A British court on Monday granted a bankruptcy order against Vijay Mallya, paving the way for a consortium of Indian banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI) to pursue a worldwide freezing order to seek repayment of debt owed by the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines. "As at 15.42 [UK time], I shall adjudicate Dr Mallya bankrupt," Chief Insolvencies and Companies Court (ICC) Judge Michael Briggs said in his ruling during a virtual hearing of the Chancery Division of the high court. "I have to decide if there is a real prospect of payment of petition debt in full within a reasonable period of time... there is insufficient evidence that [Mallya's asset realisations in India] will pay the debt in full within a reasonable period of time," Judge Briggs noted, in reference to defence arguments pointing to a restoration process in India following a Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court order for the attachment of Mallya's assets.
Companies owned by fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi have allegedly siphoned off over Rs 6,344.96 crore from the Punjab National Bank (PNB) using fraudulent letters of undertaking and foreign letters of credit, a CBI investigation into the scam has detected. The findings were submitted by the CBI in a supplementary chargesheet filed before a special court in Mumbai last week, where the agency said the PNB was conned by its employees who were allegedly hand in gloves with Choksi and his company executives and who facilitated the scam as part of a criminal conspiracy. The PNB officials at the bank's Brady House branch in Mumbai issued 165 letters of undertaking (LoUs) and 58 foreign letters of credit (FLCs) during March-April 2017, against which 311 bills were discounted.
The annual earnings of a non-executive chairman of a PSB is capped at Rs 10 lakh, inclusive of fees for attending board meetings. This is way below the compensation of the chairman of any private bank, reveals Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
A consortium of Indian banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI) on Tuesday moved a step closer in their attempt to recover debt from loans paid out to Vijay Mallya's now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines after the high court in London upheld an application to amend their bankruptcy petition, in favour of waiving their security over the embattled businessman's assets in India. Chief Insolvencies and Companies Court (ICC) Judge Michael Briggs handed down his judgment in favour of the banks to declare there is no public policy that prevents a waiver of security rights, as argued by Mallya's lawyers. At a virtual hearing, July 26 was set as the date for final arguments for and against granting a bankruptcy order against the 65-year-old Mallya after the banks accused him of trying to "kick matters into the long grass" and called on the "bankruptcy petition to be brought to its inevitable end".
SBI is the third state-run lender to lower the lending rates after Indian Overseas Bank Tuesday and Bank of Maharashtra which also lowered their loan prices by 5 bps on loan tenors of one year and above, effective April 10.
The PAC, headed by Congress lawmaker K V Thomas, is keen to find out the details of huge loans given by the banks to corporates including the basis on which such favours were extended.
While a DFI will help banks derisk their loan portfolios, creation of a bad bank will clean up their balance sheets.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Rs 30,600 crore government guarantee for the bad bank has changed the body language of bankers for the better, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya on Friday made an urgent application before the UK High Court seeking access to millions of pounds to cover his living expenses and legal fees from funds held with the Court Funds Office as part of bankruptcy proceedings, initiated by a consortium of Indian banks led by the State Bank of India. Deputy Insolvency and Companies Court Judge Robert Schaffer declined to allow a draw down from the court-held funds of an estimated amount of around 1.5 million pounds, accrued from the sale of Mallya's French luxury property Le Grand Jardin earlier this year, until further arguments in the case. However, he did allow the release of 240,000 pounds plus VAT to cover the legal costs of a substantive hearing in the bankruptcy proceedings scheduled for next Friday.
A day after large banks such as Punjab National Bank and IDBI Bank increased base rates, state-run lenders Indian Overseas Bank and Indian Bank followed.
For state-run lenders, the average NPAs shot up to 14.5 per cent, with IDBI Bank, UCO Bank and Indian Overseas Bank having their NPAs at above 25 per cent.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
If the earnings in the first quarter of the current financial year are an indication, most banks, particularly those majority-owned by the government, have fared well, reveals Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
In the biggest consolidation exercise in the banking space, the government on Friday announced four major mergers of public sector banks, bringing down their total number to 12 from 27 in 2017, a move aimed at making state-owned lenders global sized banks.
Of the total, the financial creditors - banks, bond holders and other financial institutions - have claimed Rs 86,892 crore.
Most banks led by the State Bank, have or are going to declare DHFL account as NPA in the third quarter.
Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram said in the Lok Sabha the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India have taken up corrective measures in the IPO scam.
The United Kingdom's home department has cleared the extradition of fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi, who is wanted in an over Rs 13,000-crore bank fraud case, officials said on Friday.
The government has already announced infusion of Rs 10,086 crore in Bank of India, Rs 5,500 crore in Oriental Bank of Commerce and Rs 2,159 in United Bank of India.
Out of these seven PSBs, Bank of India is likely to get the highest amount of Rs 10,086 crore, followed by Oriental Bank of Commerce, which might get Rs 5,500 crore through recapitalisation bonds
Not all public sector banks are back in the black, but their collective net profit for the year is Rs 32,346 crore against a Rs 9,013 crore loss in the previous year, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The fine was imposed in the exercise of powers vested in the RBI under the provisions of Section 47 A (1) (b) of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949.
Are you repenting not covering valuables you purchased using credit card? Fret not!
The CBI has initiated the action on the complaint of Bank of Baroda, which was a member of consortium led by Bank of India, which had approached the agency fearing that Kothari may flee the country like Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi.
After removing three PSBs - BoI, Mahabank and OBC from the framework, RBI, on Tuesday, took out three commercial banks - Allahabad, Corporation and Dhanlaxmi from the said list.
'We will infuse the next tranche of recapitalisation by mid-December. Close to Rs 42,000 crore remain to be infused as capital in public sector banks in the current financial year,' a senior finance ministry official said.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
Low admissions, loan-funded capital expenditure pull down creditworthiness of many, with banks wary of lending.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned Rajkot-based bullion trader Pankaj Lodhiya, whose name figured in the list of black money holders submitted by the government to the Supreme Court, to probe if he was involved in hawala trade.
As a young management trainee with SAIL, Pallav Mohapatra was spoilt for choice. He had offers from Allahabad Bank, Bank of Baroda, Indian Bank, Indian Overseas Bank and State Bank of India. He chose SBI only because the bank offered him a posting in Lucknow.
Corporation Bank is the biggest beneficiary of this round of capital infusion with Rs 9,086 crore of funding, followed by Allahabad Bank with Rs 6,896 crore.
Banks and builders are offering lower rates and freebies, but there is also a case for price correction in the future. Wait, if you are not desperate.
The bank's branch expansion and recruitment have been curtailed.
Apart from them, Chidambaram's wife -- Nalini -- has been chargesheeted by the CBI in the Saradha chit-fund scam for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 1.4 crore.
Army XI made a stunning comeback in the second-half, pumping in four goals, to hold Air India 4-4 and keep their semi-final hopes alive in the 117th Beighton Cup hockey tournament in Kolkata on Wednesday.
Most lenders to the airline have already classified the account as an NPA.
Traditionally, most PSUs have been cash-rich, which added to their value. However, the government has been tapping regularly into their cash resources to boost revenue for the exchequer