Credit card issuers saw significant erosion of their card base during the July-September quarter as the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) norms mandated deactivation of cards that have been inactive for a year. The second quarter of the current financial year saw outstanding cards-in-force decline by 2.55 million to 77.7 million. Prior to this, the industry, on an average, was witnessing a net addition of over 1.5 million credit cards a month as players became aggressive on the unsecured lending business after the pandemic.
It will also be new Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra's first GST Council meeting. He will take charge after the incumbent Tarun Bajaj retires on November 30.
The grievances of as many as 2,500-3,000 taxpayers could be addressed and resolved between October 2 and October 31. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has asked tax officials to dispose of at least 20 per cent of the pending matters during the period. The move comes after Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently nudged the income-tax (I-T) department to redress the grievances promptly.
Amid fast-depleting forex reserves, the Finance Ministry on Wednesday signalled that it was not in favour of selling the dollar to defend any particular level of the rupee. "Let it (rupee) reach whatever levels it has to reach. We can't fritter away reserves on defending some artificial, imaginary rate of exchange," a senior finance ministry official told Business Standard. Forex reserves declined to a near two-year low of $545.65 billion as on September 16, down $85.88 billion from the level that existed on February 25, a day after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The outstanding credit card base dropped to 77.99 million in August from over 80 million in July, mainly on account of the new norms of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that warrant the deactivation of cards that are inactive for a year. While there was a 2.8 per cent decline in net card additions on a month-on-month (MoM) basis in August, a first in many months, credit card spends slipped 3 per cent on a high base. Still, spends topped the Rs 1-trillion mark for the sixth consecutive month.
The Director General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence (DGGI) has slapped its heftiest tax notice of Rs 21,000 crore on Bengaluru-based Gameskraft Technology (GTPL) for allegedly evading GST on the betting amount. Gameskraft has dubbed the notice a "departure from the well-established law of the land". The company is accused of promoting online betting through card, casual and fantasy games like Rummy Culture, Gamezy and Rummy Time.
Come October 1, merchants, payment aggregators and acquiring banks can no longer store the card details of customers.
The Enforcement Directorate's (ED's) chargesheet in the National Stock Exchange (NSE) illegal phone-tapping case points to insider trading during the tenures of Chitra Ramkrishna and Ravi Narain as managing director and chief executive officer of the bourse. The federal agency will soon be sharing the details with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for further inquiry, two people aware of the findings told Business Standard. The ED, which filed its prosecution complaint (commonly known as chargesheet), alleged that Narain and Ramkrishna were the "key conspirators" and had assisted iSec Services to generate money to the tune of Rs 24 crore for exchanging crucial information, the people said.
The increasing involvement of Big Tech in the financial system could give rise to concentration risk and there are potential spillovers, which call for closer attention, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Tuesday. "...enormous amounts of consumer data is being generated and leveraged upon by a few entities (the so-called Big Tech) by virtue of their huge customer base. "Such developments raise concerns on concentration risk and potential spillovers as their level of engagement with the financial system strengthens in the years to come," Das said at the Global Fintech Fest 2022.
To educate customers on the modus operandi of financial fraudsters and share inputs on safe banking habits, banks are now coming up with awareness campaigns aimed at preventing customers from falling into the trap of fraudsters.
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.
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.
About 300 fintech firms are under investigation by the ED for allegedly partnering 38 non-banking financial companies for predatory lending practices to charge borrowers high interest rates.
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.
The income-tax department may make a permanent account number (PAN) mandatory for cryptocurrency investors, in line with the demat account rules for stock market transactions, according to two people privy to the discussion. At present, disclosure of crypto holdings and related gains is voluntary. If tax authorities go ahead with the PAN mandate, crypto exchanges will have to furnish a statement of financial transactions (SFT) before the income-tax department.
Having observed variations in capital gains tax computation, the revenue department is working on a mechanism to analyse futures and options (F&O) trade data and pre-initial public offering (IPO) transactions. "The directorate of I-T systems is working on certain risk-assessment parameters to access the data, which could be on the basis of buying and selling prices of shares in F&Os, variations in margins, fair market value versus IPO prices, etc. "The idea is to segregate and process the voluminous data on equity derivatives for effective use," said a senior government official privy to the plan.
An additional criterion in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) may require digital businesses to secure approval from the Competition Commission of India (CCI), the anti-trust regulator. The government is set to introduce a minimum threshold "transaction value" of Rs 2,000 crore (around $250 million) for any deal as a criterion for notification to the anti-trust regulator if the entity being acquired has substantial operations in India. The new criterion is learnt to be part of the proposed amendments to the two-decade-old Competition law, which is expected to be tabled in the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament.
The faceless authority has suggested a host of changes in the assessment process following conflicts and practical difficulties raised by taxpayers since the new regime was introduced. On August 3, the National Faceless Assessment Centre issued a set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) to address several anomalies in the regime. The faceless centre, constituted by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, is the nodal authority and works as an interface for the faceless regime.
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