Briefly Business

FIIs pump in Rs 8,100 cr in first 15 days of year

New Delhi: Foreign fund houses infused a net Rs 8,191 crore ($1.7 billion) in the Indian stock markets during the first fortnight of 2010,signaling a good start for the year,in terms of fund inflow. During the period,foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were the gross purchaser of equities worth Rs 34,663.7 crore,while they sold stocks worth Rs 26472.1 crore,resulting in a net investment of Rs 8,191.70 crore.

50% a/c holders under mobile-banking by 15

Mumbai: With the RBI increasing the cap on mobile banking to Rs 50,000 a day,more than 50 per cent of account holders are expected to come under this platform in the next five years,a leading service provider said. The recent hike in the limit of mobile banking transactions by the RBI will be a boost for the industry and will bring more than 50 per cent of Indian bank account holders under the ambit of this platform by 2015, mobile payment service provider PayMate managing director Ajay Adiseshann said.

100 Reliance Jewels outlets in 3 years

Mumbai: Enthused by good sales in the past few months,the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Retail Lifestyle is planning to increase the number of Reliance Jewels outlets to 100 by 2013,a top company official said on Sunday. In the next 3 years,we will be scaling the Reliance Jewel stores to 100, Reliance Retail Lifestyles CEO Bijou Kurien said. The company has plans to add 14 more by this fiscal-end to its existing 10 outlets.

BSNL floats tender for defence network

New Delhi: State-run BSNL has floated a tender for building exclusive optical fibre cable network for the armed forces in lieu of their vacating radio waves which would be auctioned to mobile services operators for offering 3G services. The tender will set in motion the process to vacate spectrum by the defence forces. Citing security reasons,the defence ministry has been reluctant to release the spectrum in its possession unless a dedicated optical fibre alternate network is laid.

Goldman staff may be asked to donate

London: Investment banker Goldman Sachs,whose salary and bonus payment is expected to be just short of $20 billion for 2009,may ask its senior bankers to donate a portion of their earnings to charity so as to deflect criticism of its huge bonus payment,said a media report. The Sunday Telegraph also said that the bank is expected to significantly scale back the amount of compensation as a per centage of revenue in pays in the final quarter,among other restraining measures. PTI