Trai, DoT at loggerheads again
New Delhi: The Telecom Authority of India has recommended that long distance telephony should be opened up for private participation. However, the department of telecommunications says the proposal is not acceptable to it.  Trai says private parties willing to take up a national licence and pay Rs 500 crore as entry fee and a small part of their revenue as annual licence fee should be allowed to enter long distance services.

The regulator also stipulates that the applicant must have a combined net worth of more than Rs 2,500 crore and experience in the business. As soon as the Trai recommendations were released, DoT reacted saying only two private operators apart from the DoT should be allowed entry into long distance telephony.
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Pharma, agri products out of patentable list
New Delhi: The government is understood to have decided to exclude pharmaceutical products and agri products from the list of patentable items. It will bring in amendments to this effect in the Patents Act. Earlier, the government was of the view that the Patents Act should not be amended frequently as it would slow down the reform process. It now thinks that inclusion of these two items should not be covered by patents and the act should be amended accordingly. It believes that this will be the logical way to speed up the reform process and bring in foreign direct investments in these sectors.
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Allahabad Bank plans banking boutiques
Calcutta: Allahabad Bank is planning to set up a number of 'retail boutiques' to sell its personal banking and consumer finance products. Separate outlets manned by select trained personnel will come up in the bank’s branches in the first week of January 2000, the bank said.

These sales outlets will have separate authority and discretionary powers, and will maintain different set of accounts. They will focus on housing finance, car loans, consumer durable loans and other personal loan products. The bank will also enter into institutional tie-ups for organisations to make use of the facilitates for its employees.
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2 new schemes from Indian Bank
Chennai: Indian Bank has launched Advantage Account and Health Plus Savings Scheme. The Advantage Account is a current account scheme to suit high value business transactions of customers. The scheme will offer services like at par demand drafts, faster collection of cheques, drawing against uncleared effects, instant credits on cheques and electronic funds transfer.

The Health Plus Savings Scheme will offer account holders and their family members discounts from leading hospitals and nursing homes in Chennai.
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ING backs out of French bank takeover bid
Paris: Dutch banking firm ING has withdrawn its 10.1 billion euro offer for French bank CCF. The Dutch group, which had kept the offer under wraps, pulled out as CCF made the offer public and said it had not taken a stand on the takeover bid from its biggest shareholder.

ING said it is keeping its options open. Analysts believe ING wants CCF to reveal other bidders.
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