'Citibank customers will migrate to the Axis Bank platform over 18 months.'
Indian Bank expects recoveries to be more than slippages in this financial year, which will result in improved asset quality.
After a sequential fall in November, due to high base and waning of the festival season effect, credit card spends have picked up again in December, recording over Rs 1 trillion for the 10th consecutive month. Latest figures released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) show that credit card spends in December 2022 touched Rs 1.26 trillion, up 10.21 per cent compared to November. And, on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, spends were up 34.31 per cent during this period.
Indians remitted close to $2 billion in November under the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) liberalised remittance scheme (LRS), latest data released by the central bank showed. Outward remittances under the scheme jumped 29 per cent to $1.99 billion compared to $1.54 billion in the year-ago month. Sequentially, outward remittances under the scheme were up about 3.5 per cent.
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.
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.'
The Indian rupee is expected to trade between 80 and 84 against dollar in the first three months of 2023 with support from overseas inflows though worsening current account deficit (CAD) and reduced interest rate differential between the US and India pose challenges. According to a Business Standard Poll of 10 participants, most said the rupee could gain strength in January due to foreign inflows, and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is not expected to allow the currency to depreciate ahead of the Union Budget scheduled on February 1. The rupee depreciated 10.15 per cent in 2022, its worst performance since 2013 as the war in Europe and the interest rate increase by the US Federal Reserve prompted investors to flee emerging markets.
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.
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.
The number of fraud cases reported by private banks outnumbered those by public sector banks for the second consecutive year.
The year 2022 saw the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) start acting on the policy repo rate after a gap of two years. The six-member monetary policy committee of the RBI reduced interest rate sharply - by 115 bps - when Covid-19 struck in 2020. In March 2020, days after the nationwide lockdown was announced, MPC in an unscheduled meeting reduced the repo rate by 75 bps, followed by another 40 bps in May. Status quo was maintained for the next two years since the May repo rate hike.
The health of Indian banks continued to improve in 2021-22 with their balance sheet growing at double digits after a gap of seven years and their asset quality and capital position bettering, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its annual report on trend and progress of banking in India. At the same time, the banking regulator flagged the issue of slippages from restructured accounts. "Going forward, it is imperative that banks ensure due diligence and robust credit appraisal to limit credit risk," the report said.
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.
The members of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voiced different views on the interest rate and stance, with two of them indicating they may not vote for further rate increases even if Governor Shaktikanta Das and Deputy Governor Michael Patra maintain bringing down inflation as their primary objective, the minutes of the December review of the monetary policy showed. The other two members remained neutral. The MPC increased the policy repo rate by 35 basis points (bps) - which was lower than the previous three hikes of 50 bps. The repo rate has been hiked by 225 bps to 6.25 per cent since May this year.
Health premiums have picked up again after a slight moderation in growth, taking the non-life insurance industry's growth to 22 per cent in November, and to almost 17 per cent so far this financial year. Health premiums grew by 22.54 per cent in the April-November period, driven largely by group health plans, which have seen good growth due to rationalisation of discounts in premiums caused by adverse claim ratios in prior periods, medical inflation, and enhanced coverage. Health premiums grew by 29 per cent in the same period last year.
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