Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced income tax relief for the middle class, a Rs 2 lakh crore outlay for job creation schemes over the next five years and a spending splurge for states run by her party's new coalition partners as she unveiled the Modi 3.0 government's first budget after the general elections.
The Reserve Bank of India on Thursday decided to keep policy rate unchanged for third time in a row as it maintains heightened vigil on inflation. The rate increase cycle was paused in April after six consecutive rate hikes aggregating to 250 basis points since May 2022.
New norms are in place to strengthen regulations for this set of lenders which has been playing a critical role in Asia's third largest economy, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The bank's overall exposure to the 40 select accounts referred by the Reserve Bank to be resolved under bankruptcy laws is Rs 15,229 crore
Anil Agarwal-owned Vedanta Resources (VRL), which has hired Standard Chartered Bank to raise funds for its Konkola copper mine assets, says it is engaging with several potential partners for both short-term funds and long-term equity financing for the Zambian project. A Vedanta official said its commitment to optimising capital allocation and driving expansion is a key cornerstone of its strategy for the mines. It will enhance value creation and operationalise the Konkola Copper Mines (KCM).
Writes to shareholders highlighting its performance, governance practices.
To further strengthen the supervision on non-banking entities (NBFCs), the Reserve Bank on Tuesday issued revised guidelines on a Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) framework for such companies, excluding government-owned ones, effective from October 1, 2022, on the lines of what it had introduced for banks in 2002. The RBI came up with stricter supervisory norms under the PCA framework for banks after their bad loans mounted and balance-sheets bled badly. This involved restricting them from fresh lending, brand opening and, hiring, among others. The RBI said the revised PCA framework is also applicable to all deposit-taking non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), all non-deposit taking NBFCs in the middle, upper and top layers, including investment and credit companies, core investment companies, infrastructure debt funds, infrastructure finance companies and microfinance institutions.
Garg had refused to sign on the report finalised by the former Reserve Bank of India governor Bimal Jalan-led committee reviewing the central bank's economic capital framework (ECF).
The draft amalgamation scheme of Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank with Unity Small Finance Bank (SFB) allowed quick relief to depositors with savings of up to Rs 5 lakh, but a long wait for those who had their nest egg with the scam-tainted bank. If the scheme gets approved, 96 per cent (or 880,000 of 924,000) depositors will get their full money straightaway after PMC is merged with Unity SFB. According to the draft scheme, retail investors may get up to Rs 5 lakh from the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) instantly, and then some more in phases till they can recall their full deposits after 10 years.
India's gross tax revenue, comprising both direct and indirect taxes between April and July, reported a growth rate of merely 2.8 per cent to Rs 8.9 trillion compared to the same period a year ago, as shown by government data on Thursday. This growth was dampened by direct tax figures, offsetting the healthy growth in goods and services tax collections and Customs duties. While net tax revenue contracted by 12.6 per cent to Rs 5.8 trillion up to July, accounting for 25 per cent of the Rs 23.3 trillion full-year target, this could be attributed to the increased tax devolution to states during the period.
A government can't just take away public money, and the RBI can't extinguish its liability. 'The RBI has to honour the value any time a person with legal and taxed money lays claim on the value.'
The Union government's finances witnessed significant improvement in August after a stressful first four months of the current fiscal year. India's gross tax revenue, comprising both direct and indirect taxes, for the first five months of 2023-24 surged 16.5 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to Rs 11.8 trillion. During the April-July period, gross tax revenue increased by a mere 2.8 per cent compared to the Budget Estimate of 12.1 per cent growth for FY24.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced a dollar-rupee two-year sell-buy swap auction for $5 billion on March 8, which will suck out rupee liquidity from the system. The swap will be in the nature of a simple sell/buy foreign exchange from the RBI side, in which a bank will buy US dollars from the central bank and simultaneously agree to sell the same amount of US dollars at the end of the swap period. "With a view to elongating the maturity profile of its forward book and smoothen the receivables relating to forward assets, it has been decided to undertake sell/buy swap auction of $5 billion on March 8, 2022," the RBI said in a statement. The auction cut-off will be based on the premium amount in paisa terms up to two decimal points.
Axis Bank was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, surging over 13 per cent, followed by ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Maruti, TCS, Kotak Bank and Reliance Industries. On the other hand, Nestle India, HUL, Tech Mahindra and Sun Pharma ended in the red. NSE Nifty zoomed 273.95 points, or 3.03 per cent, to finish at 9,266.75.
