Bizbits

The Hydro Coatings group comes with a turnover of around 60 million D-marks in 1998 and staff of 135 people. Hydro Coatings has production sites in the UK Deeside, Italy Milan, India Bangalore, South Africa Pietermaritzburg and the Philippines. Norsk Hydro is the largest publicly-owned group in Norway, with interests in four coreareas.

RBI panel on smart card payment

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India RBI has constituted a working group in the Department of Information Technology to study the recommendations on standards for smart card based payments made by the Indian Institute of Technology IIT, Mumbai. The working group under thechairmanship of A Vasudevan, executive director of RBI will study the recommendations made in the document quot;Smart card based payment system standards version 3.0, as part of the project Smart Rupees System.quot; The SMARS, a pilot project on smart card technology was undertaken to examine the vialibilty and use of smart cards as retail payment instruments within the country.

Kotak Mahindra appoints 2 new EDs

MUMBAI: Kotak Mahindra Finance has appointed C Jayaram and Dipak Gupta as executive directors with effect from October 1, 1999. This induction is part of a restructuring exercise in the company. As per the plan, the Kotak group will focus on knowledge amp; skill, wealth management and retail finance. Gupta will look after retail finance and Jayaram wealth management.