Having cleaned up their credit card portfolios and sensing a change in the economic environment, issuers such as SBI Cards, Standard Chartered and HSBC are seeing an increase in their credit card base at a marginal pace.
One indication of this was the fact that many large bond buyers stayed away from the Rs 12,000 crore auction conducted on August 7.
The free run at automated teller machines might end soon, with banks petitioning the Reserve Bank of India to put curbs on cash withdrawals at third-party ATMs. Representatives from the Indian Banks Association, who met central bank officials late last month to make a case, said RBI had accepted most of their suggestions and these are likely to come into effect soon.
Income from distribution of third-party products such as insurance policies and mutual fund schemes is already under pressure because of the unfavourable economic climate.
According to the Reserve bank of India data, year-on-year growth for credit card outstandings, or the total balance due to issuers on credit card spends by customers, has plummeted to 1.4 per cent as on May 22, 2009.
Banks' net interest margins under pressure due to moderate income from advances.
Banks have come to realise that recession or no recession, education loans are a low-risk business.
The additional step is the result of a Reserve Bank of India's guideline issued this February that mandates additional authentications/verifications based on information about the card-holder that is not contained on the card. This measure is expected to contain online card fraud.
Balachandran M, Director of the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection, has little time to catch his breath. He and his team have been supervising recruitment of nearly 100 public sector bank employees every day.
CitiFinancial, Citibank India's non-banking finance arm, has reduced its asset book by one-third and its branch network by a quarter of the year-ago level as part of a restructuring exercise, Citi CEO for South Asia Mark T Robinson told Business Standard.
The clauses on corporate debt restructuring (CDR) are being reworked in view of the huge foreign exchange exposure of several companies, which have already opted for restructuring debt or are on their way to seeking approval for one.
Canara Bank has put on hold its plan to sell non-performing assets with realisation value of around Rs 250 crore (Rs 2.5 billion) after lukewarm response from asset reconstruction companies (ARCs).
As part of wage settlement, new recruits will be asked to shift to the New Pension Scheme.
ICICI Bank, the country's largest private sector bank, has scaled down its overseas operations, especially in the United States and Sri Lanka. It has also recalled some employees from its international offices now that the businesses of fund-raising and merger and acquisitions have shrunk.
Failed attempt to acquire stake in Kolhapur-based bank seen as trigger.
While the level of non-performing assets for banks is on the rise, despite the Reserve Bank of India's push for debt restructuring, cases referred to the corporate debt restructuring cell increased to 34 at the end of March 2009, as against 10 at the end of 2007-08. CDR, which was set up in 2002-03, is a mechanism for faster disposal of restructuring cases involving multiple lenders, though foreign banks are yet to join the platform.
Within 15 days of opening the registration process for Nano, its Rs 1 lakh car, Tata Motors has sold nearly 5,00,000 application forms, raking in Rs 15 crore (at Rs 300 each). Distributors associated with the Nano bookings said most of the forms were likely to translate into bookings.
Loans at a discount to the benchmark prime lending rates of banks are back with a majority of the fresh loans being disbursed at sub-PLR rates.
Banks that own ATMs charge an inter-change fee for providing the facility to the customers of other banks. For larger players such as SBI, ICICI, HDFC and Axis Bank, the shift would mean higher revenues as customers would tend to use the nearest ATM. Smaller banks, which already allow their account holders to access any ATM without having to pay a transaction charge, fear the bigger players, sensing an opportunity, may increase the inter-change fee over the next 6 months.
IndusInd Bank MD & CEO Romesh Sobti said that, during the fourth quarter, the private sector lender was expecting a 20 per cent growth in its loan book. "There are still a lot of good companies, and you don't write off everyone. There is nothing like zero-risk. It is low-, medium- and high-risk, and you avoid high-risk though they give you high returns," Sobti said after announcing the inauguration of new-look branches aimed at attracting more high networth customers.
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