Food and grocery delivery major Zomato has pulled the plug on its plan to enter the lending business. Zomato Financial Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zomato, has withdrawn its application for a non-banking financial company (NBFC) licence with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), stating that the company does not have plans to pursue lending in the future. "There is no material impact on the revenue/operations of the company and this disclosure is being made voluntarily," the Gurgaon-based company said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday.
MSIL, which currently has a subscription service that allows customers to lease its petrol-run and strong hybrid vehicles on a flexible, long-term basis without ownership commitments, will introduce a leasing service as well.
Several banks and housing finance companies have come under the scanner of the competition watchdog for imposing penalty on pre-payment of loans.
Banks submitted bids amounting to Rs 4.75 trillion, around 2.5 times of the notified amount of Rs 1.75 trillion, at the Variable Rate Reverse Repo (VRR) auction conducted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on December 22, a day after the liquidity deficit in the banking system widened to Rs 2.5 trillion. In the most recent VRR auction held by the RBI on December 15, bids totaling 2.7 times the notified amount were received. Banks secured Rs 1 trillion at a weighted average rate of 6.63 per cent.
The country's current account deficit widened marginally to $9.7 billion or 1.1 per cent of GDP in April-June 2024, as against $8.9 billion or 1 per cent in the year-ago period, Reserve Bank of India said on Monday. The crucial number representing the country's external sector strength has come on the heels of a surplus of $4.6 billion or 0.5 per cent of GDP recorded in the preceding January-March quarter. The Reserve Bank attributed the year-on-year widening in current account deficit to a rise in merchandise trade gap which was recorded at $65.1 billion in Q1 FY25 as compared to $56.7 billion in the year-ago period.
'Credit card debt comes with high interest cost and stringent penalties.' 'If you do not repay on time, the costs balloon.'
Dubious and personal expenses of Rs 1,000 crore were made from bank-loan funds for Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal and his family members even as the airline "diverted" money to some tax havens, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) alleged on Saturday, after arresting the businessman in a money-laundering case. Goyal (74) was taken into custody late on Friday night after the central probe agency took him to its Mumbai office from Delhi. A special court set up to deal with cases lodged under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Saturday sent him to the ED's custody for 10 days, till September 11.
Vodafone m-pesa was one of the 11 firms that was given payments bank licence by the Reserve Bank of India in 2015.
India is expected to be the top recipient of remittances in 2023 as inflows increase 12.4 per cent to $125 billion, said a World Bank report on Tuesday. Mexico will come next by receiving $67 billion and China will follow it at $50 billion. The key drivers for remittance growth in 2023 are a tight labour market in the United States, high employment growth in Europe reflecting extensive leveraging of worker retention programs, and a dampening of inflation in high-income countries. India's growth in remittances is expected to halve to 12.4 per cent in 2023 from a historic peak of 24.4 per cent in 2022.
The branch managers have come out of their glass cabins and the sellers' market has transformed into a buyers' market, but there is no end to the harassment of customers, asserts Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The banks are not ready to open accounts of the beneficiaries through the IT-enabled financial inclusion programme, which is running on a pilot basis in various districts of the state. "The panchayat staff do not co-operate with our business correspondents. They do not come forward to endorse the identity of the beneficiaries. How can we open accounts," asked an official from State Bank of Indore.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is working on a new payment system for the secondary market, which could prevent brokers from accessing their client funds. It will be on the lines of the Application Supported by Blocked Amount (ASBA) process used for subscribing to initial public offerings (IPOs), where funds move out of an investor's bank account only after the trade is confirmed. Sebi chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch on Wednesday said that despite the challenges, the new system would be ready in a few months.
Ask rediffGURU and PF and MF expert Janak Patel your mutual fund and personal finance-related questions.
The Centre is unlikely to announce an agreement over payment mechanism with Russia until a ceasefire is declared in the Ukraine war, said people in the know. An inter-ministerial group headed by the finance ministry has been meeting regularly for over a month to analyse and discuss payment mechanisms that can work under the current circumstances and ensure the trade between India and Russia is not disrupted. The US had recently said that there would be consequences for countries actively attempting to "circumvent or backfill" American sanctions against Russia.
HDFC Bank has reshuffled the portfolios of its senior management team. This is the first major rejig after the amalgamation of HDFC Ltd on July 1. "The runway for our growth is large. This change is being done to bring in a very sharp focus on leveraging what we have built and for enhanced execution," said Sashidhar Jagdishan, managing director and chief executive of HDFC Bank, explaining the reason for this overhaul.
Capital markets regulator Sebi on Wednesday streamlined the payment of processing fee through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system for shares applied for and allotted during an initial public offering (IPO). In addition, the regulator has devised a new reporting format for capturing the data of all ASBA (Application Supported by Block Amount) applications unblocked by Self Certified Syndicate Banks (SCSBs) and their corresponding date of actual unblock. The new format has been put in place after reviewing the performance of SCSBs on timely unblocking of application amounts and feedback received from market intermediaries, Sebi said in a circular.
