Global Trust in search of partner
Hyderabad: Global Trust Bank wants a foreign partner. It is prepared to give away 20 per cent of its equity to a foreign bank with a sound technological base.

The bank’s current technical partners, Hambrechst & Quist of the US and TA Enterprise of Malaysia, have divested their stakes in the bank recently. It is rumoured that the bank is in talks with Standard Chartered Bank. Global Trust Bank has an equity of Rs 104 crore and reserves of Rs 225 crore.
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RBF Nidhi closes branches
Chennai: RBF Nidhi of Chennai has closed down all its branches in the city, which has created confusion among the finance company’s 1.5 to 2 lakh investors. Senior police officials said all five branches of the company have been closed down and complaints have been registered against the company.

The management has notified that the branches have been closed due to unavoidable circumstances. RBF Nidhi has a deposit base of around Rs 405 crore.
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Real time cheque clearance coming
New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India is planning to introduce real time clearance of cheques. It is talking to consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers for the project.

The system will take about a year to be in place and will be initially used for high value cheque clearances. RBI sources said this will mark the beginning of a new regulatory regime in the area of payment systems. At present high value cheques are cleared twice a day.
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Protests mar WTO inaugural meet
Seattle: Protestors won the inaugural day at the World Trade Organisation meeting as they disrupted the opening function for a considerable period of time. Protestors belonging to various groups, including trade unions and environmental organisations, surrounded the area, preventing the host, US trade representative Charlene Barshefsky, from reaching the venue.

The mayor of Seattle declared a state of emergency in the city and imposed a curfew in downtown Seattle. On several occasions the police had to intervene and use sticks, teargas shells and rubber bullets to disperse violent demonstrators.

At the ministerial meeting, which began behind schedule, India’s commerce minister Murasoli Maran reiterated the country’s strong opposition to the inclusion of non-trade issues in the agenda. He told the meeting that the multilateral system has been designed to deal with issues involving trade alone. He said India "resolutely rejects" any attempt to introduce labour standards in the WTO in one form or other. He was also equally firm on India’s rejection of any effort to provide a greater role for environmental issues.

Meanwhile, in Delhi, prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee allayed apprehensions over opposition allegations of a clandestine deal with the US on trade issues. The prime minister said India remained in its stated position of opposing a new round of trade negotiations. Mr Vajpayee told the Lok Sabha about the salient features of the Indian stand at the meet and said it is essentially opposed to a new round of negotiations, and to linking labour and environment and social clauses with trade.
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