It is 10 years since Bandhan Financial Services became the first microfinance institution (MFI) to receive the universal bank licence. A year later, in 2015, it started operations. Bandhan's entry into banking was seen as a vote of confidence by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the country's microfinance sector. Subsequently, the RBI awarded small finance bank licences to nine MFIs.
One smells a rat when cases are settled for too small a price offered either by the highest bidder or the promoter -- within and outside the legal ambit of insolvency process, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Its registration is unusual because the firm appears twice in the RoC database, but different identification numbers.
HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries and ICICI Bank remained among the top mutual fund (MF) buys for the second consecutive month in September. MFs deployed a net of Rs 15,000 crore into these stocks during the two-month period (August-September), revealed Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research reports.
Indian economy, dubbed the fastest growing major economy in the world, is faced with the single most important pressure point of job creation, says former RBI Governor Raghuram G Ranjan as he makes a strong case for improvement of human capital through skill development. Talking about the book 'Breaking the mould: Reimagining India's economic future', written jointly by him and Rohit Lamba, assistant professor of economics at Pennsylvania State University, Rajan said one of the greatest strength of India is its human capital of 1.4 billion and the question is "how do you make it strong?" The nation needs to create jobs at every level going along the path of development, said Rajan, presently Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth, USA.
Foreign banks and private credit funds are queuing up to fund acquisitions by Indian companies who are buying out their local rivals. The Adani Group, Torrent Group, and the Hindujas have approached several foreign banks and private equity (PE) firms to fund their acquisitions. Global investors have about $2 trillion of funds to invest, and about $100 to $150 billion is set aside for India, according to an estimate by JP Morgan.
Performance-based incentives were recommended by the 13th Finance Commission, but omitted by the 14th Finance Commission
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Thursday said the central bank does not "emulate" others when it comes to regulations and asserted that the bank's as well as his own opposition to cryptocurrencies remain unchanged, a day after US regulators allowed bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). He also said that emerging markets and the world cannot afford to have a "crypto mania". "What is good for another market need not be good for us.
But the government will present a second tranche of Supplementary Demands for Grants during the Budget session of Parliament in February, when it can seek additional spending.
InterGlobe Enterprises on Thursday said it along with Archer Aviation plans to launch an all-electric air taxi service across India in 2026. Once launched, the InterGlobe-Archer flight will aim to take passengers from Connaught Place in the national capital to Gurugram in Haryana in approximately 7 minutes whereas by road, the 27-kilometre-long trip will take 60-90 minutes, according to a release. Both companies have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the goal of partnering to launch and operate an all-electric air taxi service in India, subject to appropriate regulatory approvals and clearances.
Kailash Gahlot was divested of the Law and Justice portfolio in the Aam Aadmi Party government on Friday, a day after Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena recalled files related to judicial infrastructure and administration in New Delhi as they remained pending with him for months, officials said.
On the Sensex chart, Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank were among the prominent gainers.
rediffGURU Ramalingam Kalirajan answers your personal finance queries.
It is thanks to the policy of liberalisation conceived by Manmohan Singh and enforced by P V Narasimha that the Indian economy has now become the world's 5th largest economy by nominal GDP, asserts Dr Sudhir Bisht.
'MNCs now recognise India's capacity for innovation and its pivotal role in substantive contributions to global product development.'
Notwithstanding the recent sharp decline in the stocks of public sector companies, analysts at Jefferies remain bullish on this segment. State Bank of India, Coal India, and NTPC are their top picks in this space, they said in a recent note. The public sector undertaking (PSU) or state-owned enterprise (SOE) index, with a 70-percentage-point outperformance versus the National Stock Exchange Nifty50 over the past 12 months, comes after a decade of underperformance before 2020.
Rajasthan is reeling under a huge financial burden with the state's debt having gone beyond Rs 5.59 lakh crores. Rajasthan has increased expenditure on education by 203.4 percent, by 105.4 percent on health, by 227.14 percent on housing. Its expenditure on social welfare schemes has increased by almost 2,475 per cent.
'Real estate loans are given in the garb of retail loans, sourcing money cheap from the NHB refinance window.' 'This loophole is being plugged,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Which entrepreneur would willingly part with her or his hard-earned money for grasping, self-serving politicians? asks Debashis Basu.
The S&P BSE Midcap and the S&P BSE Smallcap indices have managed to stay afloat in a volatile January that saw the frontline indices hit their respective 52-week high levels and then slip. While the S&P BSE Sensex has lost over 2 per cent thus far in January, the S&P BSE Midcap and the S&P BSE Smallcap indices have gained nearly 2.5 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively during this period.
Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran on Thursday said the economy is expected to grow at 6.5 per cent in the current fiscal notwithstanding deficient rains in August. India recorded economic growth of 7.8 per cent in the April-June quarter of 2023-24 against 13.1 per cent in the year-ago period. India's economy in Q1 grew at the fastest pace in a year, on the shoulders of a boost in capital expenditure both at central and state levels, along with stronger consumption demand, especially in rural areas, and improved performance in the services sector, he said.
