NDEX Money Expo in the offing

KATHMANDU, July 17, 2012

A three-day NDEX Money Expo 2012 is being held in the capital from August 31 to September 2. Arthik Abhiyan daily and Jamb Technologies in association with Minds Nepal and Morningstar Investment Services are organizing the event.

According to the organizers, the expo is a unique business-networking event for the companies of financial sectors and their constituents. It provides investors a valuable opportunity to speak directly with the nation´s top financial expert related to trading and investment, banking, insurance, mutual funds, stocks, tax strategies, commodities and personal financial planning.

Speaking at a press meet held on Monday, Suraj Vaidya, president of Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industries, said that the expo will help in motivating the investors and bring in investment by creating environment for interaction between different industrialists and business giants. “Events like this should be organized in regular intervals as they will definitely help improve investment climate in the country,” said Radesh Pant, CEO of Investment Board.

The expo will have more than 122 stalls of different regulatory bodies, stock and commodity exchanges, banks and financial institutions, merchant bankers, investment companies, brokerage companies, remittance, insurance companies, depositors and clearing houses, portfolio management companies, financial knowledge management and training institutes, microfinance and cooperatives, traders and investors associations and clubs and financial domain technologies among others.

Besides, various other events like seminar and speeches from financial experts, regulators, analyst and top investors, art exhibition and quiz contest, national and international currency show, trading and investment movie show will also be organized at the sidelines of the expo.
The organizers are expecting footfall of more than 300,000.

Source: Republica

Bank staff involved in fake declarations leading to illegal indian currency (IC) withdrawals

Preliminary investigation has shown that employees of some banks have been involved in misappropriation of huge amount of Indian Currency (IC) in collusion with traders who produced fake customs' documents.

"Our initial finding suggests that bank staff assisted the business firms that produced fake demand drafts and customs declaration forms to abuse IC," said a source at the Ministry of Finance (MoF).

Officials of the Department of Revenue Investigation (DRI) who are investigating into the cases of IC misappropriation worth Rs 1 billion by eight firms confirmed that almost all customs declaration forms submitted to NIC Bank branch at Birgunj appeared to be fake.

"While studying the documents we found almost all transactions of IC through NIC Bank were based on the fake customs declaration forms," Shanta Bahadur Shrestha, director general of DRI, told Republica on Saturday. Shrestha said investigation team from DRI found that those firms produced 599 fake customs declaration forms to different banks. "However, we are still to calculate the total amount of IC misappropriation from those customs declaration forms," said Shrestha.

He said documents submitted in other banks are also suspected to be fake because the same firms are involved in transactions with those banks as well.

An investigation team that was dispatched by Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) on Wednesday has already sought clarifications from six commercial banks through which eight firms in Birgunj managed to draw huge amount of IC by producing fake customs documents.

The NRB team led by Deputy Director Chet Prasad Upreti began investigations into the cases in Birgunj-based branches of NIC Bank, Nepal Investment Bank, Nepal Bangladesh Bank, Laxmi Bank, Everest Bank and Siddhartha Bank. Public sector bank, Nepal Bank Ltd is also under the scanner of the investigation after transactions from the bank worth Rs 8 million was found suspicious.

Those firms withdrew Rs 630 million from NIC Bank, Rs 11.8 million from Everest Bank, Rs 32.3 million from Laxmi Bank, Rs 7.7 million from Nepal Bangladesh Bank, Rs 60.4 million from Siddhartha Bank and Rs 16.4 million from Nepal Investment Bank. Those firms are also found to have opened accounts with Sunrise Bank, Nabil Bank, Global Bank and Bank of Kathmandu.

An investigation carried out by DRI had found Maxwell Computer, Shyam Galla Bhandar, Jaya Mata Di International, Digital World and GS Traders of producing fake customs documents to withdraw huge amount of IC from different commercial banks. Five proprietors of those firms have been taken into custody.

In other cases of suspected IC misappropriation, DRI has sealed Nitesh Brothers, Jaibaba Amar Nath and Gangotri Gallaghar in Birgunj and put Dinesh Gupta, proprietor of those firms, behind the bars.

Source: Republica