Apple acquires Canadian start-up buddybuild
San Francisco: Apple has acquired Canadian start-up buddybuild, a mobile iteration platform focused on building integration and debugging tools for iOS developers, for an undisclosed sum. “We’re excited to share that the buddybuild team has joined the Xcode engineering group at Apple to build amazing developer tools for the entire iOS community,” buddybuild said in a statement Wednesday. The company said it would stay in Vancouver — a hotbed of developer and engineering talent. “The buddybuild service will remain available to existing customers to build, test and ship iOS apps to testers through buddybuild.com,” it added. The startup is no longer accepting new customers. “Existing ‘Free Starter’ plans and Android app development will be discontinued on March 1, 2018,” the company said.
Rs15,000-cr MTM loss likely on bond yields
Mumbai: Continuing surge in the benchmark bond yields, which rose as much as 67 bps in Q3, will leave banks with a big hole in their treasury portfolios and result in mark-to-market (MTM) losses of Rs15,500 crore for the December quarter alone, a report has warned. As much as 80 per cent of this more than Rs15,000-crore dent is slated to be absorbed by state-run lenders, further eroding their core capital, and government may have to rework its recapitalisation maths because of it. In the H1 of FY18, state-run banks had a pre-tax loss of Rs5,624 crore and 80 per cent of the projected loss of Rs15,000 crore will be borne by them, the Icra report says. Banks had booked Rs1 trillion profit between the six quarters ending Q2 of FY18 following a steady decline in bond yields after RBI cut interest rates.
Typhoid vaccine gets WHO pre-qualification
Hyderabad: Bharat Biotech Wednesday said its Typbar TCV or the Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine against typhoid fever, has received pre-qualification from the World Health Organisation (WHO). This enables the procurement and supplies of this vaccine to UNICEF, Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) and GAVI-supported countries, the Hyderabad-based company said in a statement. Typbar TCV has been evaluated in Human Challenge Studies at Oxford University and typhoid conjugate vaccines have been recommended by WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunisation (WHO-SAGE), it said. “Typbar TCV is the first typhoid vaccine, clinically proven to be administered to children from six months of age to adults and confers long term protection against typhoid fever,” the company said.
DCB Bank plans to raise Rs150 crore
New Delhi: Private sector lender DCB Bank Wednesday said it plans to raise up to Rs150 crore by issuing bonds on private placement basis. “The Chairman and/or the Managing Director & CEO and/or the Chief Financial Officer may consider the proposal to raise further fund by issue of debt securities including Tier II Bonds, on private placement basis up to Rs150 crore on or after January 6, 2018,” the bank said in a regulatory filing. The bank already has approvals from board of directors and shareholders to raise tier II capital by issuing debt securities and other means up to Rs450 crore in one or more tranches on private placement basis. And in a meeting held in October, the board had delegated its authority to the Chairman and/or the Managing Director & CEO and/or the Chief Financial Officer pertaining to the capital raising plans. Shares of the bank closed 1.03 per cent down at Rs192 apiece on BSE.
Indian Bank revises FCNR(B) deposit rates
Chennai: Public sector Indian Bank has revised the interest rates on foreign currency non-resident banking term deposits with immediate effect. The city-headquartered bank has revised the FCNR(B) deposits, in dollars, at 2.89 per cent for deposits of one year and above, but less than two years, from the existing 2.77 per cent. For deposits of two years and above but less than three years, interest rates has been revised to 3.08 per cent from the existing 2.92 per cent, a bank statement said. Interest rates have been revised to 3.22 per cent from the existing 3.08 per cent for deposits of three years and above, but less than four years, For deposits of four years and above but less than five years, interest rates have been revised to 3.25 per cent from existing 3.15 per cent. For deposits of upto five years, the interest rates have been revised to 3.29 per cent from existing 3.20 per cent, the statement said.
All IPPB branches to be opened by Apr ’18
New Delhi: All 650 branches of India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) are expected to be launched by April 2018, Communications Minister Manoj Sinha said Wednesday. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) granted licence to carry on payments bank activities on January 20, 2017 and since then IPPB has launched two pilot branches on January 30, 2017 at Raipur (Chhattisgarh) and Ranchi (Jharkhand), Sinha said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. “IPPB aims to have a pan-India reach and, subject to feasibility, all post offices (approximately 1.55 lakh) across the country including in Chhattisgarh will progressively become access points for the IPPB, which will provide banking products and services as per extant guidelines of RBI on payments bank,” the minister said.
