The government on Monday accepted the recommendation of the A K Khandelwal committee and the Indian Banks Association has agreed to a common recruitment programme for public sector banks that would be conducted by the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection.
The RBI's recent moves to calculate interest rate on a daily basis and increase the interest rate on savings accounts to 4 per cent is already hurting the banks, he said, adding that the IBA recently wrote to the RBI about its reservations on the subject.
Lenders send 'SOS' to the finance ministry on the tardy decision making and pile-up of cases at the Debt Recovery Tribunals and its appellate forum the Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunal.
Last month, Competition Commission of India, apex body that operates to sustain and promote competition, sent notices to atleast 15 banks, non-banking financial companies and Indian Banks' Association seeking explanation on why they penalise borrowers who choose to foreclose loans.
Micro-finance institutions (MFIs) are planning to take legal action against YES Bank's move to recall a part of its loans to them.
The RBI has been tightening key benchmark rates since November last year as the country started recovering from the impact of the global economic slowdown.
At 3.5 per cent per annum, interest on savings accounts is the only regulated rate in the banking system currently and a highly contentious one given its impact on the common man.
As against an allocated Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion), subscription by retail investors stood at Rs 4,500 crore (Rs 45 billion), while an additional subscription of nearly Rs 4,000 crore (Rs 40 billion) came from other investors, including high net-worth individuals.
Unlike the new private sector lenders, BoR employees' wages are still governed by the industry wage package negotiated by the Indian Banks Association with bank staff unions.
Banks in India will need about $100 billion (Rs 5 lakh crore) of capital over the next decade as the system grows to meet credit requirements of an expanding economy, Om Prakash Bhatt, chairman of the State Bank of India said.
In a note to customers, the country's largest lender State Bank of India said, 'Interest shall continue to accrue on the outstanding portion of the term Loan during the moratorium period'. The accrued interest will be collected by the lender in the form of additional EMIs from those borrowers who opt for the three-month moratorium.
Government suspects that many of these bank accounts were used to launder money, especially after the demonetisation in November 2016.
Key changes are expected in vehicle repossession norms to ease the process for banks to take back cars and two-wheelers from owners that default on loan repayments.
Faced with a rising number of customer complaints on excessive charges, the Reserve Bank of India has asked the Indian Banks' Association to come up with guidelines on what the reasonable charges should be.
The apex bank is scheduled to announce the quarterly review of its annual monetary policy on January 29, when it is widely expected to hike the cash reserve ratio or the percentage of amount banks park with the RBI to absorb excess money from the system.
The RBI's projection for WPI inflation for this fiscal is 5.5 per cent.
Banks and staff unions had settled on a 17.5 per cent salary hike, to benefit about 702,000 public sector employees, besides agreeing to make 332,000 serving and retired employees eligible for pension.
Between April and August, it issued request seeking LoC against 147 individuals to prevent them from leaving the country, the bank said in response to a Right to Information query filed by Pune-based activist Vihar Durve.
Banks have urged the Reserve Bank of India to allow time till July to implement the proposed base-rate model, which was introduced by the apex bank early this month to bring in transparency in the lending.
This is not a new or unknown problem, but every time it crops up, our policy-makers have tried to wish it away. In the present circumstances too, the government has stopgap arrangements. It is borrowing from the World Bank (that's window-dressing fiscal deficit), says Ajit Ranade.
The Reserve Bank working group, constituted to revisit benchmark prime lending rate (BPLR), is likely to recommend two types of PLRs and may put a ceiling on banks' sub-PLR lending, a source said.
Bank employees will get a lumpsum that should be used to meet financial goals.
To implement the cap, banks will need to make various technological changes in the machines and that will take quite some time.
Thousands of public sector bank employees across the country now have reason to rejoice.
Infosys chief mentor, N R Narayana Murthy is likely to become the non-executive chairman of the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) being set up to handle the retail payment operations of the Reserve Bank of India.
Senior citizens are exempted and they can go to any bank branch to exchange notes tomorrow
When AS-15 became operative in 2006, the initial estimate for additional pension provisioning was estimated at Rs 6,000 crore. However, the latest wage revision may bring in an additional 275,000 bank employees who opted for PF. Banks may also provide for the pension liabilities of 65,000 employees who have retired but have been seeking resort to the defined pension scheme since 1996. This will require additional provisioning of Rs 6,000 crore.
The decision was taken by bank unions at a meeting with IBA representatives, on the directive of chief labour commissioner, in Mumbai. UFBU is the umbrella body of bank unions in the country and consists of members from public, private and foreign banks.
Officials said the IBA had three major agendas to discuss, the most important being to persuade the unions to accept the new pension scheme, otherwise known as the contributory pension scheme, for new bank employees. Currently, the bank unions are vehemently opposing it since unions of no other sector has accepted it to date.
Under the 'educational loan scheme' of Indian Bank's Association, "the government is considering providing interest subsidy on the loans taken by students belonging to non-creamy layer to ensure that nobody is denied professional education," minister of state for human resource development D Purandeswari said in a written reply. Her reply came in response to apprehensions raised in the House about the exorbitant fees being charged by private institutes.
This meeting assumes importance pursuant to the fiscal stimulus package announced last Sunday mentioning package for housing loans below Rs 20 lakhs (Rs 2 million). The government had earlier said that public sector banks would soon announce a package for borrowers of home loans up to Rs 500,000 and between Rs 500,000 and Rs 20 lakhs (Rs 2 million).
The bank chiefs have also cancelled the customary media conference after the bi-annual policies.
The free run at automated teller machines might end soon, with banks petitioning the Reserve Bank of India to put curbs on cash withdrawals at third-party ATMs. Representatives from the Indian Banks Association, who met central bank officials late last month to make a case, said RBI had accepted most of their suggestions and these are likely to come into effect soon.
Soon, there will be an exchange-like platform for trading in loans.
The United Forum of Bank Employees Unions (UFBEU) representing about 9.5 lakh (950,000) bank employees across the country, has given a two-day nation-wide bank strike call on August 6 and 7 in support of their expedite settlement of wage revision demands.
The Supreme Court stayed the National Consumer Commission's order, which had capped the interest rate chargeable on credit card holders at 30 per cent. The verdict will allow banks to levy any interest rate they consider applicable to card holders. In their appeal, the banks said they were following the guidelines of the RBI, which was the only authority to regulate the fixing of the interest. The commission had no jurisdiction to pass an order directly to the banks.
C H Venkatachalam, convener, United Forum of Bank Unions, the umbrella body of the nine unions, said due to the failure of Thursday's talk between Indian Banks Association and UFBU before the chief labour commissioner, they have decided to go ahead with the strike. IBA is yet to resolve issues regarding wage revision and the pension option.
The apex bank has sent a communication in this regard to Indian Banks' Association and this is expected to be implemented shortly, IBA chairman K Ramakrishnan told PTI. Since April 1, RBI had declared third party ATM usage, including cash withdrawals and account enquiries, free for all customers and said that banks can charge Rs 18-20 per month from other banks in case of third party ATM transaction.
Besides wage revision and compassionate appointment, the UFBU is also demanding provision of one more option for pension.
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