The country's largest housing finance company HDFC Ltd will merge with the country's largest private sector lender HDFC Bank, according to a regulatory filing. The scheme of amalgamation will be subject to various regulatory approvals, including from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), HDFC Bank said in the filing on Monday.
The sector faces many challenges and calls for prompt corrective action.
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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Rs 30,600 crore government guarantee for the bad bank has changed the body language of bankers for the better, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Tamal Bandyopadhyay offers some unsolicited advice for a government wh,ich came to power, with brute majority and the nation's pragmatic chief money man.
'The shadow banks are currently facing a liquidity and solvency crisis.' 'The danger is that it could potentially engulf the entire financial system because shadow banks have borrowed huge amount of money from banks, mutual funds, pension funds, and insurance companies.'
India is an under-penetrated ATM market with only 98 ATMs for every 10 lakh of population.
10 non-bank and non-finance stocks from the BSE500 Index universe that offer an optimal blend of low valuation, reasonably robust revenue and earnings growth in recent quarters, a strong balance sheet, and most importantly, positive cash flow from their operations.
India is poised to be the fastest-growing major economy in the world and an engine of global growth despite global headwinds, says leading industrialist and Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla. The economic activity in India has witnessed a sharp recovery to pre-pandemic levels on the back of a rapid and widespread rollout of the vaccination programme, Birla said in the latest annual report of UltraTech Cement Ltd. "A strong digital ecosystem, fiscal and monetary policy and various government schemes helped small and medium enterprises and the worst affected sections of the population to survive while reviving demand and bringing the economy back on track," said Birla while addressing UltraTech's shareholders.
With the Jaypee acquisition, the Suraksha group, which made lenders an offer of Rs 7,736 crore, will be able to expand its footprint in north India after making inroads in Mumbai's real estate market over the past year. Sudhir Valia, the promoter, was a co-founder and executive director of India's biggest pharmaceutical firm, Sun Pharmaceuticals, and is a close relative of Dilip Shanghvi.
Investors remain cautious ahead of F&O expiry.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Friday backed the proposed data privacy and cryptocurrency bills, saying India is putting in place the most forward-looking policies and regulations. Ambani, who has been a votary of Indians owning and controlling their own data and the nation drafting strict rules around how digital information is stored and shared, said nations have the right to build and protect strategic digital infrastructure. Stating that data is the 'new oil', he said every citizen's right to privacy has to be safeguarded. "India is putting in place the most forward-looking policies and regulations," he said at the Infinity Forum, hosted by International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA).
The government will press ahead with the sale of public sector companies that have been approved by the Cabinet, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday. Highlighting that FDI flow into India is much higher compared to other emerging economies, she said India's strong macroeconomic fundamentals, ability to do reforms and a stable government help attract long-term foreign funds into Indian businesses.
American Tower bulks up in India with $1.2 billion Viom stake buy
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
'Short term volatility is likely due to various factors, global and domestic; investors may use this as an opportunity to increase the allocation to equities.'
Since January this year, Indian exporters have begun to dread the shipping news. That's because most of it would be about another lot of shipping companies deciding to avoid Indian ports on account of delays.
The Ambani brothers, Mukesh and Anil, came together on Thursday to raise the issue of stalled projects plaguing India Inc and implored the Maharashtra government and the Centre to make Mumbai, India's financial capital, an easier place for business and investments. "Several projects are stuck for many years in Mumbai and we would like to know how the government intends to improve the financing and execution of projects, including those relating to infrastructure and education which have been in limbo for long and are affecting the growth of the city," Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) Chairman Mukesh Ambani told Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Seated on the same table was his brother, apart from Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry and State Bank of India (SBI) Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya. Jaitley was addressing the Mumbai Next MMR Transformation conclave, organised by the Maharashtra government and Mumbai First here, through video conference. In his reply, Jaitley said the government was exploring several options of infrastructure financing in India and that a number of international bodies were ready to fund infrastructure development projects. He added the government was keenly considering these funding sources. While praising Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for honesty, Jaitley also had a word of advice. Apart from being honest, the government had to be decisive, he said. On his part, Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani told the chief minister about his experience of decisions being delayed due to an indecisive bureaucracy and the need to protect officials who wanted to take quick decisions. "Through the past many years, we have faced a number of obstacles in decision-making," he said, adding he was speaking as someone who had lived and invested in Mumbai. Fadnavis responded by saying he would bring about a transparent process to ring-fence officials. Both the Ambani brothers have announced a number of infrastructure projects in and around Mumbai, including a world-class convention centre in Bandra Kurla Complex by RIL, but very few have actually fructified. RIL's special economic zone project failed to take off due to land acquisition problems in Raigarh, while a second SEZ near Mumbai is stuck due to lack of clarity in SEZ norms. The first phase of the Mumbai Metro, set up by Anil Ambani's Reliance Infrastructure, was marred by cost overruns and run-ins with the government over fares. Subsequently, the company withdrew from the second and larger phase, citing inordinate delay. Anil Ambani also withdrew from Mumbai's sea link project on the same grounds. The brothers had also bid for a trans-harbour sea link between Navi Mumbai and Mumbai under the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government, but their bid was rejected. Reliance Infrastructure is also the power supplier to more than half of this city. Participating in the conclave, some of India Inc's leading bankers said making Mumbai a financial hub would take at least a decade. SBI's Bhattacharya said the Indian currency should be made fully convertible and facilities should be created for it. "However, for this, the economy needs to look up and that will happen only in the next 7-10 years, not immediately," she added. Sunil Kaushal, Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered, India, pitched for strong infrastructure to support development. "We will take a long time to develop into a global financial centre. We need to solve transport bottlenecks in Mumbai and have lifestyle facilities for people working in and around these areas," he said.