The deficit stood over Rs 8 trillion in the first seven months of the current financial year. Non-tax revenues, comprising transfers from the RBI and dividends of the public sector units, shored up the Centre's revenues.
Governments that did not respect the central bank's independence would sooner or later incur the wrath of financial markets, ignite economic fire, and come to rue the day they undermined the regulatory institution, Deputy Governor Viral Acharya warned.
Most families had high value currency notes and they used it for making payments during the pre-demonetisation era.
The economy is likely to register a 9.5 per cent growth this fiscal over 7.3 per cent contraction last year, as the ongoing recovery is faster and more credible than earlier foreseen, according to a foreign brokerage report. It will gather more momentum in the second half of the current fiscal, but will slow down to 7.7 per cent next financial year, it added. The government has budgeted for a 10.5 per cent growth this fiscal, but the Reserve Bank has scaled it down to 9.5 per cent.
It isn't easy being a retired person. With some banks already cutting down the rate of return on fixed deposits offered to senior citizens and the Union Budget rationalising dividend taxation on monthly income plans, the higher returns and tax benefits they enjoyed are already gone.
The committee had eminent people on it and making any allegations like this is 'outlandish', Sitharaman said.
For FY21, CSB is looking at growth of around 25 per cent and is confident of doubling it in two years. And it is also exploring options to acquire a mid-size bank with a good client base and branches in the north to acquire an all-India presence.
While stocks are at cheap valuations, the volatility can be unnerving.
The last year has seen public sector undertakings (PSUs) outperforming the Nifty50, albeit by a small degree. But PSU valuations are still, on average, less than half of private sector peers at price-to-equity or PE 8.7x for the Nifty PSU Index versus 20.9x for the Nifty50. There are several reasons for lower valuation.
'It's a toss-up between a fire sale of equity or merger with a strong bank,' points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
RBI proposes tax exemption on dividend payouts and credit for corporation tax paid in host country.
One incident should not be used to generalise the health of all cooperative banks, says RBI governor Shaktikanta Das.
It also recommended that the RBI accounting year (July-June) may be brought in sync with the fiscal year (April to March) from the financial year 2020-21 as it could reduce the need for interim dividend being paid by the central bank.
'With China falling out of favour, India is where investors see the demographic and digital dividend apart from the benefits of reforms playing out.' 'Your prime minister has also done a great job of sharing this story with the world.'
Vedanta group chairman, Anil Agarwal, 69, is well known for his business journey from a scrap dealer from Bihar to a London-based globe-girdling metal and oil and gas conglomerate with revenues of $19 billion. Now his abilities to keep his group from over-leveraging itself will be put to the test. Over the years, Agarwal, now based in London, set up the conglomerate via acquiring iron ore producer Sesa Goa, Cairn's oil producing assets in India, and Electrosteel Steel.
The government wants the RBI to part with most of its profit as dividend.
'I think some of us, like Mukesh Ambani, myself and those of us who head industrial units, ought to really focus on what we can really do to make the world a safer place, maybe 50 or 100 years from now.' 'For instance, how can we deal with climate change and global warming, right now?' 'The effects of it may not be felt now; in fact, we may pay a price for it today, but it will help the generations to follow.'
There will be a lot to repair and rejuvenate -- if that opportunity even presents itself, warns Rathin Roy.
The government proposed to borrow about Rs 4.5 lakh crore (Rs 4.5 trillion) from the money market during the current fiscal against Rs 3.1 lakh crore (Rs 3.1 trillion) in the previous fiscal.
Last month, the bank was placed under Prompt Corrective Action due to high level of bad loans, lack of sufficient capital to manage risks and negative return on assets for two consecutive years.
'We have a plan to plough back a 'This year in the first half we had profits of more than Rs 31,000 crore.' significant amount of profits this financial year.' 'We have seen this organic plough back of profit is one of best ways to support the equity of the bank.'
If you pledge market-linked instruments and their value plummets, you will have to provide additional collateral, points out Sanjay Kumar Singh.
North Block is concerned that when India is trying to attract more investment, putting up restrictions on audit firms could create an avoidable bad advertisement.
Taking advantage of the RBI's different accounting year, the Centre had started demanding an interim dividend till the time the latter's final balance sheet is prepared (usually in August). To address this anomaly, an expert committee led by former RBI governor Bimal Jalan had recommended aligning the RBI's financial year with that of the government.
Growth remains weak, inflation is within 2-6% range, rate cut would help recoup forex reserves