'This is not just the IREDA's IPO. It is the success of the ministry of new and renewable energy and of the renewable energy industry.'
Adani Power, part of the Adani group, plans to add close to 6 gigawatts (Gw) of new power assets in the next five years, according to an investor presentation by the company. That is clearly meant to ride on India's burgeoning power demand. But there is another side to it: All of this new capacity is expected to be thermal power, or power produced from coal.
First Rajya Sabha approved the Rs 45 lakh-crore spending proposed in the Budget, followed by the nod to the Finance Bill that contains tax proposals.
'India's emergence as a top crypto market comes despite a regulatory and tax environment that can be challenging for the industry to navigate.'
Delhi Finance Minister Atishi on Monday announced the 'Mukhyamantri Mahila Samman Yojana' for the 2024-25 fiscal, under which Rs 1,000 will be given monthly to women aged above 18 from the fiscal year 2024-25.
More than half a dozen companies will hit the market with their initial public offerings (IPOs) between now and the end of next week. The cumulative amount raised from these IPOs is expected to be around Rs 8,000 crore. Stationery products firm DOMS Industries and home financier India Shelter Finance's IPOs - of Rs 1,200 crore each - got off to a flying start on Wednesday (December 13), with the former garnering over six times the subscription and the latter getting 1.5 times subscribed.
Global financial firm J P Morgan has said that it plans to include Indian government bonds (IGBs) or government securities (G-Secs) into its benchmark Emerging Market index from next year, a move that will bring down borrowing cost for the government. The inclusion of the IGBs will be staggered over a 10-month period from June 28, 2024 to March 31, 2025, indicating one per cent increment on its index weight. "India's weight is expected to reach the maximum weight threshold of 10 per cent in the GBI-EM Global Diversified, and approximately 8.7 per cent in the GBI-EM Global index," J P Morgan said in a statement on Friday.
Stocks of public sector undertakings (PSUs) have been on fire in the past year as investors cheered an improvement in key operating metrics and embraced counters of these state-owned enterprises, analysts suggest. The S&P BSE PSU Index has gained over 90 per cent in the past year, rising much higher than the S&P BSE Sensex, which has rose nearly 19 per cent during this period, according to ACE Equity data. The BSE PSU Index, reports show, has delivered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28 per cent (including dividends reinvestments) over five years and risen by almost 60 per cent in the past year.
'A key reason for the strong interest in IPOs has been an increased focus on profitability and reasonable pricing of deals.'
Reliance Group, recently, accused L&T Finance and Edelweiss Group entities of "illegal" and "motivated" actions in invoking the pledged shares of Anil Ambani group's three listed firms and selling them in open market causing a steep fall in share values.
rediffGURU Ramalingam Kalirajan answers your personal finance queries.
In the pre-budget Economic Survey 2010-11, the Union finance ministry made a strong pitch for the pro-growth impact of investment in human capital adding, "fortunately, there is awareness of this in India and efforts are afoot in terms of budgetary allocation and actual initiatives to boost the development of skill and human capital."
Policymakers should aspire to restore the pre-Independence environment where the rupee was trusted and used all over South Asia, in Southeast Asia, in West Asia, and in East Africa, suggests Ajay Shah.
Defending its three-capital decision, the government said since inception in 1956 the state had failed to integrate people from all regions, reports B Dasarath Reddy.
Capital expenditure (capex) by 54 large central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) and five departmental arms with an annual capex target of Rs 100 crore and above has reached around 42.5 per cent of their annual target of about Rs 7.33 trillion in this financial year so far, a senior official from the Ministry of Finance told Business Standard. "The Centre is pushing the big public undertakings in the infrastructure and refinery sector to achieve 90 per cent of their target by the end of the third quarter," he said. The capex by this group of CPSEs stands at around Rs 3.1 trillion in the April-August period so far.
The government must expedite its plan for asset sale and privatisation, both of which hardly got any mention in the Budget speech, points out A K Bhattacharya.
We have millions of newbie investors who are clueless about how to handle sudden and severe adverse market reactions, which arrive from time to time, observes Debashis Basu.
Lenders of debt-ridden Reliance Capital have voted in favour of a resolution plan submitted by Hinduja Group firm IndusInd International Holdings Ltd (IIHL) which made the highest cash offer of Rs 9,661 crore in the second round of bidding. As much as 99 per cent votes were in favour of IIHL as lenders expected to recover cash upfront of Rs 9,661 crore from the Hinduja Group entity, sources said. Besides, sources said cash balance with Reliance Capital (RCAP) of over Rs 500 crore would also go to lenders. So, in all lenders are expected to receive about Rs 10,200 crore for distribution as against Rs 16,000 crore principal secured debt, resulting in 65 per cent recovery for the lenders, sources said.
The key assets put on the block include its entire stake in Reliance General Insurance Company, the third-largest private sector insurer, and a 49 per cent stake in Reliance Nippon Life Insurance, a joint venture with Nippon Life, which is among the top five private-sector insurance companies.
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