State Bank of India (SBI), country's largest bank, is expected to end the third quarter (October-December) with a total home loan outstanding of Rs 1,52,905 crore.

The bank is sanctioning about 800 home loans with average sanctions of Rs 150 crore daily, making it the largest player in the retail banking space, once dominated by private players.

If reports are to be believed, a proposal is brewing in the corridors of North Block to merge the UTI Mutual Fund with the fund arm of one of its shareholders and country’s largest bank State Bank of India. The ill-conceived proposal could not have been more ill-timed.

It comes at a time when UTI is looking to consolidate under a new chief after being headless for a few years. The market conditions have improved dramatically and this could have helped the fund house, which still has the best mix of funds, be it the asset type (equity vs debt) and the geographical spread, to surge forward.

Benchmark indices extended gains after a firm opening on Friday led by financials and index heavyweights ITC and Reliance Industries.

At 9:30AM, the 30-share Sensex was up 189 points a 27,696 and the 50-share Nifty was up 56 points at 8,340.

IDBI Bank has gained around 2% to Rs 72.55 in BSE after receiving approval from its Board of Directors to divest its stake in Credit Analysis & Research (CARE).

The Bank can now sell its shareholding of 48,18,292 equity shares in CARE in part or whole, subject to compliance with all applicable laws, regulations and guidelines. The propose sale of shares would be made in one or more tranches, according to IDBI's statement to BSE.

State-run Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) is planning to raise Rs 4,000 crore for the expansion of its Kochi refinery and to fund its petrochemicals venture, said three banking sources aware of the development. State Bank of India (SBI) has received the mandate to raise funds.

BPCL is planning to diversify into downstream petrochemicals with an investment of Rs 4,588 crore by using propylene. The public sector refiner is planning to produce niche petrochemicals such as acrylic acid, acrylates and oxo alcohols, which are predominantly being imported into the country, at its Kochi refinery facility, using the polymer grade propylene that will be available after the ongoing integrated refinery expansion project (IREP) is completed.

Mumbai: In an effort to make customers aware about the technology channels available with the lender, State Bank of India (SBI) will be training its customers, with hands-on demo, of the various ways banking can be done using technology.

The bank has set up 385 tech-learning centres throughout the country, which will be conducting interactive learning sessions and demonstrations of the bank’s tech-channels on the third Friday of every month between 4pm and 6pm.

IDBI Bank will sell its entire 5% stake in country's leading stock exchange NSE in a transaction that may fetch the public-sector lender about Rs 1,000 crore.

At the end of quarter ending September 2014, the public sector lender held early 23 lakh shares of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) representing a 5% stake in the bourse.

SBI Pinkathon, Empowering Indian Women, an initiative to promote women’s health and breast cancer awareness, concluded its Mumbai leg at MMRDA Grounds, Bandra-Kurla complex, on Sunday.

Ten thousand women across age groups and segments of the society participated in the 3-km, 5-km and 10-km categories.

Private sector lender HDFC Bank has said a merger with parent Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) makes sense in the long term. There is no proposal on the table and regulatory clarity is required to make such a deal more beneficial.

A possible merger between HDFC Bank and the housing finance giant has been talked about for a long time. Such a transaction can create the country’s second largest financial sector institution, after State Bank of India.

Markets opened marginally higher tracking gains in their Asian peers and overnight gains on Wall Street with IT majors leading the gains.

Meanwhile, markets are likely to remain volatile ahead of the release of consumer price inflation and industrial production data due later today.

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