Bankers seem to be pleased with the government for keeping its promise of not interfering in operational matters, but are apprehensive about the intense scrutiny of their functioning.
After the finance minister directed public sector banks to join the account aggregator (AA) ecosystem, 5-6 major ones, including State Bank of India (SBI) and Bank of Baroda are expected to go live by July-end. Sahmati, an industry alliance for the AA ecosystem, has been working with PSU banks to get them onboarded for quite some time now. So far, Union Bank of India and Punjab National Bank (PNB) have gone live on the AA ecosystem. While Union Bank has been live for a while, PNB went live earlier this month.
The gap between credit and deposit growth in the banking system is expected to decline sharply to 80 basis points (bps) in the next financial year from an average of 386 bps over the FY22-Q3FY25 period, according to rating agency India Ratings. This would be against the backdrop of sharp moderation in the incremental loan deposit ratio (LDR) of the Indian banking system to 85 per cent in February 2025 from 117-118 per cent in the same month of 2024.
'Indian markets may underperform global peers for the next two quarters.' 'But beyond that, India should catch up and resume its long-term growth path.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Northeast's first Emergency Landing Facility in Assam, boosting regional defense and disaster response capabilities.
In the past 10 years, over 500 PSB officers have died by suicide. When targets are overwhelming, senior management and customers are both impatient, and there is constant fear, not every banker has the resilience to survive and thrive, warns Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
India's corporate bond market, driven by public sector undertaking (PSU) banks and financial institutions last year, is losing momentum since the second quarter of FY26.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday reviewed the performance of public sector banks (PSBs) on various financial health parameters and their resilience in the wake of the current global financial scenario emanating from the failure of some international banks in the US and Europe.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has initiated discussions with banks to address financial stress in the telecom sector, particularly Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) that urgently requires fund infusion to stay afloat. There was a meeting of DOT officials and senior bankers on Friday on the issue of Vodafone, sources said, adding that banks have been asked to look for a solution within the prudential guidelines. According to sources, senior officials from the country's biggest lenders State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda were also present among others in the meeting. More such meetings are expected to take place in the coming days, they said.
rediffGURU Rohit Gupta, co-founder and COO of College Vidya, provides a list of competitive exams that can help you land a job in the public sector.
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.
As the fight for deposits intensifies, the cost of money will rise and the margin will be under further pressure, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Bank strike continued for day-two on Tuesday, led by nine unions of public sector banks (PSBs) in the country, opposing government's policy to privatise the lenders. Customers will be inconvenienced to get services such as cash withdrawals, deposits, cheque clearances, remittance services. Government transactions related to treasury as well as business transactions will also be impacted. United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine unions, had given a strike call for March 15 and 16.
This shortfall could continue to hurt loan growth in 2016-17.
The Union Finance Ministry on Tuesday said that aggregate business of public sector banks (PSBs) has shown strong growth of 11 per cent in the first half of the financial year 2024-25 (H1FY25) to touch Rs 236 trillion. The operating and net profit were also robust. At Rs 1.5 trillion, operating profit grew by 14.4 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) while the net profit saw an impressive 25.6 per cent jump at Rs 85,520 crore in the first half of FY25.
'Raising the entire amount in one go may not be prudent, given the market dynamics.'
Which were India's first companies that still exist today? Many trace their origins to over a century back. These venerable organisations are business entities. But they chronicle the beginnings of Corporate India.
'Foreign capital will continue to come directly into India, but companies have realised that GIFT City is a more cost-efficient way of channelling funds.'
The overall debt servicing metrics of Indian corporates are weak.
Besides being reasonably valued, the Indian Bank IPO has many triggers.
UCO Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, Indian Bank, and Central Bank of India don't have a non-executive chairman.
After a year of modest returns, equity investors may anticipate gains of 10-15 per cent in Samvat 2082, which began on October 21. Although valuations have moderated from their peaks a year earlier, they remain above long-term averages, potentially limiting sharp upsides.
'I will not be surprised if there is a 7 per cent handle in front of the decimal place for the full financial year.'
Banks recorded a higher growth year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in raising deposits during the second quarter of financial year 2025 (Q2FY25) compared to Q1FY25, owing to intensified efforts to raise liabilities by offering higher rates and innovative schemes.
The National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA) will invite public comments on the revised International Standard on Auditing 600 (ISA 600) proposed to be adopted by publicly listed companies and non-public-sector banks, sources close to the development told Business Standard. The decision to take this "graded approach" for the adoption of the ISA, which is meant to rein in auditors often found hiding behind the audit reports signed off by subsidiary companies, was taken at a meeting of various financial sector regulators at NFRA's board meeting on Monday (August 26). The idea behind upgrading the Standards of Audit 600 currently followed by Indian auditors to ISA 600 is to plug current gaps, which have led to major audit lapses in the recent past.
India has a unique window of opportunity to effectuate long-lasting structural change in its banking sector, says Riju Agrawal.
'Today, three areas give banks a big headache -- steel, power, infrastructure.' 'Three Cs are very critical in lending -- character, capacity and collateral of the borrower.'
The exemption of individual life and health insurance premiums from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) enables the insurance industry to make products affordable and attractive, said Ajay Seth, chairman of Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit 2025.
The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine unions, on Tuesday gave a call for a two-day strike from March 15 to protest against the proposed privatisation of two state-owned lenders. In the Union Budget presented last week, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the privatisation of two Public Sector Banks (PSBs) as part of its disinvestment plan. The government has already privatised IDBI Bank by selling its majority stake in the lender to LIC in 2019 and merged 14 public sector banks in the last four years.
The reduction in the goods and services tax (GST) rates has increased the momentum in India's economic activity both on the supply and demand sides, while robust agricultural activity - reflected in the strong onset of rabi sowing and adequate reservoir levels - has reinforced the outlook for food supply and rural incomes, the finance ministry said on Thursday.
Though foreign banks outperformed domestic banks in quality services, they could not match the latter as public sector banks reigned supreme on the strength of their superior reach.
The Indian government has expressed its disagreement with the IMF staff's 'baseline' assumption that the 50 per cent US tariffs on its goods exports 'would remain in place indefinitely', based on which the staff pegged the country's GDP growth at 6.6 per cent this year, and pared its 2026-27 projection by 20 basis points to 6.2 per cent.
It is difficult to say if the banking sector will see the worst behind it by March 2020, warns Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
It said banks' asset quality will deteriorate across the corporate, small and medium enterprises and retail segments, leading to pressure on profitability and capital.
Amendments would be required in the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970 and the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1980 for privatisation, sources said.
Services such as deposits and withdrawal at branches, cheque clearance and loan approvals would be affected due to the strike.
The move is to align affordable housing finance flows to the increase in property costs and inflation, says Raghu Mohan.
'In the long run, India's strong growth story and reforms to make assets globally attractive will determine the rupee's resilience.'
Moody's, which cut its FY14 growth estimate to 4.5 per cent recently, said economic growth will be lowest in a decade.
