The exit of the big movers has meant more opportunities for local players such as Nambiar Finance, which is just one of the 1,465 non-deposit-taking NBFCs registered with the Mumbai office of the Reserve Bank of India.
Customers will be offered five free third-party withdrawals per month.
A list of things you should watch out for in your credit card document
With the demand for credit expected to shoot up, private banks are bolstering core capital. Seven of them are in the process of raising a cumulative Rs 10,500 crore in equity to fund expansion, which, in some cases like Axis Bank's, includes entry into mutual fund, private equity and wealth management businesses.
Wachovia's global operations were taken over by Wells Fargo last year and the two banks are in the process of integrating their operations.
The only thing that's clear is the October 15 deadline for the end of free third-party ATM use.
To implement the cap, banks will need to make various technological changes in the machines and that will take quite some time.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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