RBI wants to cut CRR to 3%
Mumbai: The Reserve bank of India will seek to reduce the cash reserve ratio to 3 per cent. This was stated by Y.V. Reddy, the central bank’s deputy governor, at a seminar. The RBI has been wanting to cut the cash reserve ratio to this level to conform to banking sector reforms of the government. As part of this policy, it had reduced the cash reserve ratio from 10 per cent to 9 per cent earlier as a result of which nearly Rs 7000 crore was released into the banking system.
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Federal Bank plans e-com, insurance foray
Kochi: Federal Bank, one of the old generation private banks, is entering e-commerce and insurance marketing businesses. The bank’s chairman, K.P. Padmakumar, said the bank will interconnect its branches and introduce "any-where" banking in Bangalore sometime in the second week of January 2000. The facility will then be extended to branches in all the metros and some of the major cities later in the year, he added. The Alwaye, Kerala-headquartered  bank has also taken steps to introduce Internet banking and enter e-commerce once the government’s policy in this regard is in place. The bank is also talking to some leading insurance companies abroad to distribute their insurance products in the country.

Mr Padmakumar said the financial services subsidiary of the bank, FedBank Financial Services, will be merged with the bank as part of the consolidation programme.
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3 professional institutes form apex body
Mumbai: Three professional institutions in India, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, the Institute of Company Secretaries of India and the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India, have decided to come together to function under a common roof. The three institutions have set up a coordination committee to evolve a method under which they will function in a unified manner. The three institutes will prepare individual approach papers and a common approach paper will be presented to the government sometime in April 2000. The three institutes are set up under different acts of Parliament. A multi-disciplinary practice, where partnerships between members of the three institutes would be permitted, had been agreed earlier.
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