Rupee weakens
Mumbai: The rupee weakened by almost two paise due to RBI's buying in the forex market. The home currency opened at 40.46, touched an intra-day low of 40.49 and finally closed at 40.45, against the previous day's close of 40.43.

Dealers said RBI would like to restrict the rupee in the range of 40.60-40.70.
In forwards, the six-month premia closed at 2.48 per cent (2.28 per cent) and the 12-month ended at 2.37 per cent (2.27 per cent).

Bonds: Bond yields were almost unchanged on Friday.

The yield on the 10-year paper ended at 8.007 per cent against the previous close of 8.01 per cent. The total traded volumes on the order matching system were at Rs7,330 crore (Rs10,380 crore).

G-secs: The 7.49 per cent 10-year-2017 paper opened at Rs96.40 (8.03 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs96.52 (8.007 per cent YTM) against the previous close of Rs96.53 (8.01 per cent YTM).

The 8.33 per cent 2036 paper opened at Rs99.60 (8.37 per cent YTM) and closed at Rs99 (8.42 per cent YTM) against the previous close of Rs99.55 (8.37 per cent YTM).

Call rates: The inter-bank call rates closed at 0.2-0.4 per cent on Friday.

Reverse repo: In the first one-day reverse repo auction, RBI received 39 bids for Rs55,325 crore while it accepted Rs 1,998 crore. There was no repo bid in the first one-day auction.

The CBLO market saw 252 trades aggregating Rs17,672.7 crore in the 0.01-1 per cent range.
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ICICI Bank cuts floating home loan rates by 0.5 pc
Mumbai: ICICI Bank has cut interest rates on floating rate home loans below Rs20 lakh by 50 basis points for new customers. The effective rate of interest will be 11.50 pc against 12 pc on loans of Rs20 lakh and above.

The decision is part of the differential pricing banks are introducing for home loans that qualify for priority sector, after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reduced the risk weight for capital allocation on home loans below Rs20 lakh to 50 pc from 75 pc in its annual policy statement.

ICICI Bank's home loan portfolio on March 31, 2007 was around Rs63,500 crore, of which half the loans were below Rs20 lakh. ICICI Bank has around 800,000 home loan customers and the average loan size is Rs10 lakh. Three years ago, the average ticket size of a home loan at the bank was Rs5 lakh.
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ICICI Bank to raise $1.5bn from overseas banks
Mumbai: ICICI Bank is planning to borrow $1.5 billion from banks overseas.
This is the largest loan ever raised by an Indian bank from abroad.

Vishakha Mulye, chief financial officer, ICICI Group said the proposed issue will be double the yen issue earlier this year, which was also the largest by an Indian bank.

The bank has just raised over Rs20,000 crore through a follow-on public offer and and American depository receipt (ADR) issue.
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Oriental Insurance net jumps 75 pc
New Delhi: Oriental Insurance Company has reported a 75.15 per cent jump in net profit to Rs497.27 crore for the financial year ended March 31, 2007 from Rs283.91 crore in 2005-06 fiscal.

The company said the rise in net profit was a result of detariffing of prices on insurance products which came into effect from January this year. The jump is also a result of the rise in business in certain sectors and cut in losses on motor insurance.

The company has reported a reduction of 0.66 per cent in the overall net incurred claim ratio in 2006-07 compared to 2005-06. The net incurred claim ratio in motor own damage decreased from 48.36 per cent in 2005-06 to 46.16 per cent in 2006-07. The net incurred claim ratio in motor third party also fell from 180.11 per cent to 170.39 per cent. However, the claim ratio increased from 118.23 per cent to 119.4 per cent.
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IFCI net profit at Rs 246.8 cr
New Delhi: IFCI has reported a net profit of Rs246.86 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2007 on net sales of Rs349.95 crore. This standalone result for the quarter was stated in a communication sent by the company to the National Stock Exchange. IFCI had recorded a net loss of Rs15.61 crore on net sales of Rs252.01 crore in the same period last year.
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