Debit card payments remained sluggish due to the surge in digital transactions after the pandemic, and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has emerged as the most popular mode of money transfer, particularly for small value transactions, according to RBI data. In July 2020, the total debit card spends stood at Rs 2.81 trillion, as compared to Rs 3.15 trillion in July 2023, reflecting a growth of 11.96 per cent. UPI spends have seen a whopping growth of 428 per cent, zooming from Rs 2.90 trillion to Rs 15.33 trillion during the same period, the data revealed.
Investors may have to wait a little longer for Unified Payments Interface (UPI)-based block mechanism in the secondary market even as the market regulator has set the effective launch date as January 1, 2024. Several brokerage firms said they may take a few months more to implement it. Investors will be able to register for this facility only if the stock broker has opted for the UPI block facility.
The transition to UPI-based ATMs will be gradual, and consumers will not immediately switch to using standalone UPI ATMs overnight.
Consensus remained elusive on a common BRICS currency as business leaders from the five-bloc nations debated the pivotal issue at a business forum on the periphery of a summit of the five-member bloc being hosted here by South Africa. In their two addresses at the Summit so far, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa have made no or scant references to the issue either. "The BRICS Business Forum discussed the international payments system in detail. "Participants also debated the question of whether a BRICS currency is possible or desirable, with strong views expressed both for and against and little consensus reached," Sim Tshabalala, chief executive of Standard Bank Group, told several hundred captains of industry from the partner countries and over 40 other nations across the globe at the Summit.
Passengers in 200 railway stations across India will soon be able to recharge their mobiles, pay electricity bills, fill up Aadhaar and Pan card forms and even file taxes with help from Common Service Centre (CSC) kiosks to be set up by RailTel. The scheme has been operationalised in partnership with CSC e-Governance Services India Limited' (CSC-SPV) and the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, RailTel said in a statement. The kiosks will be run by village level entrepreneurs (VLEs).
The company was awaiting clarification from the Reserve Bank of India on data storage before it took a final call on data localisation.
'Try to obtain a secured personal loan or credit card by offering some collateral, such as a fixed deposit or gold.' 'Not only will this improve your eligibility, but the lender may even offer a lower interest rate.'
Do not trust any incoming phone calls or mails that ask you to install any file or programme, warns Niranjan Upadhye, general manager-fraud risk management, Worldline India.
WhatsApp's ambitious payment services' blueprint in India has been caught in a bind over concerns around authentication and its data storage practices.
Funds raised by banks through certificates of deposit in December clocked the highest in the financial year 2023-24 as liquidity remained tight in the system with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) infusing Rs 2.01 trillion on Monday, the highest in the current financial year. The liquidity deficit in the banking system widened to more than Rs 2 trillion on Monday on the back of advance tax outflows, market participants said. Around Rs 4 trillion worth of outflows are expected because of advanced tax and goods and services tax (GST) payments in December.
While HDFC Bank has vowed to recoup its lost market share in the credit card segment in three to four quarters by aggressively sourcing new cards, brokerages believe it is a little hard to come by, given how competitive the landscape has become, with other players in the market becoming equally aggressive to gain market share. Kotak Institutional Equities in its report on Monday said, "We would like to believe that the recovery in market share is likely to be gradual, if any. "All the key players, including Axis Bank, are now willing to expand their credit card portfolios as they have tested quite well against Covid-19."
Edtech company Byju's parent Think & Learn will challenge the National Company Law Tribunal's (NCLT's) order on insolvency proceedings and may approach the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) in the next few days, a source claimed. With the NCLT appointing Pankaj Srivastava as the interim resolution professional (IRP), time is running out for Byju's as the committee of creditors (CoC) begins to be formed.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced that income from digital asset transfers will be taxed at a rate of 30 per cent. This move is seen as 'crypto tax'.
The Reserve Bank on Friday accepted most of the recommendations of its working group on corporate ownership of private sector banks, by allowing unrestrained promoter shareholding in the first five years of operations and hiking the same to 26 per cent after 15 years from the extant 15 per cent and also the new capital requirements. The move will benefit leading banks like Kotak Mahindra Bank and IndusInd Bank, among others, which have been seeking more time from the regulator to divest their stakes for many years now. Accepting 21 of the 33 recommendations of the internal working group, the central bank said the remaining suggestions are under its consideration.
Banks have raised concerns over the new international trade settlement in rupee, fearing that facilitation of such a mechanism could result in them facing the ire of economic sanctions by the West, people aware of the matter said. Large banks with overseas operations have sought clarity and assurance from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that they will not be targeted with sanctions for facilitating rupee trade with a sanction-hit country such as Russia. The present payment mechanism is a shift from earlier such arrangements, like the one with sanction-hit Iran, which involved banks facilitating settlement of international trade that did not have business in the sanctioned nation.
