Honda Siel Cars India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Punjab National Bank (PNB), for financing their cars across India.

Under the arrangement, the lender will offer car loan up to 90% of "on road cost", for tenure ranging up to 7 years at very competitive rates. The facility will be available at all the branches of Punjab National Bank and 103 facilities of Honda Siel Cars India.

The BSE benchmark Sensex finally ended the day with small loss, after skipping up and down throughout the trading session on mixed global cues.

The Sensex closed 81 points lower at 10,898 after hitting an intraday high of 11,068 and low of 10,764, while the National Stock Exchange's 50-share Nifty settled the day, down 12 points at 3,365 from its last close.

In addition, BSE Mid Cap Index closed with loss of 5.77% at 3523.14 while, Small Cap Index closed with gain 16.83 points at 4,027.98.

Financial

With the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) having decided on the slashing of short-term lending and borrowing rates - the repo and reverse repo rates - by 25 basis points apiece in its 2009-10 annual monetary policy, banks intend cutting lending rates, thereby making consumer, home, personal and corporate loans cheaper.

While the repo rate has been slashed to 4.75 percent and reverse repo to 3.25 percent, the other key ratios - like the Cash Reserve Ratio and the deposit-percentage that banks keep with the RBI - have remained unchanged.

Crude futures in U. S. steadied below $46 a barrel, after falling nearly 9 percent a day earlier as worries about the U. S. banking sector hit equity markets. The U. S. dollar rallied on safe-haven bids.

New York Mercantile Exchange natural gas futures ended down sharply on Monday, as a steep slide in crude, milder weather forecasts and growing supplies pressured the complex despite a rebound in physical prices.

Risk aversion and stronger dollar have victimized base metals complex. We have seen sharp correction in copper, nickel, zinc and lead. Despite of drawdown in inventories, copper prices plummeted on LME.

Industrial metals slid on Monday with copper tumbling about 5 percent as skidding equities underlined concern about the economy and demand, while a stronger dollar exerted downward pressure. Copper inventories in LME warehouses fell by 7,300 tonnes to 462,325 tonnes, having dropped nearly 80,000 tonnes since mid-February. Cancelled warrants stocks earmarked for delivery rose to 68,325 tonnes from 64,400 tonnes on Friday.