The finance ministry has asked public sector banks (PSBs) to postpone the annual exercise of promoting and transferring their staff in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The advisory issued by the Department of Financial Services (DFS) states that the promotion process has coincided with a spike in Covid-19 cases across the country along with localised lockdowns and an increase in micro-containment zones. As there are cases of bank employees or their family members being hospitalised due to Covid-19, bank, insurance companies and financial institutions must take cognizance of the issue, the advisory issued by DFS said.
He termed this as 'intolerance' towards the constitutional head of the state, and expressed confidence that the media will not be a 'silent spectator' to such episodes.
'There will be partnerships between banks and fintech firms, but there will also be areas where they will be direct competitors.'
Bandhan Bank to fund SMEs, create jobs, says FM
On November 12, 2021, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decided to ring in uniformity in asset classification and income recognition across all lending institutions. Shadow banks, or non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), like commercial banks, are to test non-performing assets (NPAs) on a daily basis and upgrade them to "standard assets" only when interest and principal arrears are settled by borrowers. This is going to create all manner of headaches for shadow banks and their clientele. Says Y S Chakravarti, managing director and chief executive officer (CEO), Shriram City Union Finance: "NPA levels will go up, especially of small borrowers.
The finance minister chaired a meeting through video conference with major private banks and NBFCs to ensure effective rollout of ECLGS and uninterrupted liquidity to Indian MSMEs in this difficult time.
SBI chief Rajnish Kumar said the focus going forward will be on cost reduction, rationalisation and reskilling of workforce, improving staff productivity and redeployment of workforce from admin offices to sales roles.
The move will boost the government's revenue at a time when Delhi's economy is struggling in view of the Covid-induced lockdown that has been in place since April 19.
The additional outgo to combat the impact of COVID-19 will significantly erode the fiscal consolidation achieved by the state governments in the past three years, an RBI report said on Tuesday. In its study of the state budgets of 2020-21, the RBI report which has dwelled on the theme 'COVID-19 and its Spatial Dimensions in India', said that Gross Fiscal Deficit (GFD) of the states would spiral during the current fiscal.
There will be different ways of returning the money, depending on the profile of the depositors and the amount, predicts Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Sitharaman also said that the government's capital expenditure was on track and Budget estimates would be met.
The Nobel laureate filed an application before the High Court.
Flush with liquidity, banks are eager to lend. And, therein lies the problem, warns Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
For now, the concerns over bad loans have taken a back seat; a bigger challenge for the banking community is credit growth, explains Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Lok Sabha on Thursday passed two bills before the proceedings were adjourned for the day amid continuous protests by opposition members over the Pegasus spying row and farmers' issue.
A quaint Indian idea called face value is putting high-performing companies out of the reach of retail investors, observes Debashis Basu.
Reserve Bank on Wednesday announced a slew of measures including loan restructuring for individual and small businesses hit hard by fresh COVID-19 wave. To augment supply of goods for COVID care, the central bank opened Rs 50,000 crore on-tap window to ease access to emergency health services to boost provision of immediate liquidity for ramping up COVID-19 related healthcare infrastructure and services in the country. This liquidity window is being opened till March 31, 2022, he said, adding that under the scheme, banks can provide fresh lending support to a wide ranging of entities including vaccine manufacturers, importers and suppliers of vaccine and medical devices, hospitals and dispensaries and suppliers of oxygen and ventilators importers and also patients for treatment.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said taxpayer base has almost doubled to 1.28 crore in four years of rollout of the historic tax reform and the enhanced GST mop up in the recent months should now be the "new normal". In a written message to tax officers on the fourth anniversary of GST rollout, she said implementing any reform of this scale in a large and diverse country like India can be highly challenging, but GST has brought about ease in taxpayer compliance and reduced common man's tax burden.
Credit to priority sectors as well as small and medium industries will be discussed to find ways to accelerate economic growth.
Of the three major Budget announcements related to the banking sector, privatisation of PSBs is the most audacious, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
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There could be multiple measures announced in quick succession, not only by the finance minister but also other ministers regarding their respective sectors, and by the Reserve Bank of India. The total size of these announcements could rival that of other G-20 nations as a percentage of GDP.
'We are all in a tizzy about NBFCs in the aftermath of the IL&FS default.' 'We tend to jump to the notion that an NBFC is like a bank. But banks make a promise that deposits are liquid and have an assured return.' 'NBFCs make no such promises,' points out Ajay Shah.
In order to make it hassle-free, various start-up support groups such as TiE (The Indus Entrepreneur) and India Angel Network (IAN) are partnering with the digital NBFCs to extend debt finance to their member companies.
Did you know that women can avail for a loan of upto Rs 20 crores to set up a manufacturing business?
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
PSBs have been requested to reach out to MSMEs to provide bill discounting to them against their dues since they suffer the most from shortage of cash.
From 17 pre-school centres to 285 in less than five years - Hippocampus has brought the joy of learning to kids.
'India is the largest stomping ground in the world for impact investing as we have an extraordinary combination of entrepreneurial drive with huge, absolute demand for all kinds of social services,' IDFC First Bank's chief Rajiv Lall tells Anjuli Bhargava.
Pragmatism and flexibility is a virtue. An untethered and short-term approach to policymaking is a flaw, argues Mihir S Sharma.
'Several businesses like entertainment, hospitality, travel etc would never be the same again.'
Reacting to the announcement, MSME Minister Nitin Gadkari said clearing GST dues within 30 days will be highly beneficial for the MSME sector and will also be instrumental in increasing job opportunities.
While taking gold out of the closet to borrow money is no longer taboo in Indian households, the sharp drop in gold prices is hitting the newest loan product on the banking turf hard, explains Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The final guidelines to link the interest rate to external benchmarks will be issued by the end of this month
Ministry of Finance, Joint Secretary -- insurance, Anoop Wadhwa, had reviewed the progress of development of micro-insurance products at a meeting in the national Capital on Tuesday.
#Budget2018 resulted in over 14 lakh conversations on Twitter.
'The domestic scenario is much better than earlier, demonstrated in the March quarter earnings.'
Shifting to floating rate deposits can work as an anaesthetic gel for some customers, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'In the short term, we may see some disruptions due to Covid, but in the medium-to-long term, we should keep an eye on US inflation and 10-year bond yields.'
Of the total cash outgo Rs 40,000 crore is towards enhanced expenditure under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Program and Rs 33,771.48 crore have been sought for direct benefit transfer under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana and National Social Assistance Programme.