Amid speculation of a possible merger of Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) and HDFC Bank, in which the former has 22.5 per cent stake, senior officials of both entities have termed such an idea premature.

Speculation in this regard had gained momentum after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said banks didn't have to maintain cash reserve ratio (CRR) and statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) for funds raised through long-term bonds to fund infrastructure and affordable housing. The regulator also allowed banks exemption from meeting priority sector lending (PSL) targets on such funds.

Infosys, India’s second-largest information technology (IT) services company, is considering strengthening its sales teams, especially in the key markets of Europe and the US. For this, the company is planning to hire locals in these geographies. It is also deploying employees with strong domain knowledge to the sales segment.

Infosys, which has said it will hire 22,000 graduates this financial year, plans to recruit about 300 freshers from business schools in the US and Europe to boost its sales teams there, chief operating officer U B Pravin Rao has said.

Mumbai: Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd’s (BPCL’s) 6-million-tonne (mt) Bina refinery unit is set to turn around this year after posting losses for three years in a row, paving the way for its initial share sale that was delayed because of the losses and a tepid stock market, according to two people familiar with the development.

The Bina plant is run by Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd or BORL, which is majority owned by BPCL, which holds a 49% stake. Oman Oil Co. SAOC owns a 26% stake in the joint venture; the rest is held by institutions. The refinery, which was to be commissioned in 2009 but was inaugurated in May 2011 by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has been plagued by technical problems. The issues are likely to be resolved by October, said one of the people cited above, asking not to be identified.

The Centre today promised to extend the broadband facility to every village in the country with the active cooperation of state governments.

Telecommunication and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said more than 1.34 lakh internet enabled centres have been set up in rural areas to promote and develop information technology in rural areas of the country.

HDFC Bank Ltd, India's second-biggest private sector lender by assets, reported on Monday a 21 percent rise in quarterly profit, lagging estimates, although asset quality remained stable.

The Mumbai-based bank said net profit rose to Rs 2233 cr for its fiscal first quarter to end-June from Rs 1844 cr a year earlier. Analysts had on average forecast a net profit of Rs 2321 cr, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The benchmark indices have erased some of its early gains with IT major Infosys and Tata Motors contributing nearly 36 points to the decline.

The barometer index, Sensex is up 123 points at 25,765 and Nifty is up 34 points at 7,698 levels.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is set to issue fresh guidelines on the settlement guarantee fund (SGF), which could see the introduction of a core fund and limit the liability of non-defaulting members.

The capital markets regulator undertook the revamp of SGF, a corpus used for settlement of trades during defaults, following the Rs 5,600-crore settlement crisis at the National Spot Exchange (NSEL) a year ago.

An investigation by government agencies is under progress into the alleged violation of rules in investments made by Singapore-based Biometrix Marketing, a Reliance Industries (RIL) group firm.

An indirect subsidiary of Reliance Life Sciences, it had invested Rs 6,500 crore ($1.7 billion at the then foreign exchange rates) in 2007-08 through some exotic instruments in Reliance Gas Transportation, Relogistics Infrastructure, Reliance Ports and Reliance Utilities. The investments were considered to be the largest foreign direct investment (FDI) from Singapore.

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has restored "near normalcy" at its prime Bombay High oil and gas fields after a minor gas leak from a well being drilled. The western offshore fields of ONGC are producing at near normal rate of 310,000 barrels per day and all personnel and facilities are unharmed, sources at ONGC said.

Kotak Mahindra Bank has decided to buy a 15 per cent stake in Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) for Rs 459 crore from Financial Technologies India (FTIL).

The deal values MCX at Rs 600 a share, a discount of nearly 24 per cent to Friday's closing price of Rs 783.5 on the National Stock Exchange. Also, there is a steep discount to the price at which MCX issued shares to the public in March 2012 (Rs 1,032 a share).

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