Between April and August, it issued request seeking LoC against 147 individuals to prevent them from leaving the country, the bank said in response to a Right to Information query filed by Pune-based activist Vihar Durve.
The draft digital personal data protection (DPDP) rules, which require banks to obtain explicit consent from their customers before using their data for purposes beyond the original intent, although is being followed in spirit, leaves no room for regulatory arbitrage, experts said. They said that the potential business impact is difficult to assess at this stage, but the formalisation of these rules will mean banks now need to establish clear data processing agreements with third-party entities to ensure compliance.
The effect of the HDFC-HDFC?Bank merger will be for the bigger space of the Indian financial sector and not just limited to the banking sector. The large finance companies have practically no benefit of regulatory arbitrage. Earlier, such arbitrage between banks and NBFCs was normal. The logic of the merger is very clear - the cost of borrowing of banks is lower.
'Maharashtrians are facing a dual battle -- numerical battle with North Indians and financial battle with Gujaratis and Marwaris.' 'This has created anxiety about survival and ownership over Mumbai and Maharashtra.'
Though Indian banks don't have large exposure to subprime mortgages, analysts are worried at the rise in their restructured loan portfolios and deterioration in credit quality.
Sitharaman said the government understands that the contours and tone of issues for each sector varied from one to the other.
Nationalisation has served its purpose. It's time to move ahead, keeping majority ownership of the government in a few banks to serve the people, argues Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Former RBI governor D Subbarao has suggested that the government should come up with a 10-year road map for privatisation of all Public Sector Banks (PSBs) as it would provide much needed predictability to stakeholders. Subbarao further said that the big bang approach to privatisation of state-owned banks is not desirable but at the same time the issue should not be put on the back burner. "Ideally, we should have a road map, maybe over a 10 year timeframe, to privatise all PSBs. "That will give much needed predictability to all stakeholders," he told PTI.
The government on Monday said that its mantra for banking reforms would be 'consolidation, competition and convergence' to enable PSU banks to become more stronger, bigger and globally competitive.
'Growth, liquidity and deposit mobilisation are likely to be discussed during the interaction.'
The first quarter of calendar 2023 will see new faces heading four large public-sector banks -- Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Indian Overseas Bank, and Bank of India.
Dissatisfied with the wage hike offer made by Indian Banks' Association (IBA), public sector lenders' employee unions on Monday threatened to go on a two-day strike from February 10.
The agency said that over the next two years new NPL formation rates would witness a gradual decline.
Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram will meet the heads of public sectors banks and financial institutions, like IFCI and Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) on Tuesday to review their performance for the second quarter ended September 2008.
Among other demands, the unions are also seeking immediate introduction of five-day week in full and reduction of cash transaction hours and regulated working hours.
Alloting more funds for MNREGA and PM-KISAN could wipe out the entire additional money that the Centre may have for FY25.
The Indian government has introduced a bill in the Lok Sabha to ban online games played with money, aiming to curb addiction, money laundering, and financial fraud. The bill also targets advertisements and financial transactions related to such games.
The government may delay Rs 14,000 crore (Rs 140 billion) fund infusion in the public sector banks in view of volatile market conditions.
'Listing of scaled Indian subsidiaries of multinational corporations as well as of Indian conglomerates continues to remain a key theme for IPOs in India.'
We propose an expert group be set up to form a national strategy on digital fraud. This group would bring together skills in financial regulation, security economics, cyber defence, and public communications, and an understanding of the Indian financial and security systems. It should lay the foundations of a coordinated approach by the Indian State in fighting digital fraud, suggest Ajay Shah and Nandkumar Saravade.
While the collapse of a large financial intermediary can wreak havoc on the system because of the interconnectivity, a large business conglomerate too can play spoilsport if the banks have too much exposure to the entity, explains Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
In a move to strengthen governance in private sector banks and wholly-owned subsidiaries of foreign banks, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday directed them to have at least two wholetime directors. Lenders that do not meet the requirement will have to submit the names for the RBI's approval within four months. Banks need prior approval from the banking regulator for the appointment of wholetime directors.
Unions claimed that about 10 lakh staff and officers of public sector banks and some private sector banks are participating in the strike.
Finance secretary Rajiv Kumar was positive in formation of a committee consisting all concerned to address the issues arising out of the proposed merger of 10 banks including preserving the identity of all the banks.
Public sector banks (PSBs) have proposed the Finance Ministry their plan to raise Rs 54,800 crore through Additional Tier-1 (AT-1) and Tier-2 bonds in the current financial year (FY25), 37 per cent more than the Rs 39,880 crore raised in FY24
The 'bad bank' -- which will help banks clear their balance sheets by transferring the NPAs to special purpose vehicles -- has been one of the most debated ideas for stressed asset resolution.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Friday said the central bank has developed an innovative artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) based model MuleHunter.ai to address the growing issue of mule bank accounts that are often used for committing financial fraud. Developed by the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub, the new initiative is piloted with two public sector banks.
The bank unions had threatened to go on 4-day strike from February 25.
A consortium of Indian public sector banks led by SBI sought a bankruptcy order against embattled liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya during a high court hearing in London on Wednesday as part of efforts to recoup around 1.145 billion pounds in unpaid loans. Mallya's legal team, led by barrister Philip Marshall, argued for the bankruptcy petition to be dismissed because their client was being unfairly pursued by the banks in India and the UK on opposing grounds.
Public sector banks may have to bear a burden of Rs 1,800-2,000 crore arising due to a recent Supreme Court judgement on the waiver of compound interest on all loan accounts which opted for moratorium during March-August 2020, sources said. The judgement covers loans above Rs 2 crore as loans below this got blanket interest on interest waiver in November last year. Compound interest support scheme for loan moratorium cost the government Rs 5,500 crore during 2020-21 and the scheme covered all borrowers including the prompt one who did not avail moratorium.
In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena pointed out that this amounted to 3.48 per cent of the total advances given by the state-owned banks.
Your promise to protect bankers for their commercial decisions is a huge confidence booster, but how does one define a commercial decision? Are our investigative agencies well equipped to dissect lending decisions of bankers?
Banking services across the country were hit on Wednesday by the day-long strike by 10 central trade unions and 14 bank unions, but workers of largest lender SBI and a few other banks stayed off the agitation.
Many of India's sleepy state banks don't have the management capacity they need to tackle bad debts and deals at the same time, says Una Galani.
'What we need to watch is how Saudi Arabia's financial assistance will be used by Pakistan. If the funds go to build their military hardware and operations, it should worry us.'
S&P Global Ratings on Tuesday said the Indian economy is set for "resilient growth" in 2025 and projected inflation pressure to recede which will lead to "modest" easing of the monetary policy by the RBI. In its India outlook for 2025, S&P also retained India's growth forecast for current fiscal at 6.8 per cent, followed by 6.9 per cent growth in 2025-26.
Microsoft sources said about 52 per cent of computers in banks, 30 per cent in government offices, 26 per cent in manufacturing companies and 26 per cent in software firms are running on Windows XP.
The government on Monday accepted the recommendation of the A K Khandelwal committee and the Indian Banks Association has agreed to a common recruitment programme for public sector banks that would be conducted by the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection.
