Question remains, what happens when the overseeing committees' members themselves are questioned by investigative agencies?
'The temptation of governments, to have a finger in the RBI pie will be just too great to resist, unless extensive amendments are carried out in the RBI Act treating it almost as the fourth branch of the government.'
'The RBI is something like a seat belt. As a driver, the driver being the government, it has the possibility of not putting on a seat belt but of course if you do not put on your seat belt you get into an accident and the accident can be quite severe,' Raghuram Rajan told CNBC TV18. 'The aim of the board is to be Rahul Dravid -- sensible, thoughtful and not, with due respect, Navjot Sidhu,' he added.
Every defaulter is not a wilful defaulter who has the capability of paying back and is yet not servicing the bank loan, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
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'.
Although this may not be music to Raghuram Rajan and Viral Acharya's ears, the real reason in my estimation for their quitting is expatriate over-sensitivity, intolerance or arrogance, argues B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
The CBI has filed a charge sheet against former MD and CEO of ICICI Bank Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak Kochhar and Videocon Group founder Venugopal Dhoot in a Rs 3,250 crore loan fraud case, officials said on Saturday. The agency has filed the charge sheet under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 409 (criminal breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, among others, they said. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has named nine entities, including companies and individuals, according to the officials.
...why are the government is running away from a Joint Parliamentary Committee
We as customers have to be conscious and careful to sidestep numerous types of frauds made possible under a mindless shift to a digital ecosystem without customer-redress procedures, warns Debashis Basu.
'In plain simple English, these practices amount to a looting of our country's future by some in the business community, in cahoots with some lenders,' says RBI Governor Dr Urjit R Patel.
To facilitate such restrictions on entities found to have 'wilfully' defaulted on bank loans, the Reserve Bank is exploring ways to share details of these defaulters with Sebi on a real time basis.
Anthony Pompliano, general partner at Morgan Creek Capital Blockchain in the Silicon Valley, shares his views on cryptocurrencies with Mayank Jain in an email interview.
HDFC Bank expects to amalgamate its home loan major parent HDFC into itself by September next year, a top official said on Friday. Both HDFC and HDFC Bank held general meetings on Friday to seek shareholder approvals for what is billed as the largest merger in Indian corporate history at over $40 billion. At the time of announcing the merger on April 4 this year, the entities had said the merger will take 12-18 months.
The Reserve Bank of India also banned with immediate effect issuance of letters of comfort which, like LoUs, are used by importers to fund their overseas purchases.
Banks do extensive investigation before declaring an account fraud; they owe it to us as they deal with our money. Why would they try to fix an innocent borrower? asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Issuance of new bank licences proves that the apex bank wants the financial sector to flourish.
HDFC and HDFC Bank's merger - touted as India's biggest-ever corporate merger - pumped up shares of the two entities on the bourses. Shares of Housing Finance Development Corporation (HDFC) skyrocketed 9 per cent while those of HDFC Bank zoomed 10 per cent. In comparison, the benchmark S&P BSESensex and the Nifty50 indices settled 2.2 per cent higher on Monday.
'The CM kept his cool, but his adviser was liberal with filthy language.' Tamal Bandyopadhyay recreates the diary of a general manager in a public sector bank, providing a glimpse of how they balance their work and life.
Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said they will pose three questions a day to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue.
Will Arundhati Bhattacharya be the RBI's first woman governor? Or will Urjit Patel succeed Raghuram Rajanas RBI governor when his term ends on September 4?
Financial institutions are 300 times more vulnerable to cyberattacks than any other industry.
Bad loans of PSBs are at Rs 20 trillion. Most of it is, I sense, due to corruption and behest lending. Nobody pays a price for this charade. Not the promoters, the bankers, RBI officials, finance ministry bureaucrats or politicians, points out Debashis Basu.
Private equity (PE) is set to play a bigger role in banks. Of 21 recommendations accepted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) out of 31 made by its Internal Working Group (IWG), its stance on non-promoter holdings in private banks is seen with excitement, though it doesn't refer to PEs explicitly. On non-promoter holdings in these banks, the RBI said this will be capped at 10 per cent of the paid-up voting equity share capital in the case "of natural persons and non-financial institutions and entities"; and "at 15 per cent for all categories of financial institutions, entities, supranational institutions, public sector undertaking, or the government." While this is a modification of the IWG's stance for the non-promoter holding in banks at up to 15 per cent, it does open up a huge window for PEs, all the same. This is because, while the RBI has remained silent on the eligibility of industrial houses for bank licences, fresh high-quality capital in large amounts can only come from PEs.
