'In the long run, India's strong growth story and reforms to make assets globally attractive will determine the rupee's resilience.'
'The government is putting insurance in the same category as food, which is essential for life.' 'Now this is an opportunity for the sector to focus on the consumer.'
Feature for feature, bank FDs are indeed better than debt funds today, mainly thanks to Ms Sitharaman, notes Debashis Basu.
The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine unions, on Tuesday gave a call for a two-day strike from March 15 to protest against the proposed privatisation of two state-owned lenders. In the Union Budget presented last week, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the privatisation of two Public Sector Banks (PSBs) as part of its disinvestment plan. The government has already privatised IDBI Bank by selling its majority stake in the lender to LIC in 2019 and merged 14 public sector banks in the last four years.
With high credit growth and healthy asset quality, listed commercial banks are expected to report steady growth in earnings during the fourth quarter ended March 2024 (Q4 FY24). Profits are expected to grow at 9.6 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) and net interest income (NII) by 8.7 per cent in Q4 FY24, according to Bloomberg analysts' estimates. According to Motilal Oswal Securities, while bank credit growth has been robust, deposit growth has also gathered pace.
The government is considering a proposal to privatise some state-owned banks in phases.
The government on Saturday pulled up public sector banks for projecting a slowdown in deposit mobilisation and credit disbursal targets.
However, financial flows to the economy remained constrained because of decline in the amount of equity finance raised from the capital markets and stress in the NBFC sector, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman pointed out.
'The danger is that when the music stops, the fall will be sudden, faster, and deeper than anyone expects,' warns Debashis Basu.
Services such as deposits and withdrawal at branches, cheque clearance and loan approvals would be affected due to the strike.
Payment apps PhonePe and Paytm have helped citizens avert potential financial frauds worth Rs 200 crore by using the fraud risk indicator platform developed by the Department of Telecom, a senior Walmart group official said on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday claimed that people were not voting for the Rashtriya Janata Dal-helmed opposition in Bihar as they fear that if voted to power, its regime will 'put katta to their heads and order them to hold their hands up'.
Employees across segments, including those involved in specialised jobs such as technology, compliance and risk management, have started leaving the bank fold in hordes, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Concerned over rising incidence of mis-selling, the finance ministry has directed heads of public sector banks to put in place strong mechanisms to avoid unethical practices for selling insurance policies to customers. The Department of Financial Services has received complaints that fraudulent and unethical practices are adopted by banks and life insurance companies for procuring policies from the bank customers, a letter addressed to chairpersons and managing directors of public sector banks said. There have been instances where life insurance policies were sold to customers aged above 75 years in Tier II-III cities.
'Investing in these funds makes sense if their net yield over better-quality funds -- corporate bond funds or banking and PSU funds -- is meaningful.'
Under the Indradhanush roadmap announced in 2015, the government will infuse Rs 70,000 crore in state banks over four years while they will have to raise a further Rs 1.1 trillion from the markets to meet their capital requirement in line with global risk norms, known as Basel III.
The number of customer complaints per 1,000 accounts, excluding credit cards, for foreign and new private sector banks at 0.61 and 0.33 is higher than that for old private- and public sector banks at 0.05 and 0.07, respectively.
A day after the RBI put in public domain a draft scheme of merger of Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) with subsidiary of Singapore-based DBS, public sector banks' officer union AIBOC on Wednesday said the amalgamation is not in the national interest and demanded the consolidation with any PSB. The proposed amalgamation of the cash-strapped LVB with DBS Bank India seems to be a ploy to provide entry of foreign banks into the country in a big way, All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC) president Sunil Kumar said. The Indian banking sector provides huge opportunity for growth, so the foreign banks have been looking at inorganic route to expand their presence for long, he said.
Operations in branches of public sector banks are affected and cheque clearance would be delayed.
The sharp rise in home loan rates of private sector banks is forcing their customers to switch loyalties.
Arun Jaitley had promised to provide more than the budgeted amount.
