Trai has ordered BFSI firms to move service and transaction calls to the 1600 series from 2026 to reduce spam, financial fraud, and rising digital arrest scams.
Shaktikanta Das will demit the office on Tuesday after completing six years as the 25th Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra will replace him as the 26th Governor. He was appointed as the Governor on December 12, 2018, after the abrupt exit of Urjit Patel.
The Reserve Bank of India on Friday revised upwards the GDP growth projection for the current fiscal to 7.2 per cent from 7 per cent on rising private consumption and revival of demand in rural areas. Unveiling the bi-monthly monetary policy, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said estimates released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) placed India's real gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 8.2 per cent in 2023-24. "During 2024-25 so far, domestic economic activity has maintained resilience," he said, adding that manufacturing activity continues to gain ground on the back of strengthening domestic demand.
It's unfair to over-emphasise Urjit Patel's shy and reticent image.
The finance ministry has directed all state-owned banks to review their gold loan portfolio as instances of non-compliance with regulatory norms have been noticed by the government. The Department of Financial Services (DFS) in a communication addressed to heads of public sector banks has asked them to look at their system and processes related to gold loan. "We have asked banks to undertake comprehensive review of the gold loan business," financial services secretary Vivek Joshi told PTI.
At a time when the role of corporate boards is once again under the scanner, independent directors on the Paytm Payments Bank board have indicated that red flags were raised over regulatory issues but they may have been late in doing so. "As independent directors, we asked questions and monitored responses to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Many changes were made on compliances. "Obviously, in retrospect, it was not found to be enough," said one of the independent directors on the condition of anonymity.
The poll panel said it found Kharge's letter, placed in the public domain in the middle of the ongoing electoral process, 'highly undesirable' and designed to create confusion, misdirection and impediment to the conduct of smooth, free and fair elections.
The RBI now brings in important and contentious changes directly through voluminous Master Directions, or Master Circulars
Penalty must act as a deterrent. If it is too low, it could encourage the regulated entities to lap up penalty instead of complying with the norms, suggests Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Going by the RBI directive and the overall narrative, Paytm may have lost the rigour of stress tests, audits and compliance.
Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Garg is the finance ministry's primary liaison with the RBI.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) unions have decided to intensify their stir demanding revision of wages, pending since November 2017, and have called for mass casual leave of employees at the central bank on November 30. However, several sources in the RBI told Business Standard that the unions may not have to go on agitation, as the new contours of the wage pact have been almost finalised and could be announced any time. An email sent to the RBI was not answered. The United Forum of Reserve Bank Officers and Employees had deferred its agitation earlier after it was told that RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das was to hold talks with the human resource management department (HRMD).
Patra, as executive director of the central bank, was the principal advisor to the Monetary Policy Department since July 2012.
Startup founders need to sit up and think about how not to take stardom for granted and how not to disappoint their fans who have stood in long queues for those precious selfies with popular entrepreneurs, notes Nivedita Mookerji.
Numbers could be classified further into (140) marketing and (160 or 161) for service calls to easily identify the purpose of the call in the future.
The message is clear: The 60-year-old wise uncles need to handhold the 40-year-old entrepreneurs when, obsessed with ambition and greed for growth, they become a victim of hubris, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The ministry seeks to make lending requirements flexible for banks financing key stalled projects.
There is as yet no clarity on how the process of consulting with the RBI Governor, initiated under Section 7 of the RBI Act, would unfold in the coming days. The government is keen that its suggestions made in the public interest should be heeded by the central bank, says A K Bhattacharya.
The IPPB, which is currently running pilot services in Raipur and Ranchi, needs a go-ahead from RBI for the software used for system integration
The Reserve Bank of India has rejected Essar Communications' application to pledge its equity in Hutchison Essar Ltd to Standard Chartered Bank, London.
Rajan's total 'monthly emoluments' stands at Rs 198,700
Central banking is a science, not an art, Tamal Bandyopadhyay tells RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das.
November 8 marks 6 years after demonetisation. A K Bhattacharya reveals how the prime minister and the RBI worked together for months before Modi's 8 pm speech. A riveting excerpt from The Rise Of Goliath: Twelve Disruptions That Changed India.
The Bharatiya Janata Party rejected this was any sort of demonetisation and instead reminded the Congress that even during the rule of Manmohan Singh, old currency notes were taken off circulation.
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.
RBI seeks detailed report on what happened between 2011 and now; bankers to recall loans to Nirav Modi entities.
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.
Mihir Tanna, Associate Director, S K Patodia & Associates, answers your tax queries.
