'There is more expansion in the industry happening in retail lines, so we will continue to focus on those lines.'
'Looking at the speed at which changes were made post the Franklin Templeton issue, we are awaiting more stricter norms in the months to come.'
Mauritius-based IndusInd International Holdings and other Hinduja group entities are expected to make payments worth Rs 9,661 crore for the acquisition of bankrupt Reliance Capital (RCap) only after getting all the legal and regulatory clearances, including from the Supreme Court, thus delaying the closure of the transaction. A source close to the development said that according to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) order dated February 27, the payment for the acquisition was to be made within 90 days from the NCLT's approval of the resolution plan and after receiving all legal and regulatory clearances.
"We will raise Rs 300 crore via bonds of two-, three- and five-year tenures. This will be our maiden bond issuance and is part of our effort to widen funding sources," says Vimal Bhandari, executive vice-chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), Arka Fincap. The firm, a subsidiary of Kirloskar Oil, is only five years old and small (assets of around Rs 5,000 crore with an "AA" rating), but the response to this float will be closely watched: It would be the first by a non-banking finance company (NBFC) after Mint Road upped the risk weights on bank exposures to them by 25 percentage points. The move by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has caught NBFCs off guard even though the issue had been flagged by Governor Shaktikanta Das with their corner-room occupants (and that of banks) in July and August 2023 - on consumer credit and the dependency on bank borrowings.
Payouts to key management personnel in non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) are under the banking regulator's scrutiny. Top industry officials said this is a follow-through on the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) circular of April 29, 2022, which asked NBFCs in the "middle" and "upper" layer of its four-tiered scale-based regulatory (SBR) framework to put in place a board-approved compensation policy.
The regulatory gap between crypto firms registered with the Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-India) and unregistered offshore entities is expected to narrow, industry players said, after global crypto players Binance and KuCoin received approvals to register with India's anti-money laundering unit.
Insurance companies may soon face goods and services tax (GST) audits as tax authorities plan a "deep dive" into their business practices to check for the possibility of a raft of tax-linked irregularities. Several insurance companies are being probed for wrongly availing of the input tax credit without the underlying supply of goods and services based on fake invoices generated by their channel partners and intermediaries. "We want to deep dive into the overall business and see if there are further taxation issues besides commissions, which are already being investigated," a senior official of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs said.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has proposed sweeping changes to the rights issue framework to enhance its attractiveness, aiming to make it the preferred route for additional fundraising by listed companies. Among the changes proposed by the market regulator are reducing the timeline to first 20 days and then to just three days, allowing shareholders to renounce their rights entitlement to investors of their choice, and eliminating the requirement to appoint an investment banker or file a draft letter of offer.
India Inc is staring at significantly higher compliance and governance costs, following the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) latest tightening of disclosure norms and regulations around the filling of key positions, the materiality of information, and third-party transfers. Recently, the securities market regulator amended the Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements (LODR) to introduce a raft of changes that will affect how listed companies go about transparency and disclosures. The new framework will further empower public shareholders and soon move towards a 'comply or be penalised regime or comply or explain' in the case of high-value debt-listed entities.
Passenger and commercial vehicle prices are expected to rise as automobile companies invest in upgrading vehicles to meet stricter emission norms that kick in from April next year. The Indian automobile industry is currently working to make their products meet the second phase of Bharat Stage VI, equivalent to Euro-VI emission norms, in real time driving conditions. Four-wheeler passenger and commercial vehicles will need more sophisticated equipment to be added to meet the next level of emission standards.
Move to increase 90-day window to 120 days to give more time to borrowers to service loans.
The insurance regulator's move to prod insurance companies to sell health products to all age groups, including those above 65, is aimed at increasing penetration though there would be challenges on pricing due to higher risk perception, experts said. While there was no regulatory cap on age for health insurance policies, most companies had an internal policy which did not allow them to sell health insurance products to persons over 65.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday reviewed the performance of public sector banks (PSBs) on various financial health parameters and their resilience in the wake of the current global financial scenario emanating from the failure of some international banks in the US and Europe.
Import alert on Ranbaxy's Mohali unit; Strides' injectible arm gets warning letter
Leaving it to Parliament the issue of amending laws to provide heavier penalty on banks indulging in such acts, RBI Governor D Subbarao also dismissed perceptions that the central bank was going soft on errant banks.
One97 Communications Ltd (OCL), the parent firm of fintech major Paytm, has denied reports about any investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) into the company, its associates, and its founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Vijay Shekhar Sharma. The company, in an exchange filing on Sunday, said it had cooperated with the authorities when users or merchants on its platform were subject to enquiries in the past. "We would like to set the record straight and deny any involvement in anti-money laundering activities.
On November 12, 2021, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decided to ring in uniformity in asset classification and income recognition across all lending institutions. Shadow banks, or non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), like commercial banks, are to test non-performing assets (NPAs) on a daily basis and upgrade them to "standard assets" only when interest and principal arrears are settled by borrowers. This is going to create all manner of headaches for shadow banks and their clientele. Says Y S Chakravarti, managing director and chief executive officer (CEO), Shriram City Union Finance: "NPA levels will go up, especially of small borrowers.
Some of the fintechs that will get impacted include Cred, Paytm, Phonepe and Amazon Pay, among others.
Telecom regulator TRAI on Tuesday suspended the newly-implemented norms for commercial text messages for one week, following major disruptions in SMS and OTP deliveries for banking, payment, and other transactions.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the government would infuse Rs 20,000 crore into public sector banks (PSBs) in 2021-22, to meet the regulatory norms. For the current financial year also, the government had made a provision of Rs 20,000 crore for recapitalisation.
