The benchmark BSE Sensex drifted 150 points lower and the NSE Nifty slipped below the 10,400-mark in early deals on selling in metal, PSU and realty counters amid weak global cues.

Asian stocks declined following an overnight slide in US equities after President Donald Trump replaced his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo, extending a shake-up of his administration, spurring concerns about a one-sided approach to international trade.

In a push to increase the share of green energy in its installed capacity, NTPC has recently come up with tenders for 4,750 MW of renewable power projects. Of this, 2,000 MW are for wind power projects, while the remaining capacity would be solar based. The projects would significantly enhance the largest thermal power producer’s renewable energy portfolio, which now has 870 MW of solar and 50 MW of wind power projects.

Mumbai: Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that have current accounts with ICICI Bank can now avail of automated loans in the form of an instant overdraft facility of up to Rs 10 lakh each year. The ‘InstaOD’ will enable a few lakh pre-qualified customers, who have held a current account for at least a year, to instantly get the loan without visiting a branch or submitting physical documents.

Chennai: As part of its 2020 target of 2 million units in sales, passenger vehicle market leader Maruti Suzuki is tying up with business schools to extensively train its dealership manpower. Under the programme, the company has already trained over 500 managers in FY17-18 and will train another 1000 in the next financial year.

The three-day residential programmes are co-curated by Maruti and the faculty of IMT Ghaziabad and MDI Gurugram.

MUMBAI: The Rs 12,700-crore fraud at Punjab National Bank has prompted the Reserve Bank of India to ban the use of letters of undertaking (LoUs) and letters of comfort (LoCs). LoUs and LoCs are two of the instruments issued by Indian banks to domestic importers to get foreign exchange from banks abroad at a cheaper rate.

Mumbai: In a move that will benefit 25 crore account holders, State Bank of India (SBI) has reduced charges for non-maintenance of average monthly balance (AMB) in savings accounts by more than 70%. The revised charges will be effective from April 1, 2018.

The charges for non-maintenance of AMB for customers in metro and urban centres have been reduced from a maximum of Rs 50 per month plus goods and services tax (GST) to Rs 15 plus GST.

BENGALURU: Infosys will not be holding its annual strategy brainstorming session Strap (strategy, action and planning) this year. Instead, new CEO Salil Parekh has chosen to make it an ongoing exercise with a smaller group of internal leaders.

Strap was attended by about 200 senior leaders in Infosys’ sprawling Mysuru campus last year. In the years before, even larger numbers would be part of it.

Foreign lawyers, law firms and companies cannot practice the legal profession in India, the Supreme Court on Tuesday held in a verdict that could have far-reaching consequences.

The court, which also heard over 30 law firms hailing from the United Kingdom, the USA, France and Australia, also modifed a Madras High Court order permitting foreign lawyers and law firms to come to India on a "fly in and fly out" basis for rendering legal services here on offshore laws and diverse international legal issues.

State-owned telecommunications services providers Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited apart from state carrier Air India registered a net loss of more than Rs 116.86 billion in 2016-17, effectively becoming the top 3 loss-making ventures of the government.

The Public Enterprises Survey 2016-17, tabled in parliament on Tuesday by the Department of Public Enterprises, showed that the number of loss-making central enterprises have continued to rise for the third straight year, growing to 82 in the last financial year.

India’s third largest private sector bank Axis Bank on Tuesday said it would soon be able to process payments over the popular chatting application ‘WhatsApp’.

The bank also termed the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) as a “huge opportunity”.

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