The ministries of Road Transport & Highways and Railways have exceeded the national average capital expenditure (capex) by spending 63 per cent and 57 per cent of Budget estimates (BE), respectively, in the first half of 2025-26 (FY26). The total capital expenditure for April-September of FY26 stood at 52 per cent of the BE, according to the latest data by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA).
Markets regulator Sebi on Wednesday barred former CEO of IndusInd Bank, Sumant Kathpalia, and four other senior officials from accessing the securities markets in connection with an alleged insider trading in the bank's shares. In addition to the market ban, Sebi has impounded Rs 19.78 crore collectively from the five individuals, according to an interim order passed by the regulator.
Several executives argue that UPI has the potential to grow tenfold, but warn that the absence of a monetisation model risks stagnating the real-time payments system, which has been recording all-time-high transaction volumes every year.
Seasoned bureaucrat and a stickler for rules Finance Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey will be at the helm of capital market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), for three years. The 1987-batch Odisha-cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, Pandey, would replace Madhabi Puri Buch, whose three-year term ends on Friday.
India's computer services exports have risen 30 per cent since the advent of ChatGPT in November 2022, even as overall services exports have plateaued, World Bank's South Asia Chief Economist Franziska Ohnsorge said, terming Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the conclusion of more trade agreements that can trigger a "manufacturing renaissance", as the two big investment opportunities for India in coming years.
What is currently perceived as a massive, low-tech liability could become a high-value, export-oriented economic engine, points out Ajit Balakrishnan.
'Instead of the government and telecom operators solving the mess of their own creation, they're telling us we need to give access to our phones perpetually.'
Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) , the country's largest domestic institutional investor (DII), has seen a Rs 46,000 crore erosion in the value of its equity holdings amid market downturns in July. The benchmark indices, Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex, have slipped 2.6 per cent from their June 2025-end level to 24,837 and 81,463.09 respectively.
Over 8.5 lakh employees, majorly from public sector banks (PSBs), will get a 15 per cent hike in pay, with the conclusion of the 11th Bipartite Wage Negotiations on Wednesday. After three years of intense negotiations, the UFBU, which represents four bank officer associations and five workman unions, and the IBA on July 22 entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for an annual wage hike of 15 per cent.
Concerned over the rise in mis-selling of products by banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is examining whether to come up with norms to curb such practices. Observing that pushing financial products, such as insurance, indiscriminately to unaware consumers may be detrimental to their well-being, RBI Deputy Governor M Rajeshwar Rao said, "We are examining whether it necessitates framing of guidelines to address mis-selling of financial products and services by REs (regulated entities)."
India is set to become the world's fourth-largest economy in 2025, but slow income growth, lack of structural change, and rising inequality highlight the gap between progress and real transformation.
UPI has catapulted India into the forefront on the global digital payments landscape. Working hand in hand, the AePS payments system is making life easy for rural folks, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Government asks banks to furnish capital, ratings and NPA details.
The meeting will review annual financial performance of public sector banks, credit offtake in the economy, priority sector lending and progress made under various social sector schemes, including Atal Pension Yojana (APY) and Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana.
12 out of 21 public sector banks reported declines in their loan books in the last financial year against seven such banks in 2015-16 and none in 2013-14.
This marks the strongest DRHP filing tally since 1996, when 428 firms sought to enter India's equity markets.
ETFs function like a mutual fund scheme and have underlying assets of government-owned companies.
The DMK may consider a two-tier campaign, where they keep the focus on Chief Minister Stalin, as a senior statesman with 50-plus years of political experience, and let EPS and the BJP shout in the wilderness. In such a case, the second-tier may project Udhayanidhi as the contender and chosen obstructionist in Vijay's path. The attempt, if any, would be to reduce Vijay to Udhayanidhi's level when the former is aiming at Stalin and Stalin alone in the state's political horizon, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Non-banking financial company (NBFC) Tata Capital is set to launch its much-anticipated $2 billion (Rs 17,200 crore) initial public offering (IPO) in the week beginning September 22, market sources familiar with the matter said on Sunday. The issue is expected to value the company around $11 billion, they added. Tata Capital is likely to make its stock market debut by September 30.
