In a meeting between the central bank and market participants last week, it was also decided that futures would be introduced both as an exchange-traded product and over the counter. The RBI will also be reviving interest rate futures that were introduced in 2003, but failed to take off due to the lack of a well-developed pricing curve in the market across maturiites.
Overseas markets are already hit by an acute dollar crunch, which is why major central banks, the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England, had to infuse funds into the market. These lines of credit are over and above the stand-by credit, which is usually maintained by foreign banks with the Indian banks.
Faced with abundant liquidity and flat credit off-take, banks are reversing interest rate hikes charged to large companies.In the first three months of this fiscal, most blue chips could access loans at a maximum of one to two percentage points below the PLR. Today, short-term loans (that is, for less than one year) for such companies are available between 7.5 and 9 per cent.
Among its suggestions to the finance ministry, RBI has also said the government should classify private equity under a separate category of foreign investment, or create sub-limits within foreign direct investment or investments by foreign institutional investors.
The loan portfolio of banks has grown by Rs 54,908 crore (Rs 549.08 billion) till September 14, representing only 3.6 per cent growth. During the same period last year, banks had lent Rs 147,657 crore (Rs 1,476.57 billion), a rise of 10.5 per cent.
The finance ministry is of the view that all interests -- direct and indirect -- should be taken into account and that there should not be any threshold for calculating total effective foreign shareholding in a company.
Individuals may soon get to invest in overseas commodity and equity derivatives.
At a high-level coordinate committee meeting to be held by the month-end, the government and the Reserve Bank of India will take stock of the situation.
The central bank's objective is to align the regulations for such loans with the tenure and end-use norms for external commercial borrowings in a bid to check foreign currency inflows.
Bonds/papers of Tata Motors, Reliance, SBI, ICICI and others turn illiquid in international markets.
"It is a logical step. The information gathered through annual information returns will now be compared with the tax returns of individuals to see if taxes are paid correctly or not," said a consultant with a leading tax advisory firm.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes is considering a proposal to restrict the exemption on long-term capital gains only to companies constituting the BSE-500 index.
Liquidity is expected to remain comfortable this week, albeit the rate at which it is available may inch up rather than remaining below 1 per cent.
To consider open offer if price falls below Rs 2,100 a share.
The Reserve Bank of India is exploring a dedicated currency futures exchange, after taking an in-principle decision to launch rupee-denominated futures.
The outlook on liquidity depends on various factors this week. If the Reserve Bank of India decides to remove the cap on the amount raised under the reverse repo, it will immediately modulate the liquidity.
Central bank fears corporate credit is finding its way to the bourses.
The apex court has upheld the treatment of its business process outsourcing hub, Morgan Stanley Advantage Services, as a service permanent establishment.
For a larger pie in business opportunities thrown up by the rising cross-border acquisitions by Indian companies, the country's largest bank, State Bank of India, is looking to acquire a small investment banking firm in Europe.
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