A business in India wanting access to maps and geospatial data would typically have to wait months before it got what it wanted. All this is set to change with the new guidelines on geospatial data, report Neha Alawadhi and Peerzada Abrar.
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'India has about 22,000 tonnes of private gold, held by individuals and temples.' 'Much of this is locked up in safes and vaults as a dead investment. If we can put the vast reserves of gold to use, it would boost the economy,' says V P Nandakumar, executive chairman, Manappuram Finance, India's first listed gold loan company.
The Finance Ministry further said decision on seven FDI proposals has been deferred.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
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Nearly 40 developers participating in HDFC Indian Homes Fair in London would showcase thousands of property.
Barring stray references such as the 'dual control' of banks and shifting the goalposts during demonetisation, he is not in a fault-finding mode with the government, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'We get to know secrets such as some of India's top-rated firms do not always make payments when due and many State-owned, listed, enterprises that borrow in bond markets default regularly.' 'Without naming the bank, he says that ever-greening of poor loans by a part of India's shadow banking lay at the doorstep of India's banking, notably 'one private bank'.' Viral Acharya's Quest for Restoring Financial Stability in India won't be music to many ears, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The government has cleared 19 foreign investment proposals, including that of Walt Disney Company and Reckitt Benckiser (India), entailing total investment of Rs 2,326.72 crore (Rs 23.26 billion).
Most of the NBFCs do not take public deposits but that does not mean they cannot create systemic risks. The banking system has at least Rs 57,000 crore exposure to IL&FS. Haven't the banks invested public money in IL&FS papers, asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Rogue lending under political influence was rife in the Congress-led regime and is not happening in the Modi regime, certainly not on that scale. But if PSBs cannot lend as indiscriminately as they did last time in the name of 'credit expansion', how well will these banks do, asks Debashis Basu.
In an email interview with Ranju Sarkar, International Finance Corporation's South Asia director Mengistu Alemayehu explains why the firm is bullish on building affordable homes in India.
In the current fiscal, as per the revised estimate, these two companies raised Rs 14,942 crore (Rs 149.42 billion) from markets.
The infra-major going belly up cracked open some major flaws in the system - the most evident being weak corporate governance and how layers of corporate structures could be formed adding to the opaqueness of the group.
'Cyrus was always very different. He would think before acting.'
The race to get a New Umbrella Entity (NUE) licence for digital payments may get crowded. As many as six consortiums are said to be in the fray to apply for an NUE licence, which would create a for-profit National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)-like body for retail payments. A consortium led by Financial Software and Systems (FSS), a leading provider of payment products and payment processor, is in talks and may file an application to the RBI for an NUE license, said sources aware of the development. The other constituents of this group include Indian Bank, Central Bank of India, India Post Payments Bank, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), and a few small finance banks.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your stock market queries.
Employees across segments, including those involved in specialised jobs such as technology, compliance and risk management, have started leaving the bank fold in hordes, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Flush with liquidity, banks are eager to lend. And, therein lies the problem, warns Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Unlike RIL, the Adani group has not yet brought in any big stakeholders to refinance debt or expand.
What made the tide turn in favour of the Adani group was the Covid-19 pandemic, which shut down airports the world over, including Mumbai. There was no cash flow and the firm started defaulting on salaries July onwards.
Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC) chairman Deepak Parekh on Tuesday said that while the country's macroeconomic fundamentals remain strong and the recovery is in progress, the unpredictability of coronavirus will remain a key challenge. Owing to the second wave, the Indian economy is likely to mirror a similar trend seen in FY21, where the first half of the financial year is weaker and the second half is significantly stronger, he said. "I remain confident that India's macroeconomic fundamentals are strong. Recovery is underway," Parekh said while addressing the 44th annual general meeting of HDFC Ltd. He said, the country's forex reserves and foreign direct investment inflows have scaled record highs, the capital markets are also buoyant and agriculture growth is expected to remain strong with food grain production estimated at over 305 million tonnes.
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