The proposed merger of Bank of Baroda (BoB) with two mid-sized PSU lenders shows the willingness of the government to go ahead with difficult reforms in the banking sector, Fitch Ratings said Friday. The government had last week announced its plan to merge BoB with Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank to create the third largest bank in the country. The boards of each bank will meet to give a go-ahead to the proposed merger.

India’s plan to merge state-controlled lenders as a way to resolve its bad-debt issue didn’t thrill investors. The proposed union of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank with Bank of Baroda fanned speculation of further consolidation in the sector. While some state-run lenders rose on Tuesday, most fell on concerns about eroding capital buffers and growing bad debt for buyers. Overall, the 22 banks listed on Indian stock exchanges lost about 203 billion rupees ($2.8 billion) of market value.

Shares of state-run lender Bank of Baroda declined as much as 14 per cent in the early trade on Tuesday after the government on Monday announced it will will merge state-owned Vijaya Bank, Dena Bank and Bank of Baroda to create India's third largest lender.

Cheered by the news, Dena Bank hit an upper circuit limit of 20 per cent in the opening deals while Vijaya Bank was trading flat at Rs 60.20 apiece on BSE, up 0.67 per cent.

Bank of Baroda Wednesday said it has increased the marginal cost of funds based lending rate (MCLR) by 0.05 per cent across tenors, days after market leader SBI hiked the rates. The bank has revised MCLR at 5 basis points (bps) above existing level across all tenors with effect from September 7, 2018, the bank said in a release.

Bank of Baroda (BoB) has put on sale a 4% stake in Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL) in order to raise at least Rs 124 crore, according to a public notice.

The bank has sought bids on a per-share basis, either for a 4% stake, e.i, 20 lakh shares, or for a part stake not less than 5 lakh shares. BoB holds a 5% stake in CCIL.

The head of one of India’s largest state-run banks says the government needs to ease its grip over the lenders or risk slowly killing off the sector.

Tight government control makes it hard to attract talent or take the tough decisions needed to address the bad debts weighing down the banks, according to Ravi Venkatesan, the outgoing chairman of Bank of Baroda.

Public sector lender Bank of Baroda's net profit more than doubled to Rs 5.28 billion in the first quarter ended June, 2018, on improvement in its interest margin. The stabilisation of asset quality leading to a fall in provisions for bad loans also helped the bank report a robust growth in net profit.

State-run Bank of Baroda signed a Memorandum of Understanding with ten companies including Uber, Oyo, Lava and Flipkart to provide loans to members in their supply chain like drivers and retailers in its efforts to raise its exposure to small enterprises.

“We want to target around 5,000 micro-entrepreneurs and spend at least Rs.500 crores in 2018-19,” said P S Jeyakumar, CEO of Bank of Baroda.

Public sector lender Bank of Baroda on Friday said it had received approval from shareholders to raise up to Rs 6,000 crore through equity capital by way of either qualified institutional placement (QIP), a follow-on public offer (FPO), preferential issue, rights issue, ADR-GDR, private placement, compulsorily convertible debentures or a combination of these.

Bank of Baroda (BoB), the country’s third-largest public-sector bank (PSB) by assets, on Tuesday sought applications for the post of chief financial officer (CFO). The last date for sending in applications is July 31. The appointment will be for a period of three years with yearly performance reviews. The term of engagement may be extended at the option of the bank.

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