The government on Friday came out with Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2023 which seeks to boost the country's exports to $2 trillion by 2030 by shifting from incentives to remission and entitlement based regime. Unlike the practice of announcing 5-year FTP, the latest policy has no end date and will be updated as and when needed, said Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) Santosh Sarangi while briefing media about FTP 2023. Earlier, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal unveiled FTP 2023 which will come into effect from April 1, 2023.
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.
'It's important that every portfolio is well diversified.' 'My own portfolio is diversified across asset classes: 50% is in equity funds, 15% in international schemes, 25% in debt funds and 10% in sovereign gold bonds.'
"We will raise Rs 300 crore via bonds of two-, three- and five-year tenures. This will be our maiden bond issuance and is part of our effort to widen funding sources," says Vimal Bhandari, executive vice-chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), Arka Fincap. The firm, a subsidiary of Kirloskar Oil, is only five years old and small (assets of around Rs 5,000 crore with an "AA" rating), but the response to this float will be closely watched: It would be the first by a non-banking finance company (NBFC) after Mint Road upped the risk weights on bank exposures to them by 25 percentage points. The move by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has caught NBFCs off guard even though the issue had been flagged by Governor Shaktikanta Das with their corner-room occupants (and that of banks) in July and August 2023 - on consumer credit and the dependency on bank borrowings.
Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said he expected exports to reach $200 billion in the financial year ending March 2011.
Friday will be a landmark day for domestic markets, with all the listed stocks entering the professed T+1 (trading plus one day) settlement cycle. About 200 stocks, which account for more than 80 per cent of India's market capitalisation, will be settled on a next-day basis, with effect from January 27. This will evidently complete the transition to the T+1 cycle that started in February 2022 with the bottom 500 stocks in terms of market value.
It appears that the focus of commerce minister Anand Sharma, when he unveils the new foreign trade policy, will be to eliminate unnecessary paperwork and thereby help reduce transaction costs for exporters, while retaining the basic framework of the present FTP.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced new rules for credit cards, applicable from July 1. "These directions cover the general and conduct regulations relating to credit, debit and co-branded cards which shall be read along with prudential, payment and technology & cyber security related directions applicable to credit, debit and co-branded cards, as issued by the Reserve Bank," the circular by RBI said. Business Standard culled out key rules from the list, and asked financial experts for advice on them, along with the thumb rules one needs to follow while using credit cards.
The federal agency said it conducted raids against a director of Zanmai Lab Pvt Ltd, which owns WazirX, on August 3 in Hyderabad and alleged he was "non-cooperative". The agency's probe against the crypto exchange is linked to its ongoing investigation against a number of Chinese loan apps (mobile applications) working in India.
After a plethora of mergers and acquisitions, domestic firms are finding the European island a suitable place to set up subsidiaries to carry out global buyouts.
India's mutual fund (MF) industry had barely any retail footprint when it completed 50 years in 2013. MFs had Rs 7 trillion in assets under management (AUM) in March 2013, of which around Rs 5 trillion was in institution-focused debt funds. By comparison, bank deposits in the country stood at Rs 67.5 trillion around the same time.
The Alibaba-backed company had introduced the fee on March 8 after it found multiple users using its platform to get free credit by using credit cards to top up their mobile wallets and then transferring the money back to their bank accounts at zero transaction cost.
It expects far-sighted organisations to be looking to open source to develop even more of an "edge" to increase their competitiveness and drive innovation in 2007.
The study says the entire supply chain of goods and services will suffer a massive liquidity shock.
To cut transaction costs for traders, the government has launched an online facility for issuing Importer-Exporter Code Number.
"It went up to 20-odd per cent in 2019 and to 25 per cent a year later. "That's when we decided to pull the plug; it was not sustainable for our business," says Chadha. Madison & Pike, instead, turned to Mumbai-based start-up Thrive, which provides third-party delivery services to restaurants at a much lower commission - three to five per cent.
The Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor Rakesh Mohan urged housing finance companies on Sunday to look at designing home loan repayment structures which would suit individuals with irregular income flows and in need of affordable houses.
The previous fiscal year proved to be quite a contrast in some ways. While the year started with the banning of a few commodity futures contracts from the national bourses, it ended with the allowing of FDI/FII investment in the commodities sector and the amendment of the archaic Forward Contracts Regulation Act. Proactive measures were also undertaken by the government to give autonomy to the Forward Markets Commission.
Mihir Tanna, Associate Director, S K Patodia & Associates, answers your tax queries.
