, future prospects, actively traded shares and sales. — TNS

Domestic air passenger traffic up
New Delhi: Continuing its upward trend, domestic air passenger traffic in India rose by over 19 per cent between January and August compared to the same period last year. Passengers carried by domestic airlines in this period was 339.09 lakh compared with 284.24 lakh in the same period in 2009, registering a growth of 19.3 per cent, official figures released showed on Thursday.— PTI