SME Segment to Figure High on Federal Bank’s Agenda

Chennai,Mar,19.For the newly appointed Managing Director and CEO of Federal Bank, Mr Shyam Srinivasan, the SME segment is the immediate priority as he, buoyed by the bank’s solid footprints outside India, sets out to exploit opportunities for doing business matching .

Out of its 750 branches, Federal bank has identified 114 branches as SME and is going to establish regional commercial hubs that will have committed teams of sales executives who will aggressively generate business.

The underleveraged treasury products will be given prime attention. In order to secure full value for the SMEs domestic as well as international products will have to be rolled out, as several of the SMEs do cross-border transactions. The under-marketed foreign exchange products also need to be spotlighted. Given that several of the SMEs are looking beyond Indian shores, Federal Bank should be leveraging its relationship and scaling up its capability.

Federal Bank expects to boost the risk management by setting up 13 regional credit hubs. The bank already enjoys good technology platform like Finacle, CBS and also has the Internet and mobile banking.

Bankers Breathe Easily as Warning of Report to CIB Helps Defaulters Mend Their Ways

Mumbai, Mar,19.It would seem that the defaulters would now have to mend their ways and pay up or they could end up in the credit bureau’s negative list which could well jeopardize their future relationship with other banks that would refuse entertaining such individuals as have a bad credit history. Not only have a lot of banks breathed a sigh of relief, as well they might, some of them have actually got the defaulters to cough up their dues, as the warning of a possible report to the Credit Information Bureau works like a charm, convincing the defaulters to refrain from defaulting on their payments.

The gambit has apparently paid off as the banks try this as a first resort before appealing to the debt recovery tribunal or taking refuge in Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest (SARFAESI) Act, 2002.

The provisions of the Credit Information Companies (Regulation) Act, 2005 make it mandatory for all credit institutions including banks and housing finance companies to become a member of at least one credit information company (to name a few, Credit Information Bureau (India) Ltd, Experian Credit Information Company of India Pvt Ltd and Equifax Credit Information Services Pvt Ltd) with whom they would be sharing their credit data.

Sugar Prices May Head North This Month

Jakarta, Mar,19. Sugar prices may be driven north this month on the back of spiraling international prices and decreasing domestic supplies. It is typical of sugar prices to zoom northward when the consumption and demand of sugar takes off.

The sugar price may well touch US$800 per ton by December this year. At that point in time the public may have to pay about Rp 11500 for 1 Kg of sugar. If sugar prices creep up to that high, the price of imported sugar may well touch Rp 11500 per Kg, or $1.17 per Kg. A statement to this effect was made by Indonesian Sugar and Flour Traders Association head Natsir Mansyur.

The Indonesian government set a production target of 2.7 million tons of sugar for this month.However there is little hope of the national production of sugar to reach the targeted level, Natsir opined. The national production of sugar could go only as far as 2 million tons, a pessimistic Natsir informed.

It has been seen that sugar prices spiral north during Christmas season and the New Year’s as global consumption and demand of sugar during the festive season experience a surge. To meet domestic demand and increased consumption, increased domestic production as well as import of sugar assumes significance.

Let Egypt Be a Lesson and Allow People to Protest, White House Spokesman Tells Iran

Mar,19, Middle East. Close on the heels of the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation following palpably strong mass protests over a few weeks in Egypt, the White House has upped the ante in urging the Iranian government to allow the Iranian people to exercise right of peaceful assembly and protests and allow them unqualified access to global media and the Internet that the current regime has blocked. A statement to this effect was made by White House spokesman Robert Gibbs who accused the current Iranian regime of conducting arrests and blocking international media coverage of the developments in Egypt.

On Friday, the White House spokesman also termed as “empty talk” the Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi’s statement in Tehran in which he congratulated the Egyptian people for the change in regime. The US alleged the Iranian regime with blocking international media coverage of the recent developments in Egypt as it was "scared of the will of its people." The White House spokesman was alluding to the widespread demonstrations in Tehran in 2009 in support of reform that had been quelled by often violent crackdowns.

Meanwhile the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) expressed its concern on Friday over the jamming of its Persian service by the Iranian government owing to its coverage of the events that unfolded in Egypt. The BBC also insinuated that the interruptions in the Persian service covering the political turmoil in the Egypt had begun late Thursday.

Commenting on the regime-change in Egypt, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad affirmed that after Hosni Mubarak, "there would be a new Middle East in which there would neither be a place for the United States nor the Zionist regime" of Israel.

The US president Obama lauded the Egyptian protesters and their peaceful demonstrations that have swept the nation during a fortnight. The US president said, “Over the last few weeks, the wheel of history turned at a blinding pace."

As Mubarak’s thirty-year rule came to an end with the announcement to this effect made by Vice President Omar Suleiman, the Egyptians erupted into whoops of cheers and celebration with the celebrations going late into the night. The Egyptians flocked into Cairo's Tahrir Square in celebratory mood, where they danced, waved flags and saw the fireworks.

Assange Extradition Hearing Concludes,

Info Wire

Mar,19, London. WikiLeaks founder Julian Paul Assange who is facing charges of sexual misconduct with two Swedish women and is contesting deportation to Stockholm for questioning and prosecution will have to wait till February 24 when the verdict is expected to be delivered by district judge Howard Riddle as this week’s two-and-a-half day extradition hearing came to a close on Friday.

Clare Montgomery representing Swedish prosecutors pointed out that Assnge’s deportation to Sweden was crucial for questioning in connection with charges leveled against him by two Swedish women with whom Assagne allegedly had nonconsensual and unprotected sex and indicated that DNA samples might be needed. This was contested by Assange’s defense counsel Geoffrey Robertson who appealed for adjournment in the view of “toxic atmosphere” created in Sweden post Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s outbursts against Assange calling him “public enemy number one in Sweden''. Robertson termed it “an intolerable development” affirming that there was no chance his client would get a fair trial in Sweden. His appeal was rejected by the district judge.

The fate of the 39-year Nobel Peace Prize nominee and founder of whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, a conduit for news leaks, Assange remains in limbo as regardless of the ruling by a South London Magistrate’s court, the losing party will in all probability move the high court in the UK.

Despite being perceived as a highly controversial figure world over Assange has managed to garner a number of awards and nominations till now including the 2009 Amnesty International Media Award for publishing material about extrajudicial killings in Kenya. He was the Readers' Choice for Time magazine's 2010 Person of the Year. Another in his armory of nominations is Assange’s nomination for this year’s Nobel’s Peace Prize.

Ever since founding WikiLeaks in 2006, Assange has left behind many a milestone, be it publishing material about Kenyan extrajudicial killings or unearthing vital information about Church of Scientology manuals, African toxic waste dumping and Guantanamo Bay procedures. Assange’s brand of investigative journalism and internet activism has earned him many admirers as well as detractors. Undeterred by the criticism, WikiLeaks and its five media partners started publishing secret US diplomatic cables on 28 November 2010. The year 2010 also saw the WikiLeaks spokesman publish classified details of the US involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.