Ahead of the Union Budget 2023, insurers are hoping that the Centre will act on their recommendations, which includes increasing the limit for tax deduction under 80D of the Income Tax Act. Also among them are issuance of long-term bonds, tax incentives for home insurance premiums, and a separate section to claim deduction for term-insurance premium, among others. These suggestions would help improve the penetration of insurance in the country.
The Kraken COVID-19 variant accounts for almost 41 per cent of all Covid infections.
Public-sector banks, which are the largest employers in the banking space, have seen a drop in clerical staff over the years.
'It is observed that some of our branches are already losing good balances in their savings deposits as well as fixed deposits, which are maturing, to the other banks.'
'Enterprises have become more demanding in terms of their productivity expectation from their employees.'
The Life Insurance Corporation of India has the wherewithal to acquire a composite license, a top source aware of the development told Business Standard, adding that the insurance behemoth may look into entering the health and general insurance segments. "LIC has the scale, capacity, IT infrastructure, and the distribution reach to take advantage of the composite license. "LIC is looking at organic as well as inorganic growth opportunities.
Clock 11% growth in the first 11 months of 2022.
'The protective effect of the vaccine lasts for about nine months to a year.' 'For health workers that period is already over. This is the right time to augment their immunity.'
India's flagship payment platform, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), ended the 2022 calendar year on a high note as the volume of transactions touched a record 7.82 billion in December, amounting to Rs 12.82 trillion, again a record high. Data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the umbrella body for retail digital payments in the country, showed volume of transactions in December was up 7.12 per cent compared to November, while value of transactions was up 7.73 per cent during the same period.
The first quarter of calendar 2023 will see new faces heading four large public-sector banks -- Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Indian Overseas Bank, and Bank of India.
Indian drug firms continue to work closely with the FDA, and most have also appointed consultants to help them grasp the regulatory minutiae in the US.
Less than 30,000 booster doses daily in December.
The number of fraud cases reported by private banks outnumbered those by public sector banks for the second consecutive year.
The joint inspections is to ensure the safety, efficacy, and quality of drugs available in the country
The vaccine would not have production scalability issues unlike Covaxin, Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 virus vaccine.
Kinetic Engineering (KEL), the makers of the iconic Luna two-wheelers in the seventies, will soon start producing components for an electric version of the moped. Pune-based Kinetic said in September that Luna would make a comeback in an electric avatar. The electric Luna, or E-Luna, will be launched by KEL's sister company Kinetic Green Energy and Power Solutions.
Credit card spending dropped 11 per cent sequentially in November at Rs 1.15 trillion, but topped Rs 1 trillion for the ninth month straight, data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed as the festive season ends and consumption activity slows down. Year-on-year (YoY), spending was up 29 per cent. Card spends have consistently topped the Rs 1 trillion mark, led by the rising share of e-commerce transactions.
Even as competition to garner deposits is intensifying into a tight liquidity and high credit growth scenario, Bank of Baroda (BoB) has hiked deposit rates for the second time in the current quarter. Also, private lender IDBI Bank has come out with a limited period offer on its term deposits. It is offering 7.6 per cent interest rate for a tenor of 700 days, effective from December 2022.
The regulatory changes brought in by the insurance regulator and the amendments proposed to the Insurance Act by the Centre may herald a new dawn for the sector in India. This may result in insurers bringing out more consumer-led products, top honchos of general insurance companies of the country concurred at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit 2022.
India has a huge untapped population which doesn't have facilities for financial aid and insurance, and it is perhaps plausible to look at the option of having niche players catering to smaller sectors akin to non-banks and microfinance institutions in lending, said Rakesh Joshi, member (Finance & Investment), Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai). Speaking at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit, Joshi said, "Today, most of our insurance companies operate at a national level. There is arguably a case for having differentiated operations, which cater to niche sectors the same way we have non-banking financial companies (NBFC) and microfinance institutions in lending." "The capital requirement for niche players may not be as large as those having national ambitions. "Enabling these niche players, which require lower capital, will enhance the penetration in areas which hitherto had not seen traction from large players," he said.