Standard Finance 5.5% cash dividend

Standard Finance has decided in its AGM to distribute 5.5 per cent cash dividend to its shareholders on Tuesday. The bank had earned Rs 57 million as net profit in the fiscal year 2009-10. The finance company provides all kinds of modern banking services to its customers including ATM, SMS banking, E-banking, 365 days banking, any branch banking among others.

Source:
tht

Standard Fin applies for commercial bank permit

01, Jan 2010

Standard Finance Company has applied to Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) for permission to upgrade to an A class commercial bank from its C classification. If it gets the license from the central bank, it will be the second financial institution after Kist Bank to get a double promotion to A class. Kist had been raised to a commercial bank last year.

NRB officials said although some other financial institutions had also shown interest to upgrade themselves, they have not submitted a concrete proposal. There has been a tendency on the part of financial institutions to talk more about upgrading but doing little about it. According to NRB, Standard Finance's paid-up capital stands at Rs. 1.18 billion currently which it should increase to Rs. 2 billion to become a commercial bank.

Shailesh Kumar Aryal, company secretary of the finance company, said that they would increase the capital base to the required level within this fiscal year by issuing 1:1 rights shares in February. "We have applied to NRB to get a letter of intent to upgrade our company," he said. Standard Finance was established 14 years ago.

Financial institutions now have a better chance to be upgraded after the central bank introduced the policy from this year that they could apply for upgrading before increasing their capital base. "We fix the timeline with regard to capital after the letter of intent and they must increase their capital to the level fixed by the law to get the final license," said a source at NRB. They will also have to confirm if they have a stake in other financial institutions and the number of shareholders and other details during the licensing process as per the central bank's licensing policy. "It will take at least three-four months for Standard Finance to be upgraded if it fulfils all the prerequisites on time," the NRB official said.


Source:
ekantipur.com

Weekly Update

Nepal Stock Exchange tumbles this week primarily weighed by book closure on Himalayan Bank and International Leasing & Finance Company. Likewise, political collide led investor's worry to new height and rigid rules and regulation on stock market dampened the outlook to the ground. Taking into account of all the disappointing news, the benchmark Nepse index slump to more than 30 months low to 534.32 points down 27.79 points or 5 percent.

"Book closure of many companies have diminished the Nepse index to this level along with other key off-putting news and still there are key companies to close its book and lots of awful happening in near term, hence Nepse index will pull back to ground level in near term" said, Bijay Kumar Shrestha, an investors in the stock market.

There was strong wind behind the banking index that dropped 36.67 points or 6.80 percent to 502.19 at the closing session of week in comparison to Sunday's close. Similarly, finance index slump down 30.45 points or 5.12 percent to close at 564.63. ILFC (Rs. 219, -54.38%) turn out to be the biggest decliner on price adjustment after book closure date followed by Standard Finance (STFL, Rs. 237, -8.85) and Reliable Finance (RIBSL, Rs. 640, -8.57%). Development bank edge down 34.46 points or 5.52 percent to 589.93 fronted by loss in scrip price of Clean Energy Development Bank (CEDBL, 660, -8.97%), Vibor Bikash Bank (VBBL, Rs. 348, -7.69%) and so on. Hydro was down 9.58 points or 1.18 percent, insurance rolled down 15.76 points while others diminished 7.04 and trading plummets 10.02 points.

Stock analyst believed that "New floating of shares in the form of right share, bonus share and initial public offering amid chaotic political and economical environment has haunted the stock market growth."

Hefty decline in scrip price of most of the financial companies triggered domestic blue chips or sensitive index to close at 131.51 subtracting 9.16 points or 6.52 percent. Sensex is heavily loaded with financial companies as 14 commercial banks, 37 finance companies, 15 development bank, 10 insurance companies and one each from hydropower and manufacturing companies are included in sensitive index. Similarly, float Index an indicator of performance of ordinary shares in the market rolled down 2.58 points to 50.96.

Total of 91 companies registered their presence in the secondary market over this week. Losers overshadowed the market as 52 companies lost their price and only 12 companies advanced. All in all 562048 shares traded over the week for Rs. 276,846,822 turnovers along with Rs. 1,997,955.71 million market capitalizations.