Foreign banks set the template in consumer banking in its infancy, but have almost vacated this booming space.
Experts say the new guideline is likely to hurt foreign players more, especially card companies such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express who process and store credit card transaction data outside of India.
Paytm will look to raise up to $1.5 billion as part of primary share sale, leading up to its initial public offering (IPO), which is planned for November, a person familiar with the developments said. The company is looking to file its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) by July, according to sources. According to this person, though the details of the listing are being worked out, Paytm may take the qualified institutional buyer (QIB) route to list and issue fresh equity to raise funds.
'The fiscal pressure will be there, but the intent of the government behind this move is to spur demand and growth.'
The government plans to bring down its stake to 26 per cent in these two banks, which are yet to be identified. This may not come in the way of getting investors for these banks, provided the government is willing to step back rather than run them the way it had been doing for over five decades since these banks were nationalised, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Even if the Paytm fiasco does not mark the end of the bull run, at least some sanity will return to the wild IPO market, observes Debashis Basu.
Dubai-based billionaire BR Shetty has sued Bank of Baroda (BoB) and audit firm Ernst & Young (EY) in a New York court, accusing them of ignoring fictitious and fraudulent transactions that resulted in NMC Healthcare going bankrupt. Shetty is seeking $8 billion in damages in the suit that also names the top management of NMC Healthcare, and Netherlands-based Credit Europe Bank. A top NMC Healthcare official confirmed the development to Business Standard and said despite several meetings, senior BoB officials in India did not take remedial steps for fear of getting involved in an international ponzi scheme perpetrated by then senior management officials.
A slew of Indian firms, including Flipkart, Byju's and Zomato, is building a path to profitability and diversifying into newer business segments ahead of mega-IPO plans.
Barring stray references such as the 'dual control' of banks and shifting the goalposts during demonetisation, he is not in a fault-finding mode with the government, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'During the course of these two years, as new people have joined, we have no mental picture to associate with them and hence, have little connection with them.'
There seems to be no dearth of funds to fuel this growth, report Peerzada Abrar and Shivani Shinde.
'Those who come from outside are surprised at the relatively small strength of the RBI supervisory cadre, relative to the needs of the country and the needs of the financial sector.'
While mobile wallets are still busy exploring the multiple facets of interoperability, experts believe that bringing in new customers would be costly affair and the numbers of new wallet users might not see a major hike anytime soon.
Changes in lifestyle due to aspects like lockdowns and work from home has created additional demand for items such as television sets, laptops, Wi-Fi routers and even vacuum cleaners, which the bank is funding at present.
The race to get a New Umbrella Entity (NUE) licence for digital payments may get crowded. As many as six consortiums are said to be in the fray to apply for an NUE licence, which would create a for-profit National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)-like body for retail payments. A consortium led by Financial Software and Systems (FSS), a leading provider of payment products and payment processor, is in talks and may file an application to the RBI for an NUE license, said sources aware of the development. The other constituents of this group include Indian Bank, Central Bank of India, India Post Payments Bank, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), and a few small finance banks.
Ajit Balakrishnan on understanding the anti-cash chorus.
Ajit Balakrishnan offers a New Year resolution for our policy-makers.
Or, what will the Indian policy process allow it to be, says Ajit Balakrishnan.
The government is in no mood to buy the privacy and security argument pitched by WhatsApp, whereas the American firm says traceability will undermine end-to-end encryption and the private nature of the app, creating potential for serious abuse.
Becoming a unicorn is surely a marker for a company in its growth story, but it's not a major achievement nor is it a turning point of any significant worth.
Lenders now use your phone data, utility bill payment records and other non-traditional parameters to determine if you are creditworthy.
'A lot of first-time users who have entered the markets after Covid are increasingly investing in mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and stocks for their long-term goals.'
E-KYCs and Aadhaar authentication are of crucial importance to the fin-tech companies as the recent RBI instructions require strict KYCs for these players to function in the market.
For now, the concerns over bad loans have taken a back seat; a bigger challenge for the banking community is credit growth, explains Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund, which has closed six debt schemes, has said the winding-up process will be delayed in the absence of authorisation from investors and further steps will be possible only after seeking fresh approval from them. It further said that investors who do not have an e-mail ID or mobile number registered with the fund house will not be able to participate in the voting process. The date on which the voting would start has not been disclosed yet.
Banking is first about trust and integrity and then about technology and the rest.
Why settle for $400-500 million when you can make a billion or even more? That, in a nutshell, is why Krishna Kumar, 43, and Kashyap Dalal, 40, co-founders of Bengaluru-based edtech firm Simplilearn, one of the big players in the segment, sold a 51 per cent stake to Blackstone instead of selling 100 per cent as close competitor and rival Great Learning chose to do.
During a three-hour long virtual meeting with CEOs of large public and private sector banks along with heads of NBFCs, the prime minister assured them that the government is ready to take all steps to support the financial sector.
As many as 3.2 lakh shareholders attended the meeting on the newly-minted JioMeet platform from 550 cities in 48 countries.
Bansal has picked up a majority stake in Chaitanya Rural Intermediation Development Services, a company which runs microfinance institution Chaitanya India Fin Credit.
Investment banking star and Moelis India Chief Executive Officer Manisha Girotra remembers a colleague who wanted to resign because she needed to attend to her parents' health issues in a different state. Rather than quit a promising career, she was given the flexibility of working from home on Fridays, which was unusual in the pre-pandemic days. This allowed her to take care of her parents' visits to the doctor and other health-related needs without quitting her job. She would be back in the city office on Mondays.
'Banking is a business of trust.'
Before taking such loans, compare the interest rates charged by various players, advises Sanjay Kumar Singh.
If banks won't lend, seek a loan from fintech lenders or P2P platforms to help you get out of a debt trap.
There is some hope for these companies, with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley saying there was a need for legislative backing for private companies that were using Aadhaar. Adding that a careful reading of the judgment is required, Jaitley said this could be "temporary".
A user just needs to download any app floated by such fraudsters and apply for instant loans. These apps are mainly concentrated on Google Play considering the reach and popularity of Android systems.
According to experts, this will have major impact on new investments by Chinese players in companies, such as Paytm, Ola, BigBasket, Byju's, Dream11, MakeMyTrip, and Swiggy, when they go for follow-up funding. Chinese investors, such as Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi, are active in the Indian start-up space, and have collectively invested billions of dollars.
In a bid to gain a bigger share of the customer's wallet, banks are ramping up their cross-selling initiatives.
India-Maldives ties came under strain under Yameen who was perceived to be close to China.
Vodafone m-pesa was one of the 11 firms that was given payments bank licence by the Reserve Bank of India in 2015.
