Industry experts said that while the surge in UPI-based micro-transactions could help India achieve its stated objective of transforming into a cashless economy, banks would be nervously monitoring the rising volumes of low-ticket fund transfers.
In a public notice, the bank said AC Muthiah and Farouk Irani, promoter director of First Leasing Company of India, defaulted on Rs 508.40 crore plus other expenses as on August 27.
The move comes at a time when regulators across the board are easing compliance processes during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic to minimize physical contact in line with the new hygiene and social protocols.
"Our marketing initiatives helped us grow individual first-year premium by 2.8% end July compared to -11.5% for private insurers. We hope to grow to pre-Covid level by Q3 end and close the fiscal with strong growth," said M R Kumar, Chairman, LIC.
Central Board of Direct Taxes has also directed banks to refund charges since January 1, 2020, collected on transactions carried out using electronic modes including UPI by businesses having turnover of over Rs 50 crore.
Private banks such as ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HDFC Bank have recently started charging customers on UPI transactions beyond a prescribed limit for free transactions.
The Reserve Bank in its latest annual report revealed that bank frauds, both in terms of numbers and volume, have gone up substantially during 2019-20.
The private sector lender has initiated the process to categorise Goyal and his wife Anitia as `wilful defaulters’. A ‘wilful defaulter’ tag by banks may stain the reputation of persons and restrict their ability to borrow and hold board positions in companies.
The Centre on Thursday had placed before the GST Council two options for borrowing by states to meet the shortfall in Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenues, pegged at Rs 2.35 lakh crore in the current fiscal.
The total banking sector outstanding Jan Dhan deposits jumped to Rs 1.31 lakh crore at the end of August 19 from Rs 1.20 crore at the beginning of the fiscal. This reflects higher farm income following a good Rabi harvest as well as a fall in discretionary spending amid Coronavirus pandemic, senior bankers tracking the rural economy said.
The three-year term of current SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar will come to an end on October 7. He, however, is expected to get another year's extension in light of the Covid 19 situation.
SBI has won these awards in three categories viz. Best Learning Program supporting a Change Transformation Business Strategy, Best Use of Blended Learning and Best Unique or Innovative Learning and Development Program, it said.
At stake is the future of a time-tested investment instrument that generation after generation of Indians used to keep their money in and generate fairly decent returns over time.
The Jan Dhan Yojana, which was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day address in 2014, was launched on August 28, in the same year. Total deposit balances under PMJDY Accounts was at Rs 1.31 lakh crore and average deposit per account stood at Rs 3,239.
According to data released by the government, consumer inflation — that is year-on-year growth in consumer price index — was close to 7% in July, with food inflation being higher at 9.6% due to supply disruptions during the pandemic.
The RBI’s opposition to ARCs becoming resolution applicants (RA) could scuttle not just the Aircel plan but that of others such as Reliance Communications (RCom) as well. This would hurt state-run banks such as SBI, since they are the biggest lenders to companies that ARCs are looking to acquire in insolvency cases.
Speaking at the 'Unlock BFSI 2.0' event organised by Business Standard newspaper, he said there will be some requests for restructuring from the personal loan segment and "we are readying ourselves for dealing with the volumes as far as the P-segment (personal loan segment) is concerned".
As per an estimate by PNB, the market value of the property was Rs 603 but since it was a distressed sale, they reduced the value by 25% in the first auction itself.
The comments come on the back of steadily slowing credit offtake, leading many to wonder if banks have become too risk-averse because of their concerns over asset quality in a pandemic-stricken economy. According to the RBI's annual report released earlier this week, frauds doubled to Rs 1.85 lakh crore in FY20.
“More than 15 lakh lives have already been covered under these two products within a month. That shows what is the demand and it is important that we cater to this demand,” Khuntia said.
There are four candidates in consideration for the top job, including current chairman, Rajnish Kumar, whose term expires in October, according to reports. The agenda also included the review of 14 applications received for the post of managing director and CEO of IFCI and the review of eligible candidates for the position of executive director in multiple public sector banks (PSBs).
Das said there is a scope for banks to improve their ability to avert frauds from happening and added that their risk frameworks should be able to “smell vulnerabilities”
This comes after the RBI rejected UV Asset Reconstruction Company’s resolution proposal for bankrupt Aircel on the grounds that ARCs cannot infuse equity in an insolvent company at the resolution stage, people close to the central bank told ET.
The framework for the NUE was released by the Reserve Bank of India last week, with the central bank also opening the window for applications. Entities receiving approval can set up a payments company for owning and operating a pan-India digital payments network, exercising the same powers as NPCI.
We are in a long haul before the economy recovers to pre-Covid levels partly driven by the fact that consumption patterns have been debilitated in many ways, said Amitabh Chaudhry while replying to a question
Since 2013-14, the RBI has been paying 99 per cent of its disposable income to the government, which is battling to rein in deficits. In August 2019, RBI's central board gave its nod for transferring to the government a sum of Rs 1,76,051 crore comprising Rs 1,23,414 crore of surplus for 2018-19 and Rs 52,637 crore of excess provisions.
