No-frills demat account

Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), introduces no-frills demat account for small investors. The annual maintenance charge will be slab based. SEBI asked all depository participants (DPs) to make available a Basic Services Demat Account (BSDA) with limited services and reduced costs for retail individual investors. This is for those investors whose holdings in demat account does not exceed Rs.2 lakh at any point of time.
The Annual Maintenance Charge(AMC) slab is as below:
   Up to Rs.50,000, AMC will be nil while it will be Rs.100 between Rs.50,001-200,000.

Apple - Samsung patent case

Apple Inc won over Samsung as a US jury found the Korean company had copied critical features of the popular iPhone and iPad and awarded the US company $1.049 billion in damages. This could lead to an outright ban on sales of key Samsung products which will benefit Apple product sales in US.  This decision firmed the position of Apple at the top of the list of highest ever market value company in the history of the world. The interesting fact is that even when the companies are rivals they  have a $5 billion-plus supply relationship in which Apple buys microprocessors and other parts central to Apple’s devices which makes Apple the biggest customer of Samsung.
According to experts this ruling will affect Google's Android platform the most. Now manufacturers will not be happy to go with Android as they will have to face risk of patent issue. Time only will tell about this...

For Basel III banks need Rs 1.75 lakh cr recapitalisation

Indian banking system need Rs 1.75 lakh crore recapitalisation for meeting Basel III norms, but according to RBI it is manageable though challenging. This view is from the recently released annual report for FY12. Out of this, 1.50  lakh crore is for public sector banks which control almost 70% of total operations while private sector banks will need Rs. 25,000 cr. Basel-III norms were formulated after the 2008 credit crisis and aimed to reduce the risk of financial collapse.  Indian banks will start to prepare to meet these norms from March 2013 and will achieve the target by March 2018.