India needs foreign exchange buffer reserves to insulate itself from exchange rate volatility as we have "no friends" for swap lines and Japan was the only country that helped during the taper tantrum in 2013, former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said on Tuesday. Participating in a virtual event organised by economic think tank NCAER, Rajan said during the taper tantrum in 2013, India asked for swap lines, and only country who helped was Japan. "We need this (foreign exchange) reserve buffer to insulate ourselves because we have no friends.
The officer and staff unions of the State Bank of India, the country's largest commercial bank, are working on a joint strategy to oppose the government's decision to acquire the Reserve Bank of India's 59.73 per cent stake in the bank
Issues related to the proposed free trade agreement (FTA) and bilateral investment treaty between India and the UK are expected to figure during the three-day visit of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to London from April 8-10, official sources said. The minister will attend a host of meetings, including the India-United Kingdom Economic and Financial Dialogue, in London.
The December meeting of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will start on Wednesday even as there is no clarity on whether Governor Shaktikanta Das, the chair of the panel, will continue in office after his term ends next week. The outcome of the meeting will be announced on Friday by Das at 10 in the morning.
Real estate developers are hoping that the slew of tax concessions announced in Union Budget 2025, set to take effect this financial year, will spur demand for affordable and mid-segment housing, even as the broader housing market shows signs of fatigue.
The association also wondered how the brand value of Kingfisher was considered as a collateral while sanctioning a loan, and alleged that even when RBI knew that this was a "deliberate default", no action was taken by the banks.
At the PMO, policies are framed by factoring in analytical perspectives, implications, sustainability, and other dimensions.
What stood out in his 15-year journey as a member of the political executive at the Centre was his glowing record as India's most successful and effective finance minister. Both as prime minister and finance minister, he understood the importance of gradualism, except when the economy or the polity was in a crisis.
Balance-level delinquencies in the credit card segment saw a 17 basis points (bps) year-on-year (Y-o-Y) rise in the quarter ending June 2024 (Q1FY25). In all other credit segments, including personal loans, delinquencies declined even as retail credit growth moderated, consequent to banks tightening the supply of credit to the unsecured segments, a report by TransUnion CIBIL said on Monday. Data shows that balance-level delinquencies, measured in terms of 90 days or more past due, in the credit card segment stood at 1.8 per cent in Q1FY25- highest among all other credit segments.
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).
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.
Shah alleged that Congress was "hell-bent on snatching reservations from OBCs, tribals and Dalits and "planned to give it to minorities".
Reserve Bank of India on Thursday said a centralised portal would be ready in three to four months wherein depositors and beneficiaries can access details of unclaimed deposits across various banks. As of February this year, about Rs 35,000 crore of unclaimed deposits were transferred to RBI by public sector banks in respect of deposits which were not operated for 10 years or more. "In order to improve and widen the access of depositors/beneficiaries to such data, RBI has decided to develop a web portal to enable search across multiple banks for possible unclaimed deposits based on user inputs," RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said while announcing the first bi-monthly monetary policy for the current financial year.
Amid a debate on the basis of a monetary policy stance, one may be curious enough to know how non-food retail inflation has behaved over the years in India. Let the eager souls catch a glimpse of facts. In the past 10 years, non-food inflation came down below 4 per cent on two occasions - pre-Covid period of 2019-20 and now in the first four months of the current financial year (FY25).
In the Union Budget for Financial Year 2023-24 (FY24), Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had held forth on the need for better governance and investor protection in the banking sector. She had proposed certain amendments to the Reserve Bank of India Act (RBI Act), 1934; the Banking Regulation Act (BR Act), 1949; and the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970.
Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday pitched for formulating a policy for using the Reserve Bank of India's rising foreign exchange reserves for funding road projects, saying the country needs low cost finance for such infrastructure projects. Addressing a virtual event organised by industry body CII, Gadkari further said that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) should also have a financial arm like the power ministry's Power Finance Corporation (PFC). "We have a surplus of dollar reserves in the country. I have decided to talk with the RBI Governor, about how we can formulate a policy by which we can use this foreign exchange reserves for development of infrastructure in the country," he said.
"The Reserve Bank of India... has levied an aggregate penalty of Rs 10 million (Rs 1 crore) on the bank for non-compliance of regulatory directions observed during assessment of implementation of SWIFT-related operational controls," Yes Bank said in a regulatory filing.
From the outcome of the general elections and then Union Budget to tepid corporate earnings in the September 2024 quarter (Q2-FY25), sticky inflation and Reserve Bank of India's stance on interest rates, extreme weather conditions, Indian stock markets have braved it all in calendar year 2024.
Partha Pratim Sengupta, who will be taking charge as the MD & CEO of Bandhan Bank in early November, has his task cut out. The Kolkata-based lender, which converted itself from a microfinance institution to a universal bank, is in its 10th year of operation. The bank was able to cut down the share of the micro loan book over these years.
