For Lori Beer, chief information officer, JPMorgan Chase & Co, largest banker in the US, India is a big part of the organisation's global technology footprint and is core to its products and services. This is evident from the fact that in less than two months since JPMorgan & Chase chief executive officer Jamie Dimon visited India, Beer has come here to see the recently opened centres in Mumbai and Bengaluru. "What is different for me this year are our new centres and to be able to come and see the vibrancy, and connectedness is great.
Leading bankers on Friday welcomed the Union Budget 2010-11, in particular the measures on farm loan repayment, capital infusion into PSBs and interest rate subventions to needy sections, saying that these would make the system healthier.
Gerhard Gribkowsky, an ex-BayernLB banker, is on trial charged with selling Formula One rights in return for a bribe, with the involvement of Ecclestone.
Amid slowdown blues, the government has unveiled a raft of measures over the past few months aimed at improving liquidity in the system, moderating interest rates as well as credit growth apart from addressing stress in the NBFC sector.
State Bank of India and Canara Bank said on Thursday interest rates are expected to remain soft and stable in the near future as inflation is down and there is ample liquidity with the banks. "Interest rates are expected to remain stable to down," SBI Chairman O P Bhatt told reporters before participating in a meeting of bankers and exporters with Finance Minister P Chidambaram in New Delhi.
Bankers see a stronger possibility of a rate hike by the Reserve Bank of India in its January 2007 quarterly review following the high GDP growth in the second quarter of 2006-07.
Of the three major Budget announcements related to the banking sector, privatisation of PSBs is the most audacious, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The meeting between Cabinet secretary K M Chandrasekhar and heads of banks along with representatives of chambers will be held at a time when almost 50 per cent of PSU banks have reduced their benchmark lending rates effective from Thursday. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said there is scope for further cuts in interest rates in his meeting with industrialists last week.
The pay rise at Barclays Capital is expected to be backdated to June this year as the bank looks to compensate its staff following the bonus crackdown.
Head of state-run Indian Bank T M Bhasin had called for a CRR cut.
Be it bad loans resolution or his uncanny focus on inflation fighting which earned him criticism of being a policy hawk, Acharya was at the centre of it all and deftly steered the policy machinery.
Year-end bonuses to be low to zero, as banks cut jobs, re-deploy staff.
In a surprise move, the Reserve Bank on Wednesday left the repo rate unchanged at 7.75 per cent, while the cash reserve ratio too is retained at 4 per cent.
Bankers expect interest rates to remain stable in the short to medium term, as there is enough liquidity in the market.
If indeed the gate opens for big industrial houses, the RBI needs to be smarter than them and demonstrate it through action, not reaction, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Banks will ask the banking regulator to defer the higher provisioning norms on standard restructured advances.
Amid a steep slowdown in credit off-take and an unexpected spike in deposits, bankers on Monday urged Reserve Bank of India to hold the policy rates at the current levels, and sought a clearer picture on the future interest rates and inflation at the policy review next week
Top bankers on Wednesday exuded confidence that Raghuram Govind Rajan, who today took over as the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank, has the intellectual prowess to wade through the present difficulties facing the economy and wished him all success for the stint at Mint Road.
The Adani group will be generating almost 90 percent of its Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation) from infrastructure business by 2025 as compared to 83 per cent generated from these businesses currently, top company officials told bankers recently. Of the infrastructure business, 49 per cent of the profits are currently contributed by energy and utility, another 25 per cent by transport and rest by cement and logistics businesses. This will go up substantially as several new projects like Navi Mumbai airport and other projects get commissioned and contribute to the overall Ebitda pie, bankers were told.
In January, banks had rejected SBI Caps' initial proposal on Air India's debt recast, which suggested converting a part of the carrier's debt into cumulative redeemable preference shares, with an eight per cent dividend.
While inflation has stayed in the negative territory for past several weeks, analysts are wondering whether the interest rates have bottomed out with signs of economic recovery.
Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Monday said despite the latest headwinds arising from the Jackson Hole summit leading to extreme volatility, our banking system and financial markets are strong enough to withstand such pressures. Taking the markets by surprise, US Fed chair Jerome Powell had told the annual Jackson Hole summit of central bankers and economists last week that he would have to keep raising federal fund rates to tame inflation, which remains the biggest challenge to the world's largest economy. He also warned of the pains that such monetary policy actions would create on growth and jobs.
SBI has hired six global giants -- Citigroup, UBS, Barclays Bank, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan -- for the sale of dollar-denominated bonds, they added.
Bankers on Tuesday said the RBI's decision to hold key rates, coming after a decisive mandate received by the Narendra Modi government, was on expected lines and interest rates won't change even though the central bank's SLR cut infuses additional liquidity into the system.
The central bank has not set a deadline for banks to conclude the stress-test exercise, but senior bankers opine that some were already looking at this, and will now fast-track it by September-end, when they will have a better picture of their books after the moratorium on the servicing of loans and a 180-day view on the performance of borrowers' accounts.
Aided by the $57.8-billion merger of HDFC Bank and HDFC, India Inc reported its highest ever mergers and acquisitions in calendar 2022 at $171 billion as against deals worth $145 billion announced last year. The acquisition by the Adani group across cement, media and ports dominated the headlines with the conglomerate making its foray into the cement sector by buying Swiss materials firm Holcim's stake in Ambuja Cements for $6.5 billion. The Adani family's additional $4-billion open offer for Ambuja did not get a response because shareholders preferred to stay invested with the new owner.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold discussions with public sector banks (PSBs) and financial institutions to draw up an action plan for banking reforms
In the new decade, the scene will change because the banks till recently had been challenged by the fintechs, but the techfins have now entered the arena, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Gaurav Deepak has raised funds for about 100 new-age entrepreneurs.
Bankers on Tuesday said interest rates have bottomed out in the second quarter and rates may start rising in the coming months in line with a pick-up in credit off take, expected on the back of a revival in the economy.
'It seems to be a bit of an aberration. It should be set right; there is a proper mechanism in place. In the normal course, the state police do not have any jurisdiction on central government employees,' the official said.
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.
It may be a 'no-go' for banking licences to large industrial houses.
The festive season starts from August and last till December.
Advice to the new finance minister from former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan: 1. Clean up banks by reviving projects that can be revived after restructuring debt. 2. Improve governance and management at public sector banks. 3. De-risk banking by encouraging risk transfers to non-banks and the market. 4. Reduce the number and weight of government mandates for public sector banks, and for banks more generally.
Bankers said on Friday interest rates are likely to be stable in the short term as the liquidity position in the country is comfortable. "Interest rates look stable for the time being... at least till April," O P Bhatt, chairman of State Bank of India, told reporters on the sidelines of Finance Minister P Chidambaram's meeting with bankers in New Delhi.
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