Credit card spending has hit a record high of Rs 1.4 lakh crore in May, the latest data from Reserver Bank of India showed. The total spending or outstanding dues on credit cards, which remained rang-bound throughout the year in the previous fiscal, have been rising by 5 per cent month on month this year. Similarly, the number of cards in use has also jumped by more than 5 million since January and crossed 87.4 million in the reporting month, making this also an all-time high in May, according to the RBI data.
The Reserve Bank of India's recent decision that require banks and non-bank financial institutions to allocate more capital against unsecured consumer credit will constrain loan growth in the segment, according to a report. This should also reduce the potential for the rising appetite for such lending to weaken financial system stability, a report by Fitch Ratings said on Thursday. "We generally view the tightening as a credit-positive effort by authorities to control emergent systemic risks posed by consumer credit, which has increased rapidly in recent years off a relatively low base," it said.
People are availing far more of certain kinds of unsecured loans than was the case before the pandemic. Bank lending for buying consumer durables and funding of credit cards and other personal loans have risen by Rs 6.9 trillion between August 2019 and August 2023, shows a Business Standard analysis of data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). These loans are typically unsecured, which means they are provided without collateral.
Bajaj Finance, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finserv, IndusInd Bank, Infosys, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Wipro, and Reliance Industries were among the other laggards. On the other hand, Larsen & Toubro, Hindustan Unilever, Power Grid, Asian Paints, Nestle and Mahindra & Mahindra were the major gainers.
India's economic growth prospects should remain strong over the medium term, with GDP expanding 6-7.1 per cent annually in fiscal years 2024-2026, S&P Global Ratings said on Thursday. In a report titled 'Global Banks Country-By-Country Outlook 2024', S&P said the banking sector's weak loans will decline to 3-3.5 per cent of gross advances by March 31, 2025, on the back of structural improvement, including healthy corporate balance sheets, tighter underwriting standards and improved risk-management practices. Interest rates in India are unlikely to rise materially, and this should limit the risk for the banking industry, it added.
Sandeep Raut has been asked to depose before the central agency at its office in Mumbai next week, they said, adding his statement will be recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
rediffGURU and financial planning expert Colonel Sanjeev Govila (retd) answers your personal finance-related questions.
At the heart of Paytm's slide lies the abject failure of its Super App strategy, notes Indrajit Gupta.
Opt for balloon schemes if you are capable of paying a large instalment upfront
The second quarter results of banks show that net profits for the industry increased 57 per cent annually. The private sector banks recorded a 64 per cent rise in profits, whereas the net profits of public sector banks jumped 50 per cent in this period. A significant portion of this increase can be attributed to the rise in credit costs and a decline in non-performing assets (NPAs).
Sources close to the development told Business Standard the company was exploring different ways to save on its employee costs and had laid off a few employees on "performance" grounds. "We will see a similar development for the next few months. "The company is fine-tuning its hiring policies and implement rigourous measures to look into employee performance," a source said.
Ahead of its annual credit policy, the RBI also said the government's inability to raise oil prices in line with increase in the international prices poses a 'significant medium-term risk' to the economy.
In August, the Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das held a meeting with chief executive officers/ managing directors (CEOs/ MDs) of large non-banking financial corporations (NBFCs). The discussions included diversifying borrowing sources for NBFCs and housing finance companies (HFCs) to contain increasing reliance on bank borrowing, risks associated with high credit growth in retail segment in unsecured loans, prioritising IT upgrades and cyber-security, improving provisioning, monitoring of stressed exposures and slippages, ensuring robust liquidity and asset-liability management, ensuring transparency in pricing, creating robust grievance redress mechanisms.
The relatives have lodged a complaint with the police alleging that the instant loan app's depraved tactics to recover a loan borrowed by the family is likely to have led to them taking the extreme step.
The spike in food prices at the onset of the monsoon season has corroborated the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) view that the fight against inflation is far from over, the State of the Economy report of the central bank said. At the same time, the report said that the country is poised to become the fastest-growing major economy in the world, notwithstanding some sequential moderation in economic activity in June. Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation rate increased to 4.8 per cent in June 2023, from 4.3 per cent in May, primarily on account of an increase in food inflation.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has given HDFC Bank six months to migrate HDFC's home loan customers to external benchmark linked lending rate (EBLR), top sources in the bank told Business Standard. Almost half of HDFC's 5.4 million customers are home loan customers. It is mandatory for banks to link retail loans and loans to micro, medium and small enterprises to an external benchmark. Non-banking financial companies do not have such a mandate.
Prashant A Bhonsle explains the tax benefits you can avail under Section 80E of the Income Tax Act.
Consumer durables retailers and manufacturers may end up bearing the cost of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) tightening on easy personal loans, as their margins are expected to be impacted by higher borrowing costs. During the recently passed festival season, consumer durables companies started offering longer tenure loans, zero down payments, and zero interest on a wider assortment of products than ever before, making the products more affordable. While 18- and 24-month easy monthly instalment (EMI) options were available earlier, companies offered them only on select products; now, they are being extended to a larger section of products.
