Ask rediffGURU and PF expert Milind Vadjikar your insurance, stocks, mutual fund and personal finance-related questions.
The finance ministry is in favour of extending the August deadline for public sector banks (PSBs) as well as insurance companies to increase their minimum public shareholding (MPS) to the mandated 25 per cent, said a senior government official. "The election results will determine the course of action. "Most likely, those who did not receive an extension to meet the minimum shareholding norm will be granted one," the senior government official said.
Benchmark equity indices Sensex and Nifty slumped over 1 per cent on Friday, tracking a weak trend in global markets and fresh foreign fund outflows. Falling for the third day running, the 30-share BSE Sensex tumbled 1,017.23 points or 1.24 per cent to settle at 81,183.93.
Be wary of co-operative banks which have historically been most vulnerable.
Anil Rego, CEO, Right Horizons, answers your personal income tax queries.
Once these banks start showing losses, they will not be able to pay dividends to the government nor pay taxes, which will further aggravate the situation for the government as its return on investment as an investor would be very negligible for the next few years, says M V Subramanian.
The comments come about a week after PSU bank employee unions went to a four-day relay strike to press for early revision of wages.
Banking and financial stocks got more than their fair share of foreign portfolio investor (FPI) flows in February. Overseas investors pumped in $3.56 billion into domestic equities last month. Of this $1.96 billion went into financial stocks, data analysed by Edelweiss shows. "The sector now has 34.8 per cent of FPI assets, up from 33.8 per cent in January.
Pawan Verma contended that PSU banks are influenced to give loans to the people who are not able to repay them.
The Nifty Bank index has come off 15 per cent from its peak in February, underperforming the benchmark Nifty which is down 6%.
State-run banks that hiked interest rates without their respective Boards' nod last week are expected to obtain approval now, but none of them are likely to rollback the hike, bankers felt.
Simple tips to prepare for bank interviews from M B Sivaramakrishnan, a HR professional and author of the book Guide to Bank Interviews.
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.
'If the NDA comes to power with 320-330 plus seats, then we could see some correction. We could possibly see a level of 19,500 to 20,000.' 'If the NDA comes to power with a majority of 400-plus, we could see the markets going to about 23,500-24,000 levels.' 'And from there we could see some correction because markets are expensive at this point of time and a correction is overdue.'
Price correction over post-election peaks could throw disinvestment calculations awry.
'Investors should ideally consider equity allocations from a medium-to-long term perspective.'
Among the 30 Sensex companies, Larsen & Toubro, Power Grid, NTPC, State Bank of India, Reliance Industries and HDFC Bank were the biggest laggards. Sun Pharma and Nestle were the only gainers.
Foreign brokerages said if SBI decide to buy stake in the bank, they should buy it at Rs 1 per share as the net worth is hugely impaired.
'The Election Commission is conducting the National Register of Citizens in Bihar through the backdoor.'
At this time of fear and apprehension over jobs, public sector banks are swimming against the tide to go on a hiring spree.
The banking stocks have been rallying since the RBI policy announcement four days back, and today they got an booster after the Cabinet cleared capital infusion of Rs 15,000 cr in PSU banks.
Stocks of public sector companies, especially the oil refining and marketing companies (OMCs) - Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOC) - logged gains on Tuesday in a weak market. While the Nifty lost nearly 1 per cent in trade on Tuesday, the Nifty CPSE index - a gauge of performance of central public sector enterprises on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) - gained over 3 per cent in intra-day trade. The rally in PSU stocks comes on the back of the BPCL chairman, Arun Kumar Singh suggesting in the company's annual general meeting (AGM) on Monday that the government intends to complete the divestment process in the OMC by March 2022.
The Reserve Bank India's (RBI's) decision to ban the onboarding of new accounts on the "bob World" mobile digital platform led to a selloff in the Bank of Baroda (BoB) stock. The stock of the public sector bank dropped by around 3 per cent. The central bank cited "material supervisory concerns"; news reports claimed mobile numbers were randomly linked to accounts to purportedly inflate registrations on bob World.
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.
Stock exchanges' levy of penalties, ranging from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 12 lakh, on public-sector undertakings (PSUs) for lapses in board composition for the 2024-25 October-December quarter has brought forth issues of governance. Last month, 16 PSUs requested bourses to waive these penalties, arguing that these lapses were neither due to negligence nor within their control, as the appointment of directors is managed by the government.
"Subject to synergy, subject to reasonable similarity in culture, they (public sector banks) in the next 5-10 years really need to look at consolidation and merger," finance secretary Ashok Chawla said after launching the mobile banking service of Vijaya Bank in New Delhi.
Punjab National Bank is the second largest PSU bank, in which government holding is 58.87 per cent.
In August, the Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das held a meeting with chief executive officers/ managing directors (CEOs/ MDs) of large non-banking financial corporations (NBFCs). The discussions included diversifying borrowing sources for NBFCs and housing finance companies (HFCs) to contain increasing reliance on bank borrowing, risks associated with high credit growth in retail segment in unsecured loans, prioritising IT upgrades and cyber-security, improving provisioning, monitoring of stressed exposures and slippages, ensuring robust liquidity and asset-liability management, ensuring transparency in pricing, creating robust grievance redress mechanisms.
The most sought after exam for aspiring probationary officers will be held on Sunday, April 28.
Replying to a question on charges of money laundering by certain employees of three private sector banks, Chidambaram said the RBI and the Finance Ministry are looking into the issue.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday asked banks to tap the vast opportunity provided by the semi-urban and rural markets by converting savings in these areas into financial assets.
'I find the RBI edict to the Kotak Mahindra Bank to reduce Uday Kotak's shareholding very unreasonable,' says Sudhir Bisht.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that at a time when the private sector has been somewhat conservative in investments, public investment always takes the lead.
The government on Monday said there was "tremendous" need for consolidation to enable banks gain financial muscle and absorb risks in the years to come.\n
"The bank strike is expected to be called off today. I am being told that talks are on between the bank associations and worker unions," he said replying to supplementaries during the Question Hour.
FM recommended a 0.5% cut in deposit and lending rates to banks to encourage investments.
When AS-15 became operative in 2006, the initial estimate for additional pension provisioning was estimated at Rs 6,000 crore. However, the latest wage revision may bring in an additional 275,000 bank employees who opted for PF. Banks may also provide for the pension liabilities of 65,000 employees who have retired but have been seeking resort to the defined pension scheme since 1996. This will require additional provisioning of Rs 6,000 crore.
