NEW YORK: US online giant eBay said on Friday its board approved the planned spinoff of its PayPal online payments unit, which will trade as an independent company from July 20. The plan calls for the distribution of PayPal stock to eBay shareholders on July 17, with the financial unit starting to trade under the symbol PYPL on July 20. The plan, announced last year, came after months of pressure from activist investor Carl Icahn, who had assailed eBay for poor management and claimed that keeping eBay tied with PayPal depressed the value of both units. eBay acquired PayPal in 2002 for roughly $1.5 billion in shares, integrating the payment service that had already been widely used for online auctions UBI to raise $581m MUMBAI: State-run Union Bank of India (UBI) has won shareholders’ approval to raise $581 million, including a capital infusion from the government, an official release said on Saturday. The bank would look at raising the capital through a public share issue, or a rights issue, or even a private placement, among other options, the bank said in a filing to the exchange after its annual shareholders’ meeting NDB launch schedule JOHANNESBURG: The emerging market BRICS nations will have their own development bank by the end of the year, South Africa said on Friday. “The New Development Bank (NDB) is expected to be operational by end of 2015,” the South African finance ministry said in a statement that announced the nomination of South African banker Leslie Maasdorp as vice president of the bank. The BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — decided in 2013 to create their own development bank to step up lending for infrastructure projects needed to close the gap with the industrialised world. The bank, which will be headquartered in Shanghai, is expected to have up to $100 billion in capital.