SCountry's largest lender State Bank of India's net profits for the second quarter ended September 2014 expanded by 30.5% at Rs 3,100 crore on robust growth in robust income comprising fees, commissions, and good interest income.

It had posted a net profit of Rs 2,375 crore in July-September 2013.

Banking operations such as cheque clearances, cash withdrawals and deposits at public sector bank branches across the country were affected on Wednesday, as employee unions went on a nationwide strike to press for a wage revision.

The strike had no impact on private sector banks. Services at ATMs of all the banks were normal, barring a few cases where the machines ran out of cash.

Shares of State Bank of India (SBI) and its all three listed associate banks - State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Travancore and State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur – have rallied on the bourses after State Bank of Mysore reported robust results for the second quarter ended September 2014.

State Bank of Mysore, the largest gainer among the pack, has rallied 19% to Rs 585 on BSE after reporting a more than three-fold jump in net profit at Rs 102 crore in the July-September quarter (Q2) on higher interest income, lower provisions and better recovery from written-off accounts. The state-owned bank had profit of Rs 30 crore in the corresponding year-ago quarter.

SBI Mutual Fund on Thursday said it had launched an inflation-indexed bond fund (IIBF) offering, which is aimed at investors with a low to medium risk profile, looking at a hedge against price rise.

Under the open-ended debt scheme, SBI Mutual Fund will invest in inflation-indexed securities and actively manage a portfolio of predominantly inflation linked bonds (IIBs), it said in a statement.

Benchmark indices were trading firm even as IT majors TCS and HCL Tech witnessed selling pressure after they reported lower-than-expected revenues for the quarter ended September 30, 2014.

At 9.30 AM, the Sensex is up 50 points at 26,061 and the Nifty is up 9 points at 7,757.

IFCI, the Delhi-based government finance company, has postponed its plan to divest 2.5 per cent stake in the National Stock Exchange (NSE). According to two sources in the know of the matter, lower-than-expected bids from investors have forced the company to postpone its plan.

IFCI had announced in June that it proposed to engage a consultant to “advise and manage” the partial divestment process. PowerhouseCoopers (PwC) is said to be handling the transaction. An email sent to a PwC spokesperson did not elicit a reply.

State Bank of India today reduced the short-term deposit rates by 1 percentage point for amount below Rs 1 crore, second such move this month.

In an exchange filing today, the banking giant said it has reduced the pricing of short-term deposits of below Rs 1 crore to 6 per cent from 7 per cent now for a maturity of 7 to 45 days.

State Bank of India (SBI), which has the highest exposure to private sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh in the form of working capital loans, has blamed the cane pricing policy in the state for the “high losses” incurred by mills and resultant cane arrears.

Almost 60 per cent of total working capital loans, estimated at Rs 10,000 crore availed of by the 95 private mills annually in Uttar Pradesh, are provided by SBI.

Mumbai: Bank of Baroda on Monday said its board has approved a stock split wherein one existing equity share will be split into five, subject to regulatory approvals. With this, it is now the eighth bank this year to take the route to make its stock more affordable to smaller shareholders.

In its filing to BSE, Bank of Baroda said that in a meeting held on 27 September, the board had considered and given its in-principle approval to the bank for the sub-division of one existing equity share of face value of Rs.10 each fully paid up into five equity shares of face value of Rs.2 each fully paid up.

Former State Bank of India (SBI) chairman OP Bhatt on Friday said while the investor sentiment would be impacted by the recent Supreme Court ruling on coal blocks, the move was aimed at cleansing the system.

“What was not fully right has now been cleansed to see such mistakes will not be there in the future,” he said.

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