On the sidelines of a press conference in Kolkata, the city-based Allahabad Bank’s Chairman and Managing Director, K R Kamath, said that the public sector lender has posted an 18 percent year-on-year growth in deposits and advances in 2008-09.

Kamath informed reporters that out of the bank’s total business of Rs 1.44 lakh crore as on March 31, 2009, deposits account for Rs 84,865 crore, while advances comprise Rs 59,177 crore.

Zurich - The Swiss banking giant UBS said Wednesday it will take a first quarter loss of almost 2 billion Swiss francs (1.7 billion dollars) and will cut 8,700 jobs worldwide by 2010. "Unfortunately I am not able, as yet, to offer you any good news," Oswald Grubel, Chief Executive Officer of the UBS Group was expected to tell shareholders later at an annual meeting. He took over his role in February this year.

Most of the new losses were in further writedowns and cash outflows in its wealth management divisions.

Nirmal Bang Research is bullish on State Bank of India (SBI) and maintained ‘Buy’ rating on the stock to achieve a target of Rs 1265.

Traders can buy the stock on dips with a stop loss of Rs 1240.

Shares of the company, on Monday (April 13), closed at Rs 1217.90 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Current EPS & P/E ratio stood at 130.14 and 9.51 respectively. The share price has seen a 52-week high of Rs 1840 and a low of Rs 894 on BSE.

On the eve of entering its 145th year of service, Kolkata-based Allahabad Bank, has made announcement about the retail selling of gold coins publicly.

The public sector lender said that it will shortly launch the scheme in other areas.

While speaking to media persons, Mr. KR Kamath, Allahabad Bank Chairman & Managing Director, stated that at first, the coins will be available in denominations of four (4), eight (8) and ten (10) grams in select core banking solutions branches of the bank.

In a latest development, State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, has decided to extend the special offer for auto and home loans by five months till September, this year.

According to banking officials, the move was taken to benefit those peoples, who felt the April deadline was insufficient for availing of the scheme.

New York - US investment bank Goldman Sachs said Tuesday it would raise 5 billion dollars in new capital through the offering of 40.6 million new shares of stock. The funds would be used to repay part of the 10 billion dollars in government loans the firm received in October.

Goldman Sachs surprised analysts with quarterly profits announced late Monday that rose 13 per cent to 1.7 billion dollars in the first quarter despite the global financial crisis. Other major banks and investment firms are to report quarterly earnings in the coming days.