A strict enforcement of seat belt norms for rear passengers would be more effective than making an alarm go off when people do not belt up, according to officials at car manufacturers. Their comments came a day after Nitin Gadkari, the Union minister for road transport and highways, announced that seat belt alarms would be made mandatory for passengers in the rear seat of a car. "We have taken a decision that there will be a provision that the car seat belt alarm should beep when the rear seat rider is not wearing a seat belt. "We will impose fines if rear seat riders are not wearing seat belts.
Tata Motors on Monday launched the country's first CNG truck in the medium and heavy commercial (M&HCV) vehicle segment in the 28- and 19-tonne nodes. Most truck makers, including Tata Motors, currently offer CNG only in the small and light commercial vehicle segments. The company also launched a fleet of seven trucks in the intermediary and light commercial vehicle (I&LCV) segment, meant for varied applications.
Credit card spends touched an all-time high of Rs 1.16 trillion in July, registering a growth of 6.5 per cent on a month-on-month basis and 54 per cent year-on-year, latest data put out by the Reserve Bank of India revealed. Spends have topped the Rs 1 trillion level for five consecutive months now. Industry participants are expecting further tailwinds in credit card spends with the onset of the festive season, where spends typically remain at an elevated level.
Commemorating 75 years of India's independence, SBI has launched a 75-day Utsav Deposit Scheme, offering 6.10 per cent for fixed deposits. Senior citizens will get an additional 0.50 per cent and the offer is on until October 30, SBI said.
The Reserve Bank of India has on Wednesday lifted the ban on new customer acquisition by American Express which was imposed with effect from May 2021 due to non-compliance with local data storage norms. "In view of the satisfactory compliance demonstrated by American Express Banking Corp. with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) circular dated April 6, 2018, on Storage of Payment System Data, the restrictions imposed, vide order dated April 23, 2021, on onboarding of new domestic customers have been lifted with immediate effect," RBI said. Similar bans were imposed on Diners Club International and Mastercard previously.
The Warren Buffet-backed Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD will be unveiling a Born Electric SUV for the Indian market by the fourth quarter of the current calendar year. The deliveries of the same would begin in January, the company's top official said. This will be the first Born Electric SUV in the mass market. The Born Electric models from Tata Motors and Mahindra and Mahindra would be launched from 2024. BYD has been selling the E6 MPV in the Indian market since 2021.
Outward remittances under the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) liberalised remittance scheme (LRS) made a strong comeback in the first quarter of FY23 as Indians increased spending on international travel, maintenance of close relatives, and gifts. The latest data for Q1FY23 released by the RBI shows that remittance by Indians under the scheme jumped 64.75 per cent to over $6.04 billion from $3.67 billion in Q1FY22. The amount remitted in Q1FY23 is even higher than that in Q4FY22, where outward remittance under LRS was to the tune of $5.8 billion. In April, about $2.02 billion was remitted, followed by $2.03 billion in May, and $1.98 billion in June, data released by RBI in the August bulletin shows.
A gradual approach to privatise public sector banks (PSBs) is more ideal than taking a big-bang approach, a study by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) staff has concluded. It has backed the government's idea to privatise two PSBs initially. Such a gradual approach would ensure that large-scale privatisation does not create a void in fulfilling important social objectives of financial inclusion and monetary transmission, the study has argued.
Alto, the Maruti brand synonymous with small cars, introduced the new generation K10 on Thursday, aiming to consolidate its position further amid shrinking demand for hatchbacks. With prices starting at Rs 399,000 and going up to Rs 533,500 (for manual transmission), the new model claims fuel efficiency of 24.90 km per litre. The Japanese car maker, which has been selling 100 Altos every hour for the last 22 years, had discontinued the model in February 2020.
Credit card spends in June, although down marginally month-on-month (MoM), remained above the Rs 1-trillion mark for the fourth consecutive month. In June, credit card spends topped Rs 1.09 trillion, down 4.34 per cent MoM, revealed the data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). However, on a year-on-year basis, spends were up 73 per cent. In May, credit card spends hit an all-time high, reaching Rs 1.14 trillion.
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) clocked over 6 billion transactions in July: the highest ever by India's flagship digital payments platform since its inception in 2016. UPI reported 6.28 billion transactions amounting to Rs 10.62 trillion, according to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates the platform. Month-on-month, the volume of transactions was up 7.16 per cent and value increased 4.76 per cent.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has relaxed card-on-file data storage norms pertaining to guest transactions checkout, whereby now, apart from the card issuer and the card network, the merchant or its payment aggregator involved in the settlement of the transactions can save the data for a maximum of T+4 days or till the settlement date, whichever is earlier. And, acquiring banks have been permitted to store the card-on-file data until January 2023 for handing other post-transactions activities. The industry reached out to the RBI on the issue and sought a solution.
HDFC Bank, the country's largest private-sector lender, lost to competition wholesale loans of around Rs 50,000 crore after it increased interest rates in May, said Chief Financial Officer Srinivasan Vaidyanathan in an analyst call. "There were some customers who were offered lower rates by other market participants. "But we decided not to cut back on our rates," he said while addressing analysts after the announcement of the bank's Q1 earnings.
After the finance minister directed public sector banks to join the account aggregator (AA) ecosystem, 5-6 major ones, including State Bank of India (SBI) and Bank of Baroda are expected to go live by July-end. Sahmati, an industry alliance for the AA ecosystem, has been working with PSU banks to get them onboarded for quite some time now. So far, Union Bank of India and Punjab National Bank (PNB) have gone live on the AA ecosystem. While Union Bank has been live for a while, PNB went live earlier this month.
'We try to pick up stocks early and hold onto them for the long term.' 'We are not someone who buys and sells on a daily basis.'
A strong demand for diesel SUVs has bumped up the contribution of these variants to Hyundai Motor India's sales to a three-year high, a company top official told Business Standard. The local arm of the South Korean carmaker has benefitted after some leading manufacturers - including car market leader Maruti Suzuki - pulled the plug on diesel models amid tightening regulations. Hyundai has also gained from the changing travel preference -people are frequenting getaways and taking to the road a lot more than what they did before the pandemic. This trend has been fuelling overall SUV sales.
The recent currency volatility - rupee's depreciation against international currencies - may have given heartburns to automakers that rely on imports or pay royalty to parent companies abroad. But for Maruti Suzuki India, favourable movement of the yen - the currency that matters the most - against the Indian rupee, has given it reasons to cheer. The yen's sharp fall against the rupee and the rupee's depreciation against the US dollar, which in turn will bump up export realisations, are set to give a margin boost to the maker of Baleno and Brezza, said analysts. The softening of commodity prices and slew of new SUV launches in the coming months will also aid margins, they said.
The depreciation in rupee may pose a problem for students who have taken loans from Indian lenders.
The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) recent decision to allow credit cards for payments through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is likely to attract a merchant discount rate (MDR), said a top payment industry source. For smaller merchants, a subsidy for MDR could be provided. "With credit card-UPI linkage, UPI will not only be a payment instrument but also a lending platform. "How can banks lend without a commercial model? Also, the government has said MDR will be zero for payment products but not for lending products," the source said, indicating the MDR regime for credit card-linked UPI payments.
Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is setting up a greenfield tractor plant in Mohali near Punjab. Fueled by a strong domestic demand, the expansion is the first in a decade by the world's largest tractor maker. In 2012, the company had set up a facility at Zaheerabad in Telangana.
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