PayPal to Resume India Bank Withdrawals on Wed.

PayPal plans to start resuming bank withdrawals in India on March 3, but personal payments into India remain suspended until further notice. Exporters will be able to continue using PayPal for goods and services.

Last month, PayPal halted personal payments in India amid questions from Indian regulators about whether personal payments constitute remittances–or money transfers that foreign workers make into their home countries–into India.

This suspension caught many by surprise and meant that some people with money in their PayPal accounts had no way of getting it out. PayPal had planned to start allowing withdrawals to Indian banks on February 14, but complications delayed that move.

“We anticipate that as of Wednesday, March 3rd, we will be able to resume the bank withdrawal service,” Farhad Irani, head of PayPal’s Asia Pacific business, wrote in a blog post. “As part of the changes, you will be required to fill out a new field entitled ‘Export Code’ when you request a withdrawal. This information is required under the current laws of India in order to identify the nature of cross-border merchant transactions.”

Irani posted a separate blog post with more detailed information about how to withdrawal bank funds.

Getting personal payments into India up and running is a bit more complicated.

“Moving forward, the [Reserve Bank of India] RBI has told us that PayPal needs specific approvals to allow personal inward remittances to India, which we currently do not have,” Irani wrote. “Until we get these approvals, personal payments into India will remain suspended.”

Exporters, however, can continue to do business, he said. “In fact, with the changes we are making to our system, PayPal is now set to be a more powerful engine for exporters in India,” Irani wrote. “With purpose codes for export transactions and FIRCs (Foreign Inward Remittance Certificates), you should now be able to get the export-related benefits you seek.”

Nanayam – Movie Review

-Prasanna, Sibiraj, Ramya

Movie –Nanayam Director – Sakthi S Rajan Music – James Vasanthan Cast -Prasanna, Sibiraj, Ramya

Style is good if there is substance. After seeing the hype around Nanayam, one anticipated a cracker of a thriller. Alas, it turns out to be a run of the mill assembly line thriller, particularly post interval.

The film is enticing in the beginning, but as the story opens up, there are far too many loopholes in the plot. We plunge right into the life and times of Ravi (Prasanna), an electronics engineer who designed the vaults of the “world’s safest bank” and wants to become an entrepreneur and has applied for a loan from the same bank. Viswanath (SPB) the CEO of the bank who helped Ravi to get the job, rejects his application.

Meanwhile Ravi meets Nandini (Ramya) a journalist and in the very first meeting gets smitten by her. Nandini claims to be a divorcee, and after spending a night with her on the beach on reaching home he finds a stranger sitting in his home and dictating terms to him. He also finds Nandini’s ex-husbands body in the dickey of his car!
The stranger who comes into his life is Fareed (Sibiraj) who blackmails him as he shows him photographs about Ravi’s involvement in the murder of Nandini’s ex- husband. The way out offered by Fareed to Ravi is that he should help him rob the bank whose security system he set up, as he has his own axe to grind against Viswanath.
The trouble with the film etched from the 2008 English film The Bank Job, is that the suspense elements are revealed early in the second half. How can an intelligent guy like the hero of the film not realize that he is being taken for a sucker ride by his lady love? The way Nandini dances her way through laser beams is laughable. Songs are a major distraction in the film, and it pops up every 15 minutes.
Prasanna as the nice guy in a bad situation is impressive and carries the show, while Sibiraj as the mean bad man is a revelation. Ramya and Yasmin are their mostly for the songs. The music of James Vasanthan is a major let down. Let us hope that director Sakthi S Rajan takes a little more care on his scripts and churns out the perfect thriller in future.

Verdict- Thriller with no suspense!

FOREX-Dlr gives up gains, yen stays bid; mkt digests US plan

 * FX markets digest US financial rescue plan

* Dollar index off 0.2 pct at 85.50 .DXY, yen up

* Sterling down as BoE inflation report, UK jobs data loom

LONDON,  – The dollar gave back on Wednesday some gains made the previous session as dealers digested the implications of the latest U.S. financial rescue plan, while weak equity markets continued to support the yen.

The consensus was that the plan — which could total over $2 trillion — covered the key areas needed to stem the banking sector bleeding. However, it lacked fresh details and failed to meet the high expectations built into financial markets.

Rising aversion among investors to perceived risky assets such as equities and emerging market and higher yielding currencies generally benefit the yen, Swiss franc and dollar. This is how markets traded on Tuesday.

The dollar slipped back against most major currencies on Wednesday as dealers booked some profits, but the yen retained its broad gains as European equity markets followed Asia and Wall Street lower in early trade.

Sterling was the biggest mover among the majors, falling against the dollar and euro before the Bank of England’s quarterly inflation report and latest UK employment data, which are both expected to point to easier monetary policy.

The Swedish crown fell sharply after the country’s central bank surprised markets with a larger-than–expected interest rate cut of 100 basis points to 1.0 percent.

The main issue in currency markets on Wednesday, however, remained the bank plan unveiled by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday.

“The general sense is the market still has to come to grips with how it feels about the plan. There was nothing bad about the plan but it just perhaps wasn’t as bombastic as expected,” said Michael Hart, currency strategist at Citigroup in London.

