Under the SHWAS (Sidbi assistance to Healthcare sector in War Against the Second wave of Covid) scheme, MSMEs engaged in manufacturing of oxygen cylinders, oxy-generators, oxygen concentrators, liquid oxygen or providing services in transportation, storage, refilling or supply of these items will be eligible for low-cost credit.
The pandemic led contraction in economic activity led to a sharp slowdown in credit demand Non-food bank credit growth rose by 4.9 per cent in March 2021, lowest in more than five decades as compared to 6.7 per cent in March 2020. Loans to large industries contracted by 0.8 per cent, while loans to micro and small enterprises rose by a mere 0.5 per cent.
Applications are invited from eligible candidates for appointment to the office of chairperson in Irdai, a notification issued by the Department of Financial Services said.
CEO Sumant Kathpalia said the bank continues to remain cautious despite an improvement in business sentiment, higher collection ratios and fee income which is back to pre Covid levels. "It is very difficult to give any forecast because of the uncertainties due to Covid. We have navigated well in a turbulent year. Our collections are healthy. The focus now is on how Covid plays out," Kathpalia said.
The lender said it will re-double its efforts on its business verticals that include Corporate Banking, Retail Banking, Private Banking, Government and Institutional Banking, Retail assets and Payments. In addition, the lender is increasing its focus on Commercial Banking (MSME vertical).
CEO Prashant Kumar said he expects the economy to recover faster this fiscal amidst the second wave of Covid led by faster vaccinations which will help Yes Bank also step up on lending. This even as fresh slippages of Rs 12,000 crore which were under wraps due to the Supreme Court (SC) ordered moratorium on NPAs forced the bank to provide more and slip to a loss after a reporting a profit in the quarter ended December 2020.
The company is in receipt of approval from the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India for the appointment of Balasubramanian, KLI said in a regulatory filing.
The move should check delay in discharging patients, which in turn would make hospital beds available to new patients at a time when a second wave of coronavirus has crippled healthcare system across the country.
He said once the limit of digital wallets increases and if the currency gets digitalised with a much more direct relationship between the currency issuer the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the people, the banks will formally get squeezed out of the payments space.
The service, christened 'merchant stack', is targeted at the over 2 crore retail merchants in the country to render banking services digitally, the second largest private sector lender said in a statement.
The deal is yet another attempt by the Sameer Gehlaut-led Indiabulls Group to shed capital-intensive assets as it moves to a new business model based on fees and trailing income.
It is to be noted that the Ministry of Corporate Affairs last week permitted makeshift hospitals and temporary COVID care facilities to be treated as an eligible Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activity.
The comments come at a time when localised lockdowns are being announced across many pockets of the country in view of the rising COVID infections, which are breaching the 3 lakh mark daily and also resulting in over 2,000 officially counted deaths.
Executive director Anup Bagchi said the bank is targeting income from "fee, credit and savings due to use of technology" by offering these services to these large and small establishments spread across the country.
In a letter to finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Sa-Dhan has suggested extension of the government's partial credit guarantee scheme for bank loans on micro lenders to the extent of Rs 10,000 crore with Rs 2,000 crore being earmarked for small and medium MFIs.
The appointment will be subject to the approval of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and shareholders of the bank, the filing added.
The association has identified 102 corporate bad loans, totalling to Rs 2 lakh crore, where the amount outstanding in each is over Rs 500 crore. They include loans in a variety of industries. These have been languishing in the books of banks for years with many admitted under the insolvency process.
In a regulatory filing, Axis Bank said a letter was placed for the consideration of the board at its meeting held on April 28, 2021. "The board at the meeting has considered and approved the said request received from NIACL to reclassify it to public category from promoter category" .
Several FIs and banks, including the Canara Bank, the Bank of Baroda, the UCO Bank and the Kotak Mahindra Bank had filed applications in the top court seeking a recall of the 2015 judgment in the Jayantilal N Mistry case, saying the verdict had far-reaching consequences and moreover, they were directly and substantially affected by it.
According to Shriram Transport Finance managing director and CEO Umesh Revankar, the non-bank lenders may see some temporary delay in loan repayments by borrowers in April or May as customers will like to preserve cash but that will not lead to a very significant jump in non-performing assets (NPAs).
Credit Default Swaps (CDS), an insurance against default, tied to ICICI Bank and State Bank of India are now at elevated levels that were last seen during the peak of the first wave of coronavirus. The CDS rates seem to discount the market-beating earnings of private lenders for the fourth quarter.
"We feel that there is a secular opportunity on infrastructure. The largest component of stress in the banking system is in infrastructure and it a large opportunity from a special situations perspective. We have gone back to our investors with this proporsition to put a significant amount of capital. We are getting a good response and if all goes well we will shoot for a $800 million fund," Sriniwasan said.
On April 19, RBI had set up a committee to undertake a comprehensive review of the working of asset reconstruction companies (ARCs) in the financial sector ecosystem and recommend suitable measures for enabling them to meet the growing requirements.
The announcement by Stephen A Schwarzman, the founder and chairman of the fund, comes on the heels of close to 40 major American companies committing millions of dollars to help the country fight the pandemic which has been topping the infection list globally for a week with daily caseload remaining above 3.25 lakh mark for almost a week now.
HDFC Bank has converted its training centres in Pune, Bhubaneswar and Gurgaon into isolation centres to deal with Covid-19-related emergencies for employees with symptoms. The bank has also tied up with hotels across the country for rooms.
The lender's business volume shrunk while business prospects for the next quarters remain "highly unpredictable" following the severe second wave of coronavirus, the company said in a notice to stock exchanges.
The umbrella body also demanded an extension of different liquidity windows, a key lifeline to small or mid-size non-banking finance companies. Localised curbs on mobility weighted on the economy that was lately trying to clamber out of the sinkhole.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for businesses and people across the world. It's certainly commendable to witness our own COVID warriors i.e. our channel partners, who have stood firm and helped the organisation navigate the uncertain environment," SBIG's managing director and CEO PC Kandpal said.
The body in a letter addressed to Shaktikanta Das, Governor of RBI, said this was for the interests of retail NBFCs who “primarily cater to the funding needs of MSMEs, truck/taxi drivers, machine operators and marginal farmers and provide loans for acquiring the vehicles/tractors/equipments for productive purposes."
'Guidelines for Appointment of