Of the eight RBI governors who have held office since the 1991 economic liberalisation, Bimal Jalan had the longest stint and S Venkitaramanan, the shortest. Current Governor Shaktikanta Das will overtake Bimal Jalan before completing his second term in December, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The Reserve Bank on Wednesday imposed business restrictions on Edelweiss Group's lending and asset reconstruction arms on concerns over evergreening of loans. The central bank has asked ECL Finance Ltd (ECL) to cease and desist from undertaking any structured transactions in respect of its wholesale exposures, other than repayment and/or closure of accounts, an official statement said.
Sixteen merchant banks are in the fray to act as book running lead managers (BRLM) for the initial public offering of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC). These merchant banks will have to make a presentation before the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) on August 24-25. The shortlisted banks are BNP Paribas, Citigroup Global Markets India, BofA Securities, Goldman Sachs (India) Securities, HSBC Securities and Capital Markets(India), J.P. Morgan India, Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India), Axis Capital, DAM Capital Advisors, HDFC Bank, ICICI Securities, IIFL Securities, JM Financial, Kotak Mahindra Capital, SBI Capital Market, and Yes Securities India.
Cracking down on repeated non-compliance of IT norms, the RBI on Wednesday barred Kotak Mahindra Bank from onboarding new customers through its online and mobile banking channels and issuing fresh credit cards with immediate effect after the regulator found "serious deficiencies" in the lender's IT risk management. These actions, the RBI said, are necessitated based on significant concerns arising out of Reserve Bank's IT examination of the bank for the years 2022 and 2023 and the continued failure on part of the bank to address these concerns in a comprehensive and timely manner.
Such private universities are empowered to award general degree programmes without the specific approval of the UGC, the official said.
The board also approved a proposal to tighten the rules for participatory notes through imposition of a regulatory fee on issuers of such instruments.
Oracle will reduce its current 80.3 per cent ownership stake in OFSS, a provider of IT products to the financial services industry globally, to 75 per cent in order to meet regulatory requirements adopted in India in June 2010, the company said in a statement.
Only a fifth of foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) in breach of the market regulator-specified thresholds may need to provide enhanced disclosure on ultimate beneficiaries, thanks to exemptions being provided, according to people in the know. The ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) disclosures, for FPIs with over 50 per cent holding in a single corporate group or over Rs 25,000 crore exposure to Indian assets, will be required from February 1. But, depending on their category, FPIs will have 10-30 working days to submit these granular details.
Sebi on Monday barred total 85 entities, including Sunrise Asian Ltd, from the capital markets for up to one year for manipulating the company's share price. In its order, the regulator restrained Sunrise Asian and its then five directors from the capital markets for one year and the 79 connected entities for six months. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had conducted an investigation in the scrip of Sunrise Asian for the period from October 16, 2012 to September 30, 2015, based on a reference received from the Principal Director of Income Tax (Investigation), Kolkata.
Listed housing finance companies (HFCs), as a group, posted a 3.7 per cent drop in second-quarter (Q2) profit year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 5,830 crore and 19 per cent sequentially on rise in interest expenses and uptick in provisions and write-offs. Operating income rose 13.7 per cent YoY to Rs 54,086 crore in Q2 of 2022-23 (FY23). Sequentially, income was up 62.3 per cent, from Rs 33,331 crore in the first quarter (Q1) of 2021-22 (FY22).
The year 2013 saw the Reserve Bank of India nudge banks to not only improve customer services and reduce bad loans but also look at plugging loopholes in the regulatory system ahead of the entry of new banks.
Nikkei 225 index hit the 40,000 mark for the first time ever on Monday, continuing its bull-run that saw the index reclaim its 1989 peak of 34,000 levels in February. as global investors latched on to Japan's biggest companies on improving shareholder returns, the weaker yen and booming corporate profits. Analysts remain bullish on Japan, mostly aided by gains in technology shares. Adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a note by Morgan Stanley, is likely to benefit Japanese companies, which is almost at par with the US-based companies.
With farm Acts out of the picture, the government may look at reforming the input side of the agriculture sector - regulations and rules that govern seeds, fertilisers and plant chemicals. Sources said such a blueprint, which is aimed at making the life of farmers easier, with quicker approvals but not compromising on quality, is in the works as part of the 100-day agenda of Modi 3.0. Also, ways to administer fertiliser subsidy more effectively and cutting down on leakages and diversions to build on the success of neem-coated urea are being thought of.
The high-level panel, chaired by former Chief Justice of Karnataka and Kerala High Courts, K Sodhi, had focused on reviewing the Sebi (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 1992.
Health insurance policy-holders will be able to avail a discount on the premium payable if there were no claims made in the previous year, according to the circular released by the regulator.
Going by the RBI directive and the overall narrative, Paytm may have lost the rigour of stress tests, audits and compliance.
Purchase health insurance at an early age, before you incur a disease, as this makes access to health insurance difficult and raises the premium significantly.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is mulling doing away with the priority distribution (PD) model in Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) and introducing in the regulation pro-rata rights (based on the ratio of their commitments) for investors. AIFs are pooled investment vehicles but certain schemes have been observed to be following a differential distribution model where one class of investors, often a junior class, share loss more than the ratio of their contributions in comparison to the senior class of investors. As the senior class of investors have priority in distribution over the junior class of investors, the profit distribution is done first to these investors while they are compensated for loss out of the residual capital of junior class investors.
Trai suggested steps to ease regulatory norms for mergers and said that there should be no cap on the number of mobile operators in India.
Piramal Enterprises on Friday claimed that its bid for resolution of debt-ridden mortgage lender DHFL is highest and fully compliant with regulatory norms. Since the conclusion of the fifth and final round of the bidding process last month, Piramal Enterprises and the US-based Oaktree Capital are claiming that their bids are the highest and fully implementable. According to sources, suitors have submitted bids in the range of Rs 35,000-37,000 crore.
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