Gains in market share, cornering more out of client wallets and ramping up digital technologies are the main areas the bank will focus on, he said on a call with investors arranged by US based investment bank Jefferies earlier this week.
Chief Digital Officer Sudhakar Ramasubramanian asserted that IndusInd Bank has been ahead of the curve vis-a-vis its peers in terms of technological innovation and has been able to invest in customer relationship management (CRM) even during the COVID-19 times.
In June quarter of 2020-21, Max Bupa registered a strong 40 per cent retail growth, which was driven by a significant increase in purchase of indemnity plans during the current times and due to the fact that Max Bupa is able to sell and serve the customers end-to-end digitally.
“If this extension is not permitted, all GML contracts would be crystalized and, thus, converted to the higher interest bearing Working Capital Limits, which attract an interest rate of 12-14% per annum (Interest on GML is 3-4%),” said Surendra Mehta, national secretary of IBJA.
The RBI took control of PMC last September after it was accused of fraud and concealing non-performing loans. PMC's top officials and the owners of a realty company that received the bulk of the loans were arrested. The withdrawal cap has left many of PMC's over 9,00,000 depositors in deep difficulty.
The firm has earmarked USD 1 million in FY 20-21 to provide Corona insurance under the ‘Corona Kavach’ programme, and other Covid care/welfare benefits for India employees.
The current mode of biometric authentication used for vetting credentials in the AePS system — fingerprint scanning — is not in line with distancing norms. It requires bank account holders to press fingertips to scanners at micro-ATM points multiple times.
It can be noted that earlier this month, the Reserve Bank had allowed for loan recasts to happen on a case to case basis across all sections of borrowers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and constituted a committee headed by K V Kamath to look into cases of over Rs 1,500 crore of exposure to determine if they can be recast.
For instance, Muthoot Finance has tied up with Kotak Mahindra General Insurance Company to provide complimentary Covid-19 insurance cover to its gold loan customers. The non-banking lender is offering a higher per gram lending rate for gold loan, along with complimentary Covid-19 cover up to Rs 1 lakh, to its Muthoot Super Loan scheme customers.
This was catalysed by the mandated linking of the interest rates on new loans to certain sectors such as personal and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME), effective October 2019, to an external benchmark, the Reserve Bank said in its annual report.
Banks' risk aversion is impeding the flow of credit to the productive sectors and undermining the role of banks as the principal financial intermediaries in the economy.
According to industry association CII, with which the minister had a closed-door meeting, she also said that domestic revenue generation is a concern as sectors like tourism, real estate, hospitality, and airlines have been affected "disproportionately" by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lender, India's fourth largest by assets, is using pictures taken from space and analysed by a third-party firm, for farm loans in 500 northern Indian villages, with plans to take the technology to 63,000 villages, it said on Tuesday.
The lender, India's fourth largest by assets, is using pictures taken from space and analysed by a third-party firm, for farm loans in 500 northern Indian villages, with plans to take the technology to 63,000 villages, it said on Tuesday.
Arulselvan D said that while NPAs had increased in March, they decresed in June. He said that it stood at 3.8% in March which is not so different from what it was in December (pre-Covid-19) at 3.5%. Now, he said the level was 3.3%.
According to a report published by Ashish Das of IIT Bombay, banks are interpreting the UPI law to suit them to conclude that, while 'payments' are free, transfers can be charged. The report highlights this as an anomaly as such an interpretation would mean different things for different types of transactions.
Private sector lenders such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank have responded by raising over Rs 50,000 crore among them, but their public sector rivals are seen to be slow to enter the market, despite abundant liquidity in the system due to stimulus packages announced by governments across the world.
Prior to this, Bhatia was the managing director and CEO of SBI Funds Management. Before joining SBI Funds Management, he was working as chief general manager, corporate centre in SBI, where he was responsible for revamping the credit structure and processes of the bank.
The product- Structured Finance and Partial Guarantee Programme to NBFC-MFIs -entails providing partial guarantee on pooled loans extended to small and mid-sized micro finance institutions (MFIs), a release said.
“The moratorium should not be extended because moratoriums are given only when the situation is uncertain and one cannot ascertain the impact,”said MD and CEO Mallikarjuna Rao, adding that green shoots were already visible in the economy. Rao expected a broader revival, encompassing more sectors of the economy, to be more effective from October onward.
The bank has shareholders' approval for raising Rs 14,000 crore, comprising Rs 7,000 crore of the equity alone, from the market to meet COVID-related impact and finance growth, Punjab National Bank (PNB) Managing Director S S Mallikarjuna Rao said in a virtual interaction with reporters.
Part of the bank’s strategy to scale up was to implement digital banking 2.0, where the company would build on the capability of its existing digital platforms and also collaborate with them for customer acquisition. He said in future the bank’s customer will be able to use the lender’s ecosystem for everything.
Even as banks’ provisioning for bad loans tapered in the June quarter following the moratoriums, those on account of Covid-19 surged as compared to the previous quarter ending March.