The government does not seem keen on issuing fresh gold bonds given the overall cost and rising gold prices.
The government on Wednesday said that all urban cooperative banks and multi-state cooperative banks will come under the supervision of the Reserve Bank of India, a development aimed at providing comfort to depositors and prevent repeat of PMC Bank like scams. The President of India will promulgate an ordinance to this effect, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters after the meeting of the Union Cabinet.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge were among the top leaders who paid homage to former prime minister Manmohan Singh at his home in New Delhi on Friday.
The birth anniversary of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, whose political influence has surged with the passage of time, on Monday was marked by bitter trading of charges between the ruling BJP and opposition parties as they fought for his legacy.
The introduction of tax deducted at source (TDS) on income from central government securities and state bonds may not lead to a significant effect on retail participation, according to market participants. The Union Budget proposed that starting October 1, 2024, investors may face a 10 per cent TDS on investments in central government securities and state development loans (SDLs). "Last Budget, TDS on interest on securities was reintroduced.
AIBEA has decided to write to the government and RBI against infusing money into Jet Airways. State-owned banks, including SBI and PNB, are the main lenders to Jet.
'Das is friendly, but he finally does what he does. The quality of engagement is very good.'
Currently, banks are closed every second and fourth Saturday of a month. Why shouldn't they be shut every Saturday? When most customers carry their banks in their pocket (the app on the mobile phone), there is no need to keep banks open on Saturdays, argues Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'Retail investors, who had not seen such a massive correction in the SMID universe since COVID-19, are witnessing something like this for the first time. Panic profit booking may continue.'
It was a protest which held a mirror to the government of a state taking pride in its commitment to democracy, gender equality and social indices.One person, who in his employed days had known governments and political parties at close quarters, told me that public perception of how the Kerala government handled the ASHA workers' strike had been terrible, reports Shyam G Menon.
Of the eight RBI governors who have held office since the 1991 economic liberalisation, Bimal Jalan had the longest stint and S Venkitaramanan, the shortest. Current Governor Shaktikanta Das will overtake Bimal Jalan before completing his second term in December, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Tells RBI this is not the time to consider such a foray, especially given the lack of funds to spare for such a venture.
Feature for feature, bank FDs are indeed better than debt funds today, mainly thanks to Ms Sitharaman, notes Debashis Basu.
As banks' chase for customers to collect cheap deposits is not fructifying, they are forced to offer inflation-beating real interest rates on fixed deposits now, and state-run banks led by Punjab & Sind Bank tops the chart offering 8-8.50 per cent per annum deposit rate. Banks are forced to offer inflation-beating deposit rates for a tenor ranging from 200 to 800 days as credit growth has been far outpacing deposit mobilization throughout this fiscal, leading to a funding crunch.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has identified "climate shocks" as a risk to food inflation rates and overall price rise while stating that the outlook for the country's economic growth remains bright. In its Annual Report for 2023-24, released on Thursday, the central bank said easing supply-chain pressures, broad-based softening in core inflation, and early indications of an above-normal southwest monsoon meant well for the inflation outlook in 2024-25. "The increasing incidence of climate shocks, however, imparts considerable uncertainty to the food inflation and overall inflation outlook," said the RBI while noting headline inflation moderated by 1.3 percentage points on an annual average basis to 5.4 per cent in 2023-24.
The rally in PSBs, analysts feel, was more a knee-jerk reaction to the development, and the actual benefits will start to accrue once the addition takes place in 2024. "The actual benefit for banks from the inclusion in JP Morgan's EM Index will accrue from June 2024 onwards. "Until then, the larger fundamentals of the market will dictate the moves. "Once the initial euphoria subsides, bond markets will look to global cues which may trigger fresh selling," said Siddharth Khemka, head of retail research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.
The Budget should undertake further reductions in import tariffs and seriously consider an announcement of India's intention to join one or both of the two Asian mega-regional free trade agreements, suggests Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved amendment to the DICGC Act to provide account holders access to up to Rs 5 lakh funds within 90 days of a bank coming under moratorium to ensure timely support to depositors. Last year, the government raised insurance cover on deposit five-folds to Rs 5 lakh to provide support to depositors of ailing lenders like Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank. Following the collapse of PMC Bank, Yes Bank and Lakshmi Vilas Bank too came under stress, leading to restructuring by the regulator and the government.
Structural reforms, pro-people programmes and employment opportunities helped the economy get new vigour, the finance minister said. After contracting by 5.8 per cent in 2020-21, the economy recorded a growth of 9.1 per cent in 2021-22.
The Reserve Bank on Wednesday allowed inbound travellers from G20 nations arriving at select airports to use the popular UPI for making payments in the country. Later, the RBI also proposes to extend the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) facility to travellers from all countries. UPI is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application, merging several banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood.
The government on Tuesday announced a host of measures to tame inflation, which had soared to a five-month high of 6.01 per cent in May.