Indian corporate are increasingly shifting away from bank funding towards alternative sources, such as equity and bond markets, as their deleveraged balance sheets have improved their ability to raise equity at better valuations. Moreover, the 100 basis points (bps) rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has enabled them to access long-term funds from the debt capital market at cheaper rates.
Kotak Mahindra Bank on Tuesday announced that its joint managing director K V S Manian, a veteran at the private sector lender, has stepped down with immediate effect. Manian, who had been with the lender for nearly three decades, was elevated in a management rejig in January.
Two whole-time directors KVS Manian and Shanti Ekambaram of Kotak Mahindra Bank are in the race for the post of managing director and CEO, the position vacated by Uday Kotak last week. Kotak stepped down as MD and CEO of the bank effective September 1, 2023, four months ahead of his term was to end. The RBI will soon decide on Kotak's replacement as the new MD and CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, as the new person has to take charge on or before January 1, 2024.
Shanti Ekambaram, president of consumer banking at Kotak Mahindra Bank, talks about her success mantras, career and money management lessons she learnt, work-life balance for working moms and what India's youth should aspire for.
The RBI's rate-setting panel MPC on Monday began its three-day deliberation amid expectations of another round of hike in benchmark interest rates to contain inflation that continues to remain above the central bank's upper tolerance level. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das will announce the decision of the Monetary Policy Committee after deliberations on Wednesday. Das has already indicated that there may another hike in the repo rate, though he refrained from quantifying it.
A day after the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) Monetary Policy Committee hiked the policy repo rate by 50 basis points (bps), several commercial banks, including ICICI Bank and Bank of Baroda, raised their external benchmark-linked loan rates by an equal amount on Thursday. HDFC, the country's largest mortgage lender, too, increased its interest rates on housing loans by another 50 bps. In total, it has raised rates by 85 bps since May 4, when the RBI had increased the repo rate by 40 bps in an off-cycle meeting.
The Reserve Bank's rate-setting panel, Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), began its three-day deliberations on Wednesday amid expectations of a status quo on benchmark rate mainly on account of uncertainty over the impact of the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the fears of firming inflation may also refrain the MPC from tinkering with the interest rate in its bi-monthly monetary policy outcome to be announced on Friday. The RBI had kept key interest rates unchanged at the last MPC meeting held in April.
Of the six-member rate-setting monetary policy committee, five members voted for a 25 bps cut while one by 40 bps, the RBI said.
The economic growth is likely to moderate to 6.1 per cent, slowest in over seven quarters, from 6.6 per cent last year same period.
With enough liquidity in the system, lending and deposit rates are likely to fall further