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.
Tokenisation is the process of replacing debit and credit card numbers with a set of characters or tokens.
There was such a rush that more counters were opened outside the GPO building, under the open sky, he added.
Bisht used the fake profiles to connect with women aged between 18 and 30 years on various onlione dating platforms.
As part of its efforts to strengthen customer protection, Reserve Bank is considering setting up a fraud registry to create a database of fraudulent websites, phones and various modus operandi used for digital fraud. Such a database will help prevent these fraudsters from repeating the fraud as the websites or phone numbers would be blacklisted, RBI executive director Anil Kumar Sharma said on Monday. "There is no definite timeline for setting up of the fraud registry.
The bank has over 1.15 crore registered mobile banking customers.
The most common complaint of financial consumers is cumbersome processes, complicated products, usurious charges, and mis-selling of products, which finally don't deliver what is promised or as expect, notes Debashis Basu.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday launched e-RUPI, a person and purpose specific digital payment solution that is aimed at improving transparency and targeted delivery of benefits. Over the years, several programmes have been launched to ensure that the benefits reach its intended beneficiaries in a targeted and leakproof manner, with limited touch points between the government and the beneficiary. The concept of electronic voucher takes forward this vision of good governance. To begin with e-RUPI facility is available for health services and will be expanded to other segments.
The service will be available through its 1,000-plus ATMs spread across the country. The bank has received an approval from the Central Board of Direct Taxes for this facility in the country.
A merchant using the bank's merchant App, QR code, PoS or Payment gateways, across all segments, including electronics, apparel, grocery, stand to win assured cashback and prizes on volume build-up, EMI or digital transactions.
The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has granted an interim stay on a Sebi order that slapped a penalty of Rs 2 crore on Yes Bank's former MD Rana Kapoor in a case of mis-selling the private sector lender's AT1 bonds. Kapoor has been in jail since March 2020 in connection with the DHFL money laundering case. The interim relief came after capital markets regulator Sebi in July issued a demand notice to Kapoor, warning arrest and attachment of his assets over non-payment of the fine of Rs 2 crore, along with the interest.
Hyundai Motor India Limited's (HMIL's) record Rs 27,870 crore initial public offering (IPO) may not have set the primary market alight with sky-high subscription levels, but it has spelled a windfall for the five investment banks steering the share sale. The Indian arm of the South Korean carmaker paid Rs 493 crore - 1.77 per cent of the issue size - in fees and commissions to the book running lead managers (BRLMs), marking the largest-ever payout for an IPO in the country.
By acting now, you can step into 2025 with your finances in order and without unnecessary penalties.
The stocks are largely from sectors such as chemicals, finance and cement, which struggled earlier but the worse seems to be behind them.
The average cost of data breaches in India reached $2.18 million in 2023, marking a 28 per cent increase since 2020, according to the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) Currency and Finance report for 2023-24. The report said that India's average data breach cost was still below the global average. The most common attacks in India are phishing which was at 22 per cent and stolen or compromised credentials was 16 per cent. The automotive industry is highly vulnerable to cyber attacks, whereas the banking and financial services sector, benefiting from stringent regulations, enjoys comparatively stronger protection.
Payment aggregators should have a minimum net worth of Rs 100 crore and if they don't manage to arrange that money within one year of putting out final guidelines, they should stop doing their business, says central bank's draft paper.
The average time lag between the date of occurrence of a fraud and its detection is 23 months; for large frauds (Rs 100 crore and above), it was 57 months.
Competition watchdog CCI has asked about two dozen banks and housing finance companies, including HDFC, ICICI Bank, and LICHF, to explain their imposing penalty on borrowers for pre-payment of home loans. The Competition Commission of India, according to official sources, has sent notices to major home loan players after examining a report of Director General (Investigations) which found evidences against banks for misusing their dominant position.
The police received over 500 complaints alleging that many social media influencers and YouTubers promoted the HIBOX mobile application on their pages and lured people into investing through the app, the officer said.
'How can one expect fair elections in such a situation when funds to the tune of Rs 270 crore have been freezed or taken away by the Income Tax authorities from Congress party's accounts'
In addition to interest rates, review the fine print for penalties and repayment terms, and select a reputable lender to avoid harsh recovery practices.
The Centre may overshoot the Rs 56,260 crore target for dividend receipts from central public-sector enterprises (CPSEs) set for FY25 and is likely to end up getting around Rs 65,000 crore this financial year, according to a senior government official. This excludes dividend from nationalised banks and financial institutions. As on October 21, the Centre collected Rs 28,913 crore as dividend and other investment from CPSEs, accounting for over 50 per cent of the Budget Estimate for FY25.
While both institutions provide financial assistance, there are significant differences between them in terms of offerings, eligibility criteria, interest rates, and other crucial factors.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said directions have been issued in the wake of a rise in the number of cheque-related fraud cases.
