Direct economic stimulus measures such as tax cuts for individuals and industry would have helped to prop up the Indian economy which was hit hard by the lockdowns across several states in India, say economists and corporate leaders. While the measures announced on Monday are focussed more on the supply side, these steps would take a lot of time to move the needle for the economy.
Exuding confidence in sustaining the tempo of credit growth, public sector bankers said on Wednesday that consolidation in the public sector bank (PSB) space has given them a robust base to scale. The privatisation of PSBs can be done through divestment of government stake to a wider base of investors without haste. There is nothing to worry about at this point (high credit offtake) as underwriting standards and risk management are much better.
While players in the financial ecosystem are opening up to the idea of receivables funding for the sector, this market needs a regulator, which a Parliament panel feels only RBI can provide.
The major beneficiaries of loan recasting will be sub-Rs 500 crore corporate exposures and retail exposures, which were earlier expected to see the highest increase in NPAs in percentage terms.
Banks' gross non-performing assets (NPAs) and net NPAs are expected to rise to 10.1-10.6 per cent and 3.1-3.2 per cent, respectively by March 2021, Icra said on Monday. The agency also expects net NPA to decline to 2.4-2.6 per cent by March 2022. "As moratorium on loan repayments is over and though we await the Honourable Supreme Court directive on asset classification, the GNPAs and NNPAs for banks are likely to rise in near term to 10.1-10.6 per cent and 3.1-3.2 per cent, respectively by March 2021 from 7.9 per cent and 2.2 per cent, respectively as of September 2020," the rating agency said in a report.
'We have 750 districts across the country, and each district can create one cluster like Tirupur on any product of their choice.' 'This way, we can even have $3 trillion in exports.'
Wadia Group-owned Go First Airways' (Go First) insolvency plea could trigger a 'momentum rally' in shares of rival airlines, Interglobe Aviation (parent company of IndiGo) and SpiceJet, as they look to gain bankrupt airline's market share, said analysts. On the bourses, shares of InterGlobe Aviation hit a 52-week high of Rs 2,235.95, surging 8 per cent on the BSE in Wednesday's intra-day trade, before settling 4.5 per cent higher at Rs 2,164 apiece. Those of SpiceJet and Jet Airways, meanwhile, rallied up to 6 per cent in the intra-day trade, and ended 1 per cent and 5 per cent higher, respectively, following the development, which was announced post market hours on Tuesday.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced a new job creation scheme by giving subsidy to those establishments that make new hires. The subsidy would be to cover for retirement fund contributions by employees as well as employers for two years, she said. Employees contribution (12 per cent of wages) and employer's contribution (12 per cent of wages) totalling 24 per cent of wages would be given to establishments for two years, she said. Under the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana, every Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO)-registered establishment taking new employees would get this subsidy.
Loans for Indian airlines have dried up as banks have become cautious to lend to the sector.
Terming whistleblower allegations on loan evergreening as "grossly inaccurate and baseless", Indusind Bank on Saturday admitted to have disbursed 84,000 loans without customer consent in May owing to a "technical glitch". Lending without the consent was reported by the field staff in two days, and the glitch was also rectified expeditiously, the private sector lender said in a clarification. On Friday, there was a media report about anonymous whistleblowers writing to the bank management and the RBI about BFIL, the microlending-focused subsidiary of the bank, allegedly resorting to evergreening of loans, wherein existing borrowers unable to pay dues were given new loans to present the books as clean.
Wadia group-owned Go First will temporarily suspend flights on May 3 and 4 amid severe fund crunch, the airline's chief Kaushik Khona said on Tuesday.
They say that a stimulus package may not be necessary because, unlike last year's total lockdown, public transport, including the railways and airlines, is running and the restrictions on movement are localised and, in some cases, are partial rather than total.
Record liquidity infusion by the central bank in the banking system during the financial year 2020-21 amid sluggish economic activity resulted in banks investing more in safe government papers than in extending loans, data from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed. This trend has not been seen in nearly two decades, barring 2016 - the year of demonetisation.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the much-awaited 2022-23 Union Budget on February 1. While there has been strong recovery in some sectors, touch services like hospitality, tourism and leisure continue to suffer after two Covid-19 waves. Household savings have been hit due to increased spending on health care. Consumption has still not reached pre-pandemic levels.
With the world's worst outbreak of COVID pandemic stalling a nascent economic recovery, the government has begun assessing the impact of the second wave of infections on different sectors and may look at providing support at an appropriate time to segments requiring fiscal help. Some of the economic indicators, including the Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections, still provide confidence and incoming data will throw some more light on the state of the economy, sources said. Services sectors like hospitality, tourism and aviation which had just started recovering were hit hard by the second wave of COVID, the sources said, adding these segments might need some support on an urgent basis from the government.
Public sector banks, including the country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI), have come out with a templated approach for restructuring retail and small business loans of up to Rs 25 crore under the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) Covid restructuring package 2.0. They have also come out with standardised products to make funds available to business entities for improving healthcare infrastructure and to individuals for meeting Covid treatment expenses. Business loans have been divided into three categories.
'We will see footfall returning to pre-COVID levels by January.'
'The fiscal pressure will be there, but the intent of the government behind this move is to spur demand and growth.'
Such cold-shoulder by banks also indicates a credit freeze that is hard to overcome, unless the government comes out with credit guarantee schemes for loans given by banks. Since that is not happening, and there is no indication of that too, banks are not willing to listen to RBI prodding.
'The prime minister's comment on 'revdi culture' was welcome. But I am disappointed he did not follow up on that.' 'All political parties, including the BJP, have been guilty of this.' 'Now, Modi's guarantees, the Congress's 'nyay' path and both ruling and Opposition parties are vying with each other for freebies in my home state Andhra Pradesh.'
EY said out of the nearly Rs 21 lakh crore package, Rs 8.01 lakh crore is on account of liquidity enhancing measures taken by the RBI since February.
'I hope the trend is sustainable and that economic activity accelerates going forward.'
The first stage of the inclusion strategy was focussed on opening bank accounts, logically seen as creating the last-mile channels for financial access.
Muzammil Patel and Rahul Murthi will answer all your start-up queries.
Wondering if mutual fund investments can help you make you enough money for your retirement and child's marriage? Omkeshwar Singh, Head, Rank MF, a mutual fund investment platform, answers your queries.
Here's the full text of President's Ram Nath Kovind's address to the joint sitting of both houses of Parliament on the first of Budget Session 2022.
A programme that endeavours to graduate the poorest people could have seminal implications for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
Theoretically, Modi, who understood corporate finance, committed no crime by raising debt to fund a growing business. In fact, he did a tidy job of it, but his operation started to see the ground underneath it give way in January 2018. A fascinating excerpt from Pavan C Lall's Flawed: The Rise And Fall Of India's Diamond Mogul Nirav Modi.
This is the full text of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's address to media persons ahead of his interaction with them in New Delhi on Friday
For all the blame-game over the flood preparedness in Chennai and elsewhere in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, this is not the first of its kind. Nor would it be the last, given the nature of the north-east monsoon, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