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.
Markets watchdog Sebi on Tuesday decided to tighten norms for utilisation of IPO proceeds by companies, introduce special situation funds to invest only in stressed assets and amend various regulations, including those on mutual funds and settlement proceedings. The board of Sebi, which met on Tuesday, also gave its nod for amending Foreign Portfolio Investor (FPI) regulations and introducing a provision for appointment or re-appointment of any person, including as a managing director or a whole time director or a manager, who was earlier rejected by the shareholders at a general meeting. Once the amended norms are in place, such appointments or re-appointments can only be done with the prior approval of the shareholders.
The Reserve Bank on Monday warned lenders against outsourcing their credit processing activities to third-party entities.
But there are challenges, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Hopefully, the grey world of central banking in a nation hit by demonetisation, will lighten up with some of his notes soon.
The Reserve Bank on Monday superseded the boards of Srei Infrastructure Finance as well as Srei Equipment Finance, citing concerns over governance and payment defaults, and decided to refer the two NBFCs for resolution under the insolvency law. This is only the second time in as many years that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is referring entities for the resolution process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) after taking first ever such step in the case of DHFL back in 2019. Superseding the boards of the crisis-hit Srei Infrastructure Finance Limited (SIFL) and Srei Equipment Finance Limited (SEFL), the RBI has appointed Rajneesh Sharma, former Chief General Manager of Bank of Baroda as the administrator to manage the affairs of the two companies.
Although such alerts are not compulsory for the banks, this may become the norm now if payments are missed even for a day.
Currently, the fee is Rs 15 per financial transaction. This has been recommended to be revised to Rs 16.50, plus service tax (12%), taking the amount to Rs 18.48.
'Allocate some parts of one's surplus income towards cryptocurrencies, considering the immense growth potential of this emerging asset class.'
The ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) has launched a probe into the books of Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company (EARC) following allegations by a whistleblower of fund diversion and irregularities. The whistleblower, Paras Kuhad, a former additional solicitor general of India, had written to the Prime Minister's Office and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Kuhad has alleged that Edelweiss Group and Caisse de depot et placement du Qubec (CDPQ), a Canadian institutional investor, which hold stakes in the ARC, diverted funds and did not adhere to norms while making investments in EARC's instruments. Sources have indicated that a probe has been initiated, but the MCA did not comment on the issue.
'Any normalisation exercise will bring its share of volatility.'
PMC Bank depositors have spent the last one year holding protests, meeting politicians, writing to various authorities in an effort to get their hard-earned money back.
Advertisers will have to put a disclaimer while promoting the "highly risky" and unregulated cryptocurrencies from April 1, a self-regulatory body for the industry said on Wednesday. All virtual digital assets (VDAs), which are commonly referred to as crypto or non-fungible tokens (NFTs), will have to put the disclaimer in a "prominent and unmissable" way in campaigns for products and services, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) said. The announcement of the guidelines, done after consultations with industry stakeholders, government and financial regulators as well, comes as the advertising for the controversial products and services is on the upswing.
Has the Modi government been more at odds with institutions than other governments? There is no doubt that there have been more run-ins. While the RBI and CBI cases have drawn attention, there have been others, less publicised, Subhomoy Bhattacharjee points out.
'There is no difference between the earlier government and the present government.' 'They are all following the economic policy based on the Chicago School of thought.' 'This school of thought says the government should have very little role in governing the country and the majority of the work should be handed over to the private sector.' 'This has not succeeded in the US.' 'Yet, it is being tried here by people like Arvind Subramaniam, Arvind Panagariya, Urjit Patel and Raghuram Rajan.'
NCP spokesperson and Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik said that AICC general secretary H K Patil was told about this scheduled meeting when he and other Congress leaders met Pawar in Mumbai recently.
Media reports said on Monday that the regulators have rejected the JV proposal citing the violation of trading norms and security scams by SG in overseas markets. SBI had entered into an agreement with Societe Generale Securities Services, a division of Societe Generale Group, in June this year to provide a range of security services like reporting, corporate actions, dividends collection and distribution, tax reclaim services among others.