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Germany’s Deutsche Bank has earmarked Rs 685 crore for its Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC) business to be launched shortly. Deutsche obtained Reserve Bank approval for its NBFC business late last year and will be investing Rs 685 crore in this business, a source close to the development said here.

The bank is betting big on the Indian market and plans to pump in $1.5 billion (around Rs 5,700 crore) into its Indian operations this financial year. It is in the process of fine tuning its strategy for its NBFC business. Deutsche’s think-tank has identified India as one of its key global markets and in December pumped in $554 million (Rs 2,155 crore), taking its total capital outlay for the country this fiscal to nearly $1.5 billion.

Around Rs 1,470 crore will be utilised for its core banking operations, the source said, adding that the balance would be used for its NBFC and other business segments for which Deutsche has lined up big plans. Deutsche Bank’s managing director & chief executive officer, Mr Gunit Chadha had said at a recent banking conference that the bank was readying itself for a massive expansion in the country.

US banking giant Citigroup reported a 5.1 billion dollars net loss during the first quarter and said it would cut an additional 9,000 jobs as it struggles with bad bets on subprime mortgages. It was the second consecutive quarterly loss for the banking titan, heavily exposed to the subprime, or high-risk, mortgage crisis stemming from the worst US housing slump in decades and signs of recession in the world’s biggest economy.

But the first-quarter loss was almost half the prior quarter’s loss of 9.83 billion dollars, and coupled with cost-cutting measures such as job cuts Citigroup Inc., under its new chief executive Vikram Pandit, appears to be putting the credit crisis behind it, analysts said. Citigroup took 13.9 billion dollars in write-downs during the first quarter, the bank’s chief financial officer, Gary Crittenden, said in a conference call. Crittenden cited additional write-downs that had not appeared in a list of write-downs and the company’s earnings report, which AFP had tallied that list at approximately 12 billion dollars. Earnings per share were a negative 1.02 dollars, seven cents steeper than the loss that most analyst’s forecast.

Citigroup is now the US bank hardest hit by the subprime crisis that erupted in August, wreaking havoc on financial markets and leading to a credit squeeze that is stifling growth in the global economy. The bank has taken more than 30 billion dollars in write-downs since the crisis, more than investment bank Merrill Lynch, which reported a net loss of nearly two billion dollars and nine billion dollars in write-downs.

Citigroup CFO Crittenden said in the conference call that 9,000 jobs would be cut in the first quarter, most of them in its retail banking arm, and in addition to the 4,200 workforce reductions announced in the previous quarter. The bank had a workforce of about 370,000 at end-March. Citigroup said the first-quarter net loss was mainly driven by fixed-income results and higher consumer credit costs.

Visa, ICICI Bank and Elcom Systems Ltd on 17th April, announced the launch of the Visa eMarketplace, an online portal that connects sellers and buyers of commercial goods and services. Visa eMarketplace makes it possible for businesses in India to conduct the entire procurement and payment transaction electronically and efficiently over the internet using a Visa Purchasing Card. This is the first Visa eMarketplace service to be launched in Asia Pacific.

Santanu Mukherjee, country manager, South Asia, Visa International, said, “Visa eMarketplace is designed to be an efficient, seamless and transparent procurement system for the commercial and government sectors. We are proud to partner with ICICI Bank and Elcom to provide this service.” William Lock, Chairman, Elcom Systems Ltd added, “The combination of the Visa payment card with Elcom’s world-class eProcurement Platform improves the procurement process in any organization. Our technology powers some of the most successful eProcurement implementations in the world”.

Sachin Khandelwal, Head – Cards Product Group, ICICI Bank said, “In keeping with our tradition of innovation, ICICI Bank is the first bank in the Asia Pacific region to launch Visa eMarketplace for ICICI Bank’s Purchase Card customers. ICICI Bank Purchase Card and Visa eMarketplace are designed to offer corporates and government organizations a robust, transparent, more economical and secure procure-to-pay solution. Corporates and government departments can use Visa eMarketplace to make purchases online from their suppliers and use ICICI Bank Purchase Card to make payment.”

Visa eMarketplace offers a secure online option that builds on the existing Visa Purchasing Card platform. Sellers can give buyers easy access to their product catalogues while buyers can have better understanding and management of their inventories, for example, by providing purchase analysis to help in the planning of expenses. The records provided also help ensure detailed tracking for audit purposes. Core to Visa eMarketplace is the Visa Purchasing Card which is meant for low-value, high-volume purchase of non-personal goods and services.

Visa eMarketplace is an eProcurement service that does not require participating organizations to invest in hardware, software or continuous upgrades. Visa eMarketplace is a secure system that uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) data encryption to help ensure that information exchanged within Visa eMarketplace is encrypted to prevent unauthorized disclosure.

India through its explosive growth in mobile communications and by variety of wireless technology is aiming to reach 500 million subscribers by 2010. Its current level of 240 million will be doubled within less than two years thanks to the policies being implemented by the Union Government especially universal access in rural and suburban areas.

B K Syngal, former chairman, Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) said that India is well on its way to becoming the largest telecom market after China. However, we cannot be complacent. About 70 per cent of the Indian population was in semi-urban and rural areas and 60 per cent of the Indian population was employed in agriculture. We are growing at the rate of seven to eight million consumers a month. The appetite for cellular connection is going up not down, he added.

Telecom PSUs BSNL and MTNL lost about 46 lakh landline connections in 2007-08, Rajya Sabha was informed on 17th April. While 43.8 lakh BSNL lines were surrendered in the year, its sister concern MTNL lost 2.1 lakh connections, Mr Jyotiraditya Scindia, Minister of State for Communications and IT told the Upper House in a written reply.

The minister said the reasons for withdrawal of landline connections includes preference for mobile phones, move to private operator, disconnections due to non-payment of dues and surrendering of second telephone taken for getting internet connection due to availability of broadband. The total number of landlines in the country as on March 2008 is 3.9 crore, which was 4 crore in March 2007. At present, BSNL has 3.1 crore-landline users while MTNL has 36.8 lakh users.