“The hurdles for any kind of redemption (in the eyes of the market) are pretty high … but there are a lot of positives and negatives in this,” Hart said, adding that the markets are likely to adopt a more measured stance on Wednesday.

At 0840 GMT the dollar index was down 0.2 percent on the day at 85.40 <.DXY, and the euro was up 0.5 percent at $1.2965.

The dollar fell a third of a percent against the yen at 90 yen <JPY=>, while the Japanese currency posted larger gains against sterling and the Australian and New Zealand dollars.

Japanese investors were absent for a national holiday.

The pound was down half a percent against the dollar at $1.4425 <GBP=> and the euro was up 1 percent against the pound at 89.90 pence <EURGBP=>.

 

ALL ABOUT RISK

(For more on Geithner’s measures, which included a plan to set up a public-private fund that could absorb up to $1 trillion in bad assets from banks’ books, see [ID:nN102559])

Disappointment over the bank plan overshadowed passage of a $838 billion economic stimulus package by the Senate.

However, the Senate and the House of Representatives will now have to haggle over the shape and size of the final plan, leaving much uncertainty over the final size and scope of spending and tax cuts. [ID:nN10309684]

Should markets fail to warm to the plan, analysts at Credit Suisse expect the dollar to remain supported and so-called “riskier” currencies to suffer.

“The absence of a specific U.S. commitment to a bad bank structure is likely to put renewed pressure on sterling and, to a lesser extent, the euro relative to the dollar,” they said in a note on Wednesday.

In terms of data releases, the global economic picture remained pretty bleak.

Trade data from China released on Wednesday showed a 17.5 percent drop in January exports from a year earlier, and a 43.1 percent decline in imports.

The BoE will publish its quarterly inflation report at 1030 GMT, which could give clues on further interest rate cuts. The central bank is set to revise lower its estimate for growth. UK jobs figures for January will be released at 0930 GMT. [ECON]

Intel to invest $7 billion in chip manufacturing

Plus: Dow plunges after bank bailout plan revamp; Genentech pushed for $112 a share from Roche; AMD delays shareholder vote Despite the worldwide recession, Santa Clara computer chip giant Intel said today that it will invest $7 billion over the next two years on state-of-the-art chip manufacturing in the United States, adding that its plans have drawn praise from President Obama.The expenditure will revamp existing Intel plants in Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico so they can manufacture the company’s most advanced 32 nanometer chips, which have circuits shrunk to 32 billionth of a meter or about one millionth of an inch. Currently, 45 nanometer chips are the smallest semiconductors on the market. During a speech today in the nation’s capital attended by several hundred business leaders at the Economic Club of Washington, Intel’s Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini said the company was making the investment because “you can’t stop innovating,” even when the economy has turned sour. Otellini added that Obama called him Monday night to congratulate the company for planning to spend heavily on developing the new chips Dow plunges 382 points: Investors are frustrated with the government’s latest bank bailout plan — and showing it by unloading stocks. Financial stocks led the market lower today, reflecting Wall Street’s growing concerns about the government’s ability to restore the health of the banking industry. Traders and investors said the lack of specifics from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on how the government would direct more than $1 trillion in public and private support was troubling. The plan is aimed at restoring proper functioning to credit markets, which seized up over worries about bad debt after the September bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings. The latest plan calls for a government-private sector partnership to help remove banks’ soured assets from their books. Genentech sought $112 a share from Roche: Roche said it started a hostile $86.50-a-share bid for Genentech after talks in which the biotechnology company said it wanted $112 a share, or 29 percent more. Roche disclosed details of its negotiations with Genentech in documents filed Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Roche’s disclosure of the $112-a-share figure is the first indication of the price Genentech thinks it is worth. The view was dismissed by Roche Chairman Franz Humer, who according to the filing told Genentech the price wasn’t “an appropriate starting point for negotiations.” On Jan. 30, Roche lowered its $89-a-share offer made in July, saying it would take the bid directly to shareholders. Roche, based in Basel, Switzerland, owns about 56 percent of South San Francisco-based Genentech and wants to buy the remainder to gain full ownership of the U.S. company’s cancer medicines. AMD delays shareholder vote: Advanced Micro Devices, the second-largest maker of computer processors, rescheduled a meeting meant to let investors vote on the spin off of its plants as part of an investment from the Abu Dhabi government. There weren’t enough shareholders at the meeting to reach quorum, the Sunnyvale-based company said today in a statement. The meeting will reconvene on Feb. 18 at 10 a.m. local time at the Hilton Austin Airport hotel in Texas. The cash  infusion would be a lifeline for AMD, which analysts expect to report its fourth annual loss this year. The chipmaker has failed to keep up with investments by Intel — the dominant maker of personal-computer processors, with 80 percent of the market. Earlier today, Intel said it plans to spend $7 billion over the next two years on U.S. plants alone. Silicon Valley tech stocks: Up: SiRF Technology and Virage Logic Down: Apple, Cisco, Genentech, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Yahoo The tech heavy Nasdaq composite index: Down 66.83, or 4.20 percent, to 1,524.73. The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average: Down 381.99, or 4.62 percent, to 7888.88. And the Standard & Poor’s 500 index: Down 42.73, or 4.91 percent, to 827.16.