MUMBAI: A surge in the use of cards in e-commerce and m-commerce has made HDFC Bank expand its card strategy. The Bank will soon launch a payment system for small merchants to accept card payments without swipe machines, besides a new category of virtual credit cards.

HDFC Bank is a market leader in the credit card business, accounting for more than half of the amount outstanding under various credit card accounts.

Banking shares are in demand with the Bank Nifty surging 581 points to 20,542 in early morning deal on NSE after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut the repo rate by 25 bps to 7.5% today.

Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of India, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and State Bank of India are up between 2-3%.

Shares of housing finance companies are trading lower by up to 4% on the bourses on profit booking after the Finance Minister presented the Union Budget 2015-16 in Parliament today.

LIC Housing Finance (4% at Rs 475), GIC Housing Finance (3% at Rs 243), Dewan Housing Finance (3% at Rs 495), Can Fin Homes (3% at Rs 609) and HDFC (down 2% at Rs 1,322) are trading lower in the range of 2-4% on the BSE.

Mumbai: India’s benchmark Sensex was trading over 230 points higher, led by shares of energy, banking and information technology companies.

The government will announce the railway budget on 26 February and the national budget on 28 February. Investors will look for the direction of government policy through these two announcements and will keep an eye on annual economic outlook survey on 27 February. Investors are also cautious ahead of future and option expiry on 26 February.

Mumbai: HDFC Bank Ltd will raise infrastructure bonds worth Rs.4,500 crore before the end of March, following up on its jumbo share sale earlier this month, as the bank braces itself to take advantage of increased lending opportunities to both companies as well as individuals over the next two fiscal years.

In an interview on Thursday, HDFC Bank managing director Aditya Puri said the bank has armed itself with funds with an eye on improving growth prospects in India.

Benchmark indices have continued to trade firm led primarily by the gains in financials and select index heavyweight and IT stocks like ITC and TCS.

At 2:12PM, the 30-share Sensex was up 218 points at 29,345 and the 50-share Nifty was up 62 points at 8,871.

In the December quarter, the story for HDFC Bank Ltd was not any different from those of other lenders when it came to loan growth. Despite rosy projections of a 7.5% economic growth in that quarter, credit demand lagged. HDFC Bank’s advances grew 17% from a year ago, the lowest in four quarters.

While the bank’s focus on the retail customer has led this segment to account for 51% of its loan book, growth was faster in the corporate segment at 20%. But that is not exactly a reason to cheer because it was mostly working capital demand and loans to small and medium enterprises—a segment susceptible to bad loans. Even in the retail segment, unsecured loans such as personal loans and credit cards are growing at a robust pace, confirming that this is an environment with fewer growth opportunities for lenders.

HDFC Bank on Saturday reported a 20% growth in net profit to Rs 2,794.5 crore for the quarter ended December 2014. The jump in profit is largely on account of higher Other Income and Net Interest Income (NII).

NII, the difference between interest income and interest expenditure, grew 23% to Rs 5,699.9 crore, compared with Rs 4,634.8 crore in the third quarter of the previous financial year.

HDFC Bank on Thursday raised Rs 9,840 crore by selling shares in the domestic market and offering 22 million American depository receipts (ADRs) in the US, opening the floodgates for other companies and banks to raise funds from investors keen to bet on the India growth story.

For domestic investors, the shares were priced at the upper band of Rs 1,067 a share. The bank raised Rs 2,000 crore through a qualified institutional placement (QIP) and Rs 7,840 crore ($1.27 billion) from US-based investors. The ADRs were priced at $56.76 each.

Country’s largest lender by market value HDFC Bank today raised Rs 9,880 crore in the largest share sale in the secondary market by a private entity to overseas and domestic investors through a mix of qualified institutional placement and American depository shares.

Merchant bankers said the issue has been successfully closed and the final pricing is expected shortly.

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