Benchmark indices failed to sustain gains and retreated from day's high dragged primarily by the losses in metals, information technology and bank shares as investors started to book profits in late noon deals. Earlier, markets had scaled fresh all-time highs on the surprise post-budget rate cut by Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The 30-share Sensex ended down 213 points at 29,380 and the 50-share Nifty closed down 74 points at 8,922. Intra-day, Sensex reached the all-time high mark of 30,024.74 while Nifty touched the life-time high level of 9,119.20. In the broader market, both the BSE Midcap index and Smallcap indices, down 1% and 1.2% each underperformed the front-liners. Market breadth in BSE ended negative with 1,882 declines against 1,010 advances. A day after signing an agreement with Finance Ministry on inflation targeting, RBI surprised the markets with an early post-budget repo rate cut of 25 bps (basis points) to 7.5% from 7.75% which was again outside of central bank's scheduled policy review meetings as the earlier rate cut effected on January 15. "RBI's latest rate cut of 25 basis points, while a surprise in its timing is in-line with our expectations of a sharp rate-cutting cycle over the coming quarters. With inflation sustainably lower by 500bps, the RBI has in recent months acknowledged the scope for rate cuts and was only waiting for additional comfort that the government's fiscal policy would not play spoil-sport," said Dinesh Thakkar, chairman and managing director at Angel Broking in a note. Analysts at Karvy believe that further monetary policy action will depend on number of factors including easing of supply constraints, improved availability of power, land, minerals and infrastructure, fiscal consolidation, the pass through of rate cuts by banks and the expected monsoon. Citing weakness in some sectors of the economy and the overall global trend towards monetary easing as rationale for the rate cut the central bank also exuded confidence in the road map for fiscal consolidation as laid out in the Union Budget, 2015. Commenting on how the markets reacted to RBI's surprise move, K Subramanyam assistant vice-president (institutional research), Asit C. Mehta Securities said, "The unexpected cut did take the market by surprise .However, credit off-take is not dependant only on interest rates. A gradual revival in the economy would be of more help which would trigger credit off-take. Hopefully this will follow and RBI's action would prove helpful. From market point of view this is bullish as equity becomes more attractive vis-a-vis falling interest rates." On the macro-economic front, the HSBC services PMI rose to an eight-month high of 53.9 in February up from 52.4 in January indicating strong expansion in output across the sector. Respondents cited robust growth of new business as the principle factor for the increase in activity. Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 773 crore on Tuesday, as per provisional data. Buzzing Stocks 9 out of the 12 sectoral indices of BSE ended in red. BSE Metal index, down 2.4% was the top loser followed by BSE Oil & Gas and Power indices, down 1.3% each. BSE Healthcare index, up 1.2% and BSE FMCG index, up 0.9% were the top losers. Bank stocks came under during late noon trades as traders booked profits at higher levels. However, RBI rate cut may encourage large lenders to cut their lending rates boosting demand for home and auto loans and provide funds for various stalled and new projects. Many stalled projects across the country are waiting for cash to restart work. The stock of stalled projects at the end of December 2014 stood at Rs 8.8 lakh crore or 7% of GDP. ICICI Bank ended down 0.1%, Axis Bank and SBI declined over 3% and HDFC Bank shed 1.5%. Sun Pharma gained over 6% on approval granted to Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company (SPARC) by US FDA for an antiepileptic drug. The product will be manufactured by Sun Pharmaceutical Industries at its Halol (Gujarat) facility in India. SPARC was formed in 2007 when Sun Pharma separated out its active projects in drug discovery and innovation into a new company. Dr Reddys Lab and Cipla have gained over 1% each. ITC gained over 1% after consecutive sessions of losses on the proposed larger-than-expected hike in excise duty on cigarettes in the Union Budget. The biggest ever auction of spectrum by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) started on Wednesday in the morning where government expects to garner Rs 80,000-1lakh crore from the sale of spectrum. Idea Cellular gained over 2%, Reliance Communication gained around 1% and Bharti Airtel closed 0.5% higher. Metal stocks were under pressure in today's session. Hindalco declined over 3%, Sesa Sterliteended down over 4% and Tata Steel closed down 2%. Profit-taking in IT stocks led to Wipro losing around 1.8%, Infosys declining 0.7% and TCS losing 1.5%.
Governor Raghuram Rajan has asked his colleagues to ensure that the central bank is not seen as mere "paper tiger" and even rich and powerful wrong-doers are not spared.
Shaktikanta Das said in Washington, DC, that there was nothing sacrosanct about the 25 bps rate cut and that monetary policy could be well served by calibrating the size of the policy rate to the dynamics of the situation, and the size of the change itself could convey the stance of policy.
The most important institutions have been and are being undermined with almost no resistance, warns Aakar Patel.
The Centre on Tuesday permitted 20 states to raise Rs 68,825 crore through open market borrowings to bridge the GST revenue shortfall.
DFS writes to departments that haven't responded to RBI's request for information.
The Indian Post Payments Bank will be a boon to Indians who live in rural areas. India has 154,000 post offices, of which 139,000 are rural.
Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das tells Anup Roy, Raghu Mohan and Niraj Bhatt that it is time for banks to lower interest rates and start lending to cash-starved finance companies after due credit appraisal and proper risk assessment.
The telecom regulator on Friday released a list of 40 "defaulter" principal entities, including large banks like HDFC Bank, SBI and ICICI Bank, that are not fulfilling the regulatory norms on bulk commercial messages despite repeated reminders. Hardening its stance on the issue, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) warned that defaulting entities should comply with the stipulated requirements by March 31, 2021 "to avoid any disruption in the communication with customers" from April 1, 2021. "As sufficient opportunity has been given to principal entities/ telemarketers to comply with the regulatory requirements and that the consumers cannot be deprived of the benefits of the regulatory provisions any further, therefore it has been decided that from April 1, 2021, any message failing in the scrubbing process due to non-compliance of regulatory requirements will be rejected" by the system, TRAI said in a statement.
Electronics major has tied up with Reliance Comm and Tata Tele.
Two key depts in ministry cold to rationale for one; postal dept says it's more eligible than IDFC or Bandhan, feels 'strong lobby' scuttling its plans.
This, said Sitharaman, would remove the possibility of unauthorised communication "and consequent harassment", which was a cause of concern for bankers.