The Indian economy is likely to post better than anticipated growth in the second quarter (July-September) owing to robust urban consumption and expansion in services, a Business Standard analysis of high-frequency indicators showed. While gross domestic product growth in the September quarter is expected to come below the 7.8 per cent print in the June quarter due to a favourable base fading, analysts say the print will be much closer to 7 per cent than the 6.5 per cent anticipated earlier. While the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had estimated 6.5 per cent growth for July-September, last month Governor Shaktikanta Das said the growth figure would surprise on the upside.
'As long as economic growth remains steady, creating jobs and generating stable incomes, the rise in home loans should not create problems.' 'If the growth trajectory changes course over the medium term and interest rates rise along with inflation, the expanding trend in home loans may not sustain.'
'The market has picked up for commercial vehicles. We are very close to pre-pandemic levels.'
Even if no statistical jugglery is afoot, only to warn that the 'noise' in the numbers should be eliminated in order to hear the underlying music, without distortion, warns T N Ninan.
The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) latest order on unsecured loans is set to hit the banking sector's growth in the near-term, cautioned analysts, as they see banks slowing down on aggressive retail lending. Besides, cost of funds for non-banking finance companies (NBFC) is expected to inch up as banks will pass on higher capital charge to NBFCs. "We believe the fallout of the RBI action will be mainly on growth, given the rising dependence on unsecured retail loans and lending to NBFCs for growth.
The interest payable on personal loan as well as the princiapl repaid will be eligible for a deduction.
'Use this money to build an emergency fund if you do not have one.'
'We are focused on playing on our strengths, which are technology, and building a large profitable business by working with banks as well as non-banks and NBFCs for loans.'
For the time being, digital lending remains a grey area, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The K-shaped economic recovery in India from the pandemic slowdown shows in corporate results as well. The automobile sector, which represents big-ticket consumption, continues to do well and has increased its share in corporate revenues and profits while fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies that sell low-ticket consumer goods are struggling with poor sales and earnings growth. The share of the automobile sector, including makers of auto ancillaries, in corporate net sales rose to a 10-quarter high of 10.05 per cent during July-September 2023 (Q2FY24) from 8.94 per cent a year earlier and 9.75 per cent in Q1FY24.
The Reserve Bank is planning to extend wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) for transactions for interbank borrowing or call money market, sources said on Tuesday. The pilot in the wholesale segment, known as the Digital Rupee -Wholesale (e-W), was launched on November 1, 2022, with the use case being limited to the settlement of secondary market transactions in government securities. "RBI is now planning to go into the interbank borrowing market.
The pace of lending to the infrastructure sector, including power and roads, fell sharply to 1.8 per cent year-on-year (YoY) in May, 2023 compared to 9.8 per cent in May, 2022. Within the segment, the growth in loans to the power sector was at 0.3 per cent YoY in May 2023, down from 9.3 per cent in May 2022. The RBI data showed that outstanding credit to power sector stood at Rs 6.17 trillion in May.
While managing rising EMIs can be challenging, the right strategy can help individuals can ease their financial burden, says rediffGURU and financial planning expert, Colonel Sanjeev Govila (retd).
The Reserve Bank India's (RBI's) decision to ban the onboarding of new accounts on the "bob World" mobile digital platform led to a selloff in the Bank of Baroda (BoB) stock. The stock of the public sector bank dropped by around 3 per cent. The central bank cited "material supervisory concerns"; news reports claimed mobile numbers were randomly linked to accounts to purportedly inflate registrations on bob World.
Poor earnings show in the September quarter (Q2FY24), with hints of likely weakness in asset quality going ahead, forced analysts to cut earnings estimates of SBI Cards and Payment Services (SBI Card). On the bourses, shares of the State bank of India arm tumbled 7.4 per cent to Rs 732 apiece on the BSE in the intraday trade as investors factord in near-term concerns. Analysts at Motilal Oswal Financial Services, for instance, slashed SBI Card earnings by 8 per cent and 10 per cent for FY24 and FY25, respectively, as they expect the company to face pesistent magin pressure.
Every defaulter is not a wilful defaulter who has the capability of paying back and is yet not servicing the bank loan, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Despite gold prices hitting record highs, analysts aren't gung-ho about the outlook for gold financiers Muthoot Finance and Manappuram Finance. This, they said, was due to intense competition from banks, coupled with stagnating loan books and likely pressure on margins.
The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday said it has frozen assets worth Rs 143 crore of prominent Kerala-based NBFC Manappuram Finance Ltd's MD and CEO V P Nandakumar after it conducted raids as part of a money laundering investigation. A total of six premises in Thrissur, where the company is headquartered, were covered during the searches that were launched on Wednesday. The case pertains to allegations of money laundering through "illegal" collection of deposits from the public, the agency said in a statement.
WhatsApp's advantage is that it is the first app millions of Indian check first thing in the morning and innumerable times during the day and night.
Your bank shocks you by revising the interest rate on the home loan you had availed of a couple of years ago. And obviously you don't know what to do. Here's help.
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