On BSE, 1.62 lakh shares were traded in the counter as against an average daily volume of 81,841 shares in the past one quarter.

The stock hit a high of Rs 1690 and a low of Rs 1661.25 so far during the day. The stock hit a lifetime high of Rs 1836 on 8 December 2009 and a 52-week low of Rs 774 on 6 March 2009.

The large-cap banking scrip underperformed the market over the past one month till 12 January 2010, falling 4.75% as compared to the Sensex’s 1.77% rise. It had also underperformed the market in the past one quarter, declining 0.10% as compared to the Sensex’s return of 2.32%.

The bank’s equity capital is Rs 456.12 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

The current price of Rs 1675 discounts the bank’s Q2 September 2009 annualized EPS of Rs 64.34, by a PE multiple of 26.03.

HDFC Bank will announce its Q3 December 2009 results on 15 January 2010. The bank’s net profit rose 30.2% to Rs 687.46 crore on 7.9% increase in total income to Rs 4999.29 crore in Q2 September 2009 over Q2 September 2008.

HDFC Bank offers a wide range of services to the global corporate sector. The bank provides corporate banking and custodial services and is active in the treasury and capital markets. HDFC Bank also markets project advisory services and capital market products such as Global deposit receipts, Euro currency loans, and Euro currency bonds.

According to reports of The Age, these financial services will provide the customers with banking products of HSBC Australia along with enquiries on HSBC India.

“Australia has one of the fastest growing Indian communities in the world, numbering some 240,000, so this new service makes commercial sense,” Graham Heunis, head of personal financial services for HSBC in Australia, was quoted as saying in a statement.

“And non-resident Indians tend to maintain strong banking affiliations with India, so there’s a real demand from the Indian community in Australia for access to Indian financial services.”

A hike of 100 basis points in the statutory liquidity ratio, while maintaining status quo on all other policy rates and reserve ratios have been the key points of the half-yearly review of the policy conducted by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor D. Subbarao in Mumbai.

“As always, the Reserve Bank will endeavour to ensure price stability and anchor inflation expectations,” Governor Subbarao told the chief executives of commercial banks at the central bank’s headquarters in Mumbai.

“It bears emphasis that the Reserve Bank is mindful of its fundamental commitment to price stability. It will continue to monitor the price situation in its entirety and will take measures as warranted by the evolving macroeconomic conditions swiftly and effectively.”

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) slightly tightened its monetary policy by raising the statutory liquidity ratio by 100 basis points while retaining most policy rates, with signs of an industrial recovery providing the necessary cushion.

“We studied all arguments, for and against the easing of stimulus measures. The balance of judgement is to sequence the exit so that the recovery process is not hampered and inflation is anchored,” said Governor D. Subbarao at the central bank’s headquarters here.

It, however, removed emergency liquidity support measures by ending the repurchase facility for non-banking finance companies (NBFC), mutual funds and housing finance companies.

“RBI’s move to keep the repo as well as reverse repo rates unchanged was in the right direction,” said Chandrajit Banerjee, director general of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

“It is prudent to retain the monetary stimulus provided a few months ago, which along with the fiscal stimulus has helped in economic revival of the Indian economy,” Banerjee added.

“The decision to introduce a fourth category of NBFCs as ‘infrastructure NBFCs’ is a welcome move and has been one of the CII’s recommendations to facilitate infrastructure funding.”

The total income of the Bank stood at Rs.2,821 crore for the Q2 of this fiscal as against the Rs.2,527 crore registered during corresponding period last fiscal, recording a 12% YoY growth.

The bank has mentioned that the operation profit dipped by 5.2% to be notched at Rs.443 crore as against previous year’s Rs.458 crore.

“A decline of 17.3 percent YoY in net interest income to Rs.618 crore and an increase of 42 percent YoY in provisions to Rs.195 crore from Rs.138 crore year ago, reduced the net profit for the quarter,” the bank said in a statement later.

The new move allows people to use local currency credit cards for online transactions within the country.

Although these services are being introduced by the Bangladesh Bank on a small scale, it is seen as the first step toward full-fledged online banking.

It will enhance the use of e-commerce and online banking services, facilitating subscribers of all commercial banks in Bangladesh.

“Hassles are about to be over. Shoppers will no longer have to go to market spending hours in traffic jams. One does not need to stand in long queues to pay utility bills. All are now possible on the Internet,” The Daily Star said Tuesday.

The central bank issued a circular to all commercial banks, saying subscribers to Internet banking will now be able to pay utility bills online from customers’ accounts to billing accounts.

“This will create a revolution in e-commerce and online banking,” said Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman.

Online fund transfer between two accounts under the same name in the same bank will also be possible.

The circular mentioned that e-commerce-based transaction between buyers and sellers can also be done through Internet banking. Online transactions by credit card in local currency will also be possible.

“This is the first and the most significant step towards electronic transaction in the country,” Munir Hasan, consultant to the Access to Information (A2I) project under the Prime Minister’s Office, told the newspaper.

Vice Chairman of Association of Bankers Bangladesh Nurul Amin, also managing director of National Credit and Commerce Bank Ltd, said: “Banks need to be prepared for offering such services. Customisation and integration are necessary for this purpose.”

Security measures along with a legal framework need to be put in place to safeguard both customers and banks, he added.

“We collect payment manually from 300-400 clients every day. The system consumes huge time and money. Now we are ready to start online payment collection on a pilot basis. We were waiting for this to happen for quite long,” said Fahim Mashroor, chief executive officer of Bdjobs.com.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked these banks to scan all existing accounts and to ensure that none of the account holders are linked to any of the these terror groups.

In a letter to the chairmen and chief executives of such banks, the RBI also asked them to update their list of account-holders to check for such terror links and follow these guidelines when a person or an entity opens a new account.

“It should be ensured that names of the proposed customer does not appear in the list. Further, banks should scan all existing accounts to ensure that no account is held by or linked to any of the entities or individuals included in the list,” said the letter sent to the banks.

The central bank’s latest directive comes in the wake of a list of entities with terror links sent recently by the UN Security Council to India’s external affairs ministry. It has also been requested to all the banks to update their concerned list accordingly.

The UK Trade and Investment is a government organisation that helps the UK-based companies succeed in international markets.

The tie-up will provide training events and investment assistance to Indian firms looking at business opportunities in UK, a press release said.

”Through this initiative, we envision further awareness to the Indian businesses by means of knowledge and counselling sessions,” Bank Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Chanda Kochhar said.

The MOU signed today and valid for a period of two years, provides for collaboration in generating car loan business in the country among the clients of the two organisations.

While the primary point of sales would be HMIL dealers in the country, Indian Bank would extend as a preferred financier, car loans on attractive terms. All branches of Indian Bank in the country have been authorised to extend car loans under the Indian Bank-Hyundai Finance brand name.

The MOU was signed by Mr V A Somayajulu, General Manger, on behalf of the Bank and Mr R Sethuraman, Vice-President (Finance and Corporate Affairs) on behalf of HMIL.

“To increase the life of bank notes, the government has decided to introduce one billion (100 crore) pieces of polymer bank notes in Rs.10 denomination on trial basis”, said Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena in Lok Sabha.

“Polymer notes are being introduced where the incidence of counterfeiting is negligible”, Meena added.

H also mentioned that the procurement process of polymer notes has started. The finance ministry has mentioned that higher denomination polymer notes would be rolled out later, provided the trial is successful.