The stage is set for the loading of cash into automated teller machines (ATMs) through the cassette-swap mode with an initial four-phased roll-out across 30 cities from June 1. The lockable cassette-swap will do away with the current practice of open-cash replenishment into ATMs. Cash-in-transit (CIT) firm personnel, tasked with loading cash into ATMs, will not have to touch it anymore. Cash-handling will be done by CITs at the cash centre, and the task of taking into account the amount of cash remaining from the last cassette-load will also be made simpler.
The Union government said Saturday that the new Exim Policy, aimed at boosting export competitiveness by reducing transaction costs and procedural simplifications, would be announced in July.
Higher discounts on crude oil offered by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to wean India away from Russian crude may soon see Indian refiners ramping up purchases from the Gulf nation, officials at multiple refiners said. They also pointed to the recent agreement on trade settlement in national currencies signed between India and the UAE as a reason for this. "While discussions are underway, the UAE has offered discounts on crude, which will be more than that of the current level of Russian discounts.
The National Restaurant Association of India has written an advisory to its members against Zomato Pay and Swiggy Diner discount programmes saying these are against the interest of restaurant owners. The advisory alleges that 'middlemen' Zomato and Swiggy are making money at the cost of restaurants, who sign up to be on the Zomato Pay and Swiggy Diner programmes by making them compulsorily offer discounts and also pay commission fee on every transaction on these platforms. "Zomato Pay and Swiggy Diner both operate broadly on the same construct -- no cost/subscription fee to the customer to participate; restaurants must compulsorily offer a discount in the range of 15-40 per cent to be part of the program," NRAI wrote to its members.
'India has the potential to do a lot more to take advantage of the time today where we stand to gain, geopolitically and in terms of market attractiveness.'
...current industry models will soon fade out, notes Ajit Balakrishnan.
Flipkart, the e-commerce company owned by Walmart, is intensifying its efforts to achieve profitability as it is eyeing a valuation of approximately $60 billion at the time of its initial public offering (IPO), now planned in 2025-2026, instead of this year, according to people familiar with the matter. The firm might consider listing in the US or any other geography, including India. The company, which counts the likes of Amazon and Reliance's JioMart among its competitors in India's burgeoning e-commerce market, had also contemplated launching an IPO in 2022-2023.
In the past, there have been instances of people getting fake e-mails in the name of RBI.
Besides the dairy business, the transaction also involves sale of 100 per cent shareholding in Sunfresh Agro Industries, a step-downsubsidiary of Prabhat, via a share purchase agreement, the company said.
The RBI refuses to classify a cryptocurrency as an asset since it doesn't have future cash flow and its value is always fluctuating because of speculation. There is also no consumer protection, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay, and hence the e-rupee trial run.
Six years after the rollout of the biggest indirect tax reform in India, Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue of Rs 1.5 lakh crore every month has become a new normal and tax officers are focusing on dealing with fraudsters who are adopting newer modus operandi to game the system, causing loss to the exchequer. To apprehend black sheep, who operate as syndicates and create fake entities on the basis of forged documents to claim input tax credit (ITC), tax officers have started using data analytics, artifical intelligence and machine learning aiming to curb evasion, which was over Rs 3 lakh crore since inception of GST. It was over Rs 1 lakh crore in 2022-23. Thinktank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said the most critical pending GST reform is upgradation of GST Network to prevent fake supplies and fraudulent claims of Input Tax Credit (ITC).
If a person has surplus cash for a short span of time like a week or a fortnight, Liquid Funds are good alternatives.
Shares of asset management companies (AMCs) have rallied in the last 3-4 sessions due to clarity on regulatory changes in total expense ratios (TER) and expectations that it won't upset profits much in the long run. HDFC AMC has gained over 12 per cent in the last four sessions, while Nippon AMC and UTI AMC are up around 5 per cent. Aditya Birla Sun Life (ABSL), the only other listed AMCs, has risen more than 2.3 per cent in the last four sessions.
While the fiscal year has just begun, any windfall surplus will be welcomed by the government as it bids to meet the fiscal deficit target of 5.9 per cent of GDP, amidst lack of clarity on exactly to what extent will recession in the West impact India's trade and tax collections.
India will soon meet Iraq and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to seek a definitive rate of discount on crude oil similar to what Russia has provided so far, sources said. Multiple officials and industry executives said Iraq, which is India's biggest oil supplier, wants to discuss the level of discounts expected by Indian refiners. India's focus on snapping up ever-increasing volumes of Russian crude oil has led to a corresponding decline in imports from the Middle East. Flows from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have suffered as a result.
'Similar to the case of the digital payment system where the government created a public platform and others joined in, we are exploring a similar structure to create a PPP platform where the compute required for AI could be accessed by the small player.'
'Individuals can consider dividing ownership of properties between related persons to ensure that the sale transactions are below the Rs 50 lakh limit and therefore not subject to TDS.'
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