Deepak Parekh, chairman of Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC), said that his bank can cut interest rate in case the Reserve Bank takes steps to reduce lending rates in the market, making the fund cost cheaper for banks.

Hoping reduction in key interest rates, Mr. Parekh said, "Banks are funding (parking) Rs 40,000 crore to Rs 60,000 crore with RBI under the reverse repo window. (This means) there is enough liquidity in the system and that is why there is a likelihood of interest rates coming down."

India's third largest car manufacturer, Tata Motors entered in an agreement with public sector bank, the Central Bank of India, to avail finance facilities for all categories of vehicles.

The bank would offer loan at interest rate of 10.5 per cent for 3 years tenure and 11.5 per cent for more than 3 years, covering 85 per cent of the road price of car.

Berlin - The German government set the framework Wednesday for the state nationalization of failing banks as a measure of last resort.

The cabinet approved legislation on so-called rescue takeover procedures, government sources said Wednesday.

The ruling is specifically tailored to troubled mortgage lender Hypo Real Estate, and states that any nationalization process would need to be initiated by late June.

The legislation stresses that a complete state takeover of a bank would be the final resort in efforts to help stabilize Germany's financial markets.

Amsterdam  - Dutch bank and insurance company ING Group suffered a loss of 3.7 billion euros (4.67 billion dollars) in 2008, the company said in its final Q4 report published on Wednesday.

Last year in the same period, ING still made a profit of 2.4 billion euros.

Net loss for all of 2008 amounted to 729 million euros, compared with a net profit of 9.2 billion euros for 2007.

Singapore  - Singapore's Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) on Wednesday posted a 30-per-cent drop in net profit for the fourth quarter of 2008.

Net profit from October to December fell to 301 million Singapore dollars (197 million US dollars) from 428 million Singapore dollars during the same period in 2007, the bank reported.

Stock market analysts have suggested investors to ‘sell’ SBI stock as there are full chances of a downward trend in this stock.

According to them, investors can sell the stock with a strict stop loss of Rs 1121 to achieve an intraday target of Rs 1082.

Analysts feel that SBI stock would remain under high pressure due to existing market condition. The stock also remained weak on Tuesday (Feb 17), closing below its 21-day moving average.