Tuesday, April 20, 2010

“Sberbank to cut interest rates on personal loans on Apr 19 Gref” plus 2 more


“Sberbank to cut interest rates on personal loans on Apr 19 Gref” plus 2 more

Posted: 16 Apr 2010 10:48 PM PDT
MOSCOW, April 16 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia's biggest state-run Sberbank (Savings Bank) plans to cut interest rates on all kinds of personal loans starting from April 19, 2010, the bank's president and CEO German Gref told Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday.
"Starting from Monday, April 19, we will cut interest rates on all kinds of credits for individuals," Gref said, adding, "We decided to abolish all commission fees and to preserve the same loan rate all through the loan period for the first time on the Russian market and in the bank's history."
"In other words, your bank is not going to increase interest rates on personal loans, is it?" Putin asked.
"Starting from April 19, we will not charge fees or any other payments, we will collect only loan interest rates," Gref said.
"The interest rates will be lowered by 0.5-1.0 percent on an average," he said, adding, "This includes all kinds of earlier charges on individuals."
In addition, "the decline will amount to 2.5 percent or even three percent for some types of loans," the Sberbank CEO said.
According to Gref, "the final interest rate on the loan will depend on its type."
"In particular, the interest rates on the bank's consumer loans will amount to 17 percent and higher," he said, adding, "Interest rates on Sberbank's consumer loans are manifold lower than those collected by commercial banks."
Touching upon mortgage loans, Gref said that the lowest interest rate (10.5 percent) would be granted to clients, who are working at the companies participating in the bank's payroll card program.
The interest rate on mortgage loans will range between 10.5 percent and 13 percent, depending on the loan structure, stability of a borrower's incomes, the initial payment, and so on.
Posted: 18 Apr 2010 07:07 PM PDT
Now Yunus plans to bring low-interest credit to the poor and unemployed in Washington.
Grameen America, a U.S. offshoot, is already lending in Queens and Brooklyn, N.Y., and Omaha and has lent to more than 2,500 American borrowers. Yunus says that although the United States is one of the wealthiest places in the world, the need for small, low-cost loans is evident in the number of Americans coming to Grameen to borrow money.
"The poverty is kind of hidden because of the welfare," he said in an interview while in Washington last week to raise money and introduce a documentary on Grameen America. "Suppose you withdrew welfare, suddenly Barack Obama decided no more welfare, so the people will come out in the open. They are the poverty."
Similar to a franchise chain executive, Yunus asks that Grameen offices, of which there are more than 2,500 worldwide, follow a specific formula for supporting and guiding borrowers, regardless of the country. Each time Grameen opens a new U.S. office, it flies in a Bangladeshi manager to be part of the founding staff.
Among the results the formula has produced are that most Grameen loans are repaid -- 99 percent in the United States so far -- and that most of the borrowers are women. Ninety-seven percent of borrowers are women, and nearly 100 percent -- all but one or two out of thousands -- in New York are women as well, each using $500 to $3,000 in credit to start hair salons, bakeries, clothing companies and other businesses.
Grameen is looking to open dozens of American locations. Yunus said that "anybody that offers to come with the money, we'll come into that area. We don't distinguish whether it's Washington, D.C., or Omaha, Nebraska, or anywhere else, because it can be done anywhere."
The organization's expansion to Washington has been accelerated by support from local corporate funding. When Yunus introduced a screening of a film about Grameen, "To Catch a Dollar," at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, John G. Finneran Jr., general counsel at McLean-based Capital One Financial announced that the company would make a $1 million loan to get the local office started. Venture capital firm Advantage Capital Partners has committed $200,000, putting Yunus more than halfway toward the $2 million he says is needed to start lending here.
Grameen America's chief executive, private equity investor Stephen A. Vogel, is relying on volunteer staff in Washington, but the group has already begun analyzing local poverty numbers and meeting with city officials with the aim to open by the end of the year. The office may be located in one of the District's poorest areas, parts of the region frequently targeted by the sort of high-interest lenders to the poor that Yunus hopes to supplant, as he has in Bangladesh.
"The day check cashers are gone, payday loans are gone, pawn shops are gone, that means the banking system is working," Yunus said.
Posted: 17 Apr 2010 12:44 PM PDT
(MADRID) - Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou insisted on Saturday that neither the EU nor the IMF has yet demanded new budget cuts or tax hikes this year in exchange for rescue loans.
"Absolutely no one has said to us that additional measures will be necessary in 2010," Papaconstantinou told reporters after two days of talks with his euro currency and European Union peers in Spain.
Greek media have reported that the loans would likely be conditional on further budget cutbacks, including wage cuts in the private sector, a cap on pensions and the closure of some public services and state companies.
But despite the European Commission also stressing that "disincentives" designed to put Greece off were being discussed among euro partners, Papaconstantinou said no fresh measures had so far been sought from Athens "for the very simple reason that we have already taken measures far exceeding our target, precisely to safeguard that target."
He was referring to budgetary plans aimed at cutting the 2010 public deficit from an upwardly-revised 12.9 percent of Gross Domestic Product by four percentage points.
Papaconstantinou said that negotiations due to begin on Monday in Athens -- "Icelandic cloud-permitting" -- are centred on conditions attached to 30 billion euros (41 billion dollars) worth of loans from the EU and half as much again from the International Monetary Fund.
He insisted that Greece was fulfilling its obligations both in terms of fiscal consolidation and structural reforms, highlighting recently-passed tax law changes, pension reform and a series of privatisations.
However, he underlined that the small print on demands on both counts over the life of three years' worth of planned EU-IMF backstop support had still to be clarified.
But he said he had no problem with European governments borrowing money more cheaply before lending it out to Greece at higher rates of around five percent interest, because it was below the 7.5 percent interest Athens has been paying to meet its obligations.
Euro partners meanwhile assured Greece, he added, that they were on track with domestic hurdles -- citing the Netherlands as having secured "tacit approval" from its parliament to participate in the scheme.
Between 10 billion euros and 12 billion euros of Greece's debt will mature in the second half of May, requiring re-financing, he underlined.
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said Greece has not yet taken an official decision to seek the rescue loans.
"We haven't taken an official decision yet. All we're saying is let's prepare so that if we have to push the button, it's ready," he told Newsweek.
"The preparations may take a few days or a few weeks for the details of both the terms and the way this mechanism will work," he added.
Analysts have said the debt trouble afflicting Greece -- last tallied at some 300 billion euros -- could hurt investor confidence in Europe.
The dollar rallied against most other currencies on Friday as investors fled to the relative safety of the greenback amid concerns about Greek debt and fraud charges against Goldman Sachs.
In New York the single European currency slid to 1.3504 dollars by 2200 GMT, down from 1,3574 on Thursday.
Posted by Rakhma at 9:51 AM

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