State Bank of India (SBI) is willing to work with Russian banks not facing sanctions and remain on the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) network to open a special rupee vostro account (SRVA) for invoicing in Indian currency. The country's largest lender in a statement said it has not been identified as the nodal bank for handling Russia-related transactions. In July, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allowed banks in India, including SBI, to open an SRVA to promote invoicing in Indian rupee, subject to certain safeguards. Accordingly, the bank in a statement said it is "making necessary arrangements and processing requests received from various banks, including Russian banks", following guidelines laid out by the RBI.
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.
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.
The finance minister has emphasised on the quick disbursal of additional loans to MSMEs, to simplify process, formats and documentation.
'It's a debatable topic, and we will submit our comments to the RBI by June 15.'
Experts attribute the lower target to increased allocation under the credit guarantee scheme for small businesses. Out of the Rs 3.21 trillion worth loans sanctioned under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) in the last financial year, Rs 3.12 trillion were disbursed to entrepreneurs, according to official data.
Fifty per cent of bank restructured assets were in infrastructure, steel, power and telecom sectors.
'The finance ministry and public sector banks have tried to keep the names of wilful defaulters secret.' 'Secrecy and concealing information are inbred among banks and even the RBI,' observes Debashis Basu, editor, www.moneylife.in.
What is digital house arrest? It is a tactic cybercriminals use to confine victims to their homes and scam them, explains Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Bank CFOs may meet next week to discuss minimum public shareholding and takeover rule issues.
Journalist and author Chitra Subramaniam has demanded that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) make public its findings from the "box of evidence" received from Switzerland regarding the Bofors payoffs. Subramaniam, author of 'Boforsgate: A Journalist's Pursuit of Truth', expressed concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding the evidence, questioning who opened the box, when it was opened, and what it contained. She also raised doubts about the official narrative regarding the alleged bribe in the Bofors case, suggesting the sum of Rs 64 crore may not reflect the full extent of the corruption. Subramaniam also alleged that the CBI planted stories about Hindi film actor Amitabh Bachchan to derail the investigation and launched a political vendetta against the Bachchans. She recalled that Bachchan had come to her home and asked if she had seen his name. The CBI has recently requested assistance from the United States in the case, seeking information from private investigator Michael Hershman, who claims to have crucial details about the scandal. The Bofors scandal, a major bribery case involving the Indian government and the Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors in the 1980s, pertains to allegations of a Rs 64-crore bribe in a Rs 1,437-crore deal for the supply of 400 155mm field Howitzers.
The awarding of in-principle licences for 10 small finance banks is likely to be a game changer in a way which may not be adequately realised right now.
S&P Global Ratings on Wednesday said the impact of the US reciprocal tariff will be limited on India as the economy is domestically oriented with less reliance on exports. YeeFarn Phua, Director, Sovereigns and International Public Finance Ratings, Asia-Pacific S&P Global also said India will clock a 6.7-6.8 per cent GDP growth over the next two years.
The capital infusion would help improve the financial health of banks. While some banks would get necessary regulatory capital while others would get it for fueling growth.
The proposed IFC disrupts existing regulatory structures.
'No commercial bank will be allowed to fail. There is nothing to worry about.'
'The deal pipeline across products is robust for 2024.'
'Chasing sectors which have reported strongest earnings is not always the right strategy for outperformance.'
As per the RBI Act, the central bank should have four deputy governors - two from within the ranks and one commercial banker and the fourth one an economist to head the monetary policy department.
The strike notices were given by workers' unions of various sectors such as coal, steel, oil, telecom, postal, income tax, copper, banks and insurance.
Conducted by research firm IDC, the study titled 'Understanding the Indian Retail Banking Customer' says push marketing is fast becoming obsolete and the thrust should be on creating brand advocates.
Perhaps because the Modi government had some differences of opinion with two of the economist governors (one of whom was appointed by the Manmohan Singh government), there is a view that its political leadership prefers a civil servant to head the RBI, notes A K Bhattacharya.
A host of lenders, including State Bank of India, IDBI Bank, Indian Bank and Andhra Bank, have lined up meetings of their asset-liability committees this week, to review their lending and deposit rates.
A banking Trojan malware has been detected in the Indian cyberspace that is lurking to attack bank customers using Android phones and has already targeted those from more than 27 public and private sector banks, the country's federal cyber security agency said in a latest advisory.
Postings to places at an altitude above 1,000 metres but less than 1,500 metres, between 1,500 and 3,000 metres, and above 3,000 metres entail different rates of allowances -- the higher the location, the bigger the allowance, reveals Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
While an uptick in economic activity will help banks come out of some of their problems, some issues currently facing the Indian banking industry are of its own doing says Pramit Jhaveri.
The probe into selections for banks such as Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank followed the arrest of Syndicate Bank CMD S K Jain for alleged graft.
The incidence of corruption cases can be checked to a large extent if the suggestions already available with RBI and the government are taken seriously, says Shyamal Majumdar.
Major recruiters, with double-digit offers at IIT campuses this year so far, include American Express, Barclays, BCG, Cars24, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Google, Intel India, Meesho, Micron Technology, Microsoft, OLA, Oracle, Reliance, and Qualcomm.
The banking sector emerged as an outlier when the rest of India Inc witnessed a slowdown in earnings in FY23. The combined net profit of listed public and private sector banks was up 39.4 per cent year-on-year (YoY) last financial year and their share in India's gross value added (GVA) or gross domestic product (GDP) at factor cost rose to a record high of nearly 1 per cent up, from 0.8 per cent a year ago. Listed banks' combined net profit grew to Rs 2.36 trillion in FY23, from Rs 1.69 trillion a year ago. In comparison, India GVA at current prices was up 15.2 per cent YoY at Rs 247 trillion in FY23; it was around Rs 214 trillion a year ago.
This is despite the private sector companies outperforming their public sector counterparts, reports Sachin P Mampatta.
On February 22, 2013, the Reserve Bank of India issued guidelines on 'Licensing of New Banks in the Private Sector'.
Stocks of public sector undertakings (PSUs) have been on fire in the past year as investors cheered an improvement in key operating metrics and embraced counters of these state-owned enterprises, analysts suggest. The S&P BSE PSU Index has gained over 90 per cent in the past year, rising much higher than the S&P BSE Sensex, which has rose nearly 19 per cent during this period, according to ACE Equity data. The BSE PSU Index, reports show, has delivered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28 per cent (including dividends reinvestments) over five years and risen by almost 60 per cent in the past year.
Prompt measures and legal actions taken by the Indian government and PNB helped in securing the extradition of diamantaire Nirav Modi by the UK on Friday, a senior official said. UK Home Secretary Priti Patel on Friday signed off on the order to extradite Nirav Modi, wanted in India on fraud and money laundering charges related to the estimated USD 2-billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam case. According to the government official, a scam of this magnitude had potential to create instability in the financial sector but the deft handling saved the entire public sector banking space from the crisis and litigation.
'The shifts in US involvement in global conflicts and geopolitical alliances could introduce uncertainties.'
Raghuram Rajan rejected the argument that inflation has come down largely because of "good luck" stemming from low oil prices.
Despite coming to market last year amid a barrage of publicity, many of the Aim funds are still trading at a discount to their net asset values and some are still trading below their initial public offering prices even as their peers that listed in India are enjoying the good times.
The cacophony of uninformed voices should not impact decision making process of bank executives.
'The FSIB will conduct interviews for the SBI chairman position on May 21-22 as the tenure of the current chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara is scheduled to end by August.'
What was the RBI doing, what was the PNB top management doing, what were the auditors doing, asks Debashis Basu.