The start of BHIM's declining share coincided with the launch of Google Tez in mid-Septem
'If you give your ID and password to somebody else, how can anybody blame the technology for that problem?'
This facility will be available for cost reduction forex option structures in which the liability of the buyer will not exceed the net premium payable to the bank, RBI said in a notification.
We asked colleagues, present and past, to reflect on a man who has made such a difference to their lives and careers. Here it is then, a rich collection of memories that offer enchanting glimpses of the enigmatic Ajit Balakrishnan.
Banks have also been asked to keep records of all disbursals and drawers will have to submit a list person to whom payments will be made out of the funds
Here are the highlights of the monetary policy announced by RBI governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday.
'There will be partnerships between banks and fintech firms, but there will also be areas where they will be direct competitors.'
The creditors of the grounded carrier Jet Airways on Wednesday raised questions over the source of Rs 200 crore deposited by the Jalan-Kalrock Consortium before the insolvency appellate tribunal NCLAT and said it does not align with the resolution plan. Additional Solicitor General N Venkataraman, representing lenders including SBI and other banks, told the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) that there are apprehensions about the source of funds, which deposited money for Jalan-Kalrock Consortium's (JKC). "The payment is not compliant with the resolution plan as it mandates that the money is to be paid through JKC," ASG submitted before a three-member NCLAT bench headed by chairperson Justice Ashok Bhushan.
Nominations and addresses are of paramount importance in bank accounts, insurance policies, mutual funds, etc.
This payment of Rs 962 crore is inclusive of the Rs 500 crore DHFL received from exiting its entire stake in subsidiary firm Aadhar Housing Finance Ltd.
The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) decision to withdraw the incremental cash reserve ratio (I-CRR) is expected to benefit banks during the festival season. They are likely to increase deposit rates by up to 25 basis points (bps) in select maturity buckets. The rise in demand for funds to cover tax payments and meet quarter-end business targets could influence rate decisions by banks, according to bankers and money market executives.
To provide more choices to customers, the Reserve Bank of India has suggested mandating bank and non-bank card issuers to issue debt, credit and prepaid cards on more than one network. Customers can choose any one either at the time of issue of the card or anytime later, according to draft norms released by the Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday. The RBI said card issuers would also be barred from signing agreements that limit their ability to tie-up with other card-networks, according to the draft.
Rediff.com spoke to registered investment advisors to figure out how best the extra Rs 17,500 saved ever year can be invested to create a decent corpus in the years ahead. This is what they said.
The regulator said if the variable pay is up to 200 per cent of the fixed pay, at least 50 per cent of it should be in non-cash, and if the variable pay is above 200 per cent, 67 per cent of it should be paid via non-cash instruments.
The banking regulator was uncomfortable with the runaway pace at which consumer credit was growing.
'What's sad today is that there are so many people who cannot find work, not because the country is devoid of that opportunity, but because we are not doing enough in the country.'
Those who consider the rupee as a proxy for virility have started thumping their chests and dreaming of dethroning the dollar from its coveted position, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Everyone (with some exceptions) whose estimated tax liability is Rs 10,000 or more in a financial year must pay advance tax.
National Payments Corporation of India is currently in the process of testing sound-based payments with three companies: PhonePe, ToneTag and UltraCash.
The currency in circulation (CIC) declined in the first half of this financial year and this is the first time this has happened in H1 in at least 10 years. The CIC on March 31, 2023, was Rs 33.78 trillion, which fell to Rs 33.01 trillion on September 22 -- a difference of about Rs 76,658 crore. In the first half of the last two financial years, the CIC went up by Rs 33,357 crore in FY23 and Rs 84,978 crore in FY22.
After the income tax department indicated that the Tamilnad Mercantile Bank (TMB) did not provide the complete details of transactions worth up to Rs 3,610 crore, sources told Business Standard that this was due to a technical glitch. The bank has now submitted all the required documents in the past few days. According to the Income Tax (I-T) department, TMB had not submitted a statement of financial transactions (SFT) pertaining to cash deposits of around Rs 2,700 crore involving more than 10,000 accounts.
The need to maintain people's confidence in digital banking resulted in the action against HDFC Bank for service outages, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Friday and exhorted lenders to invest more on the technology front.
While bank credit growth seems to be showing signs of revival, deposits could soon emerge as the new area of concern for bankers.
The disbursement of pensions to 58,275 defence pensioners was delayed this month as their banks could not confirm their identification by April 30, the ministry of defence (MoD) said on Wednesday.
Looking to regain lost ground in the credit cards segment, HDFC Bank on Monday announced a tie-up with leading payments company Paytm to start selling co-branded plastics before the onset of the festive season. The credit cards will be powered by Visa and will include offerings targeted at millennials, business owners and merchants, an official statement said. Paytm has a reach of over 330 million consumers and 21 million merchants, while HDFC Bank has over 5 million debit, credit and prepaid cards, and serves 2 million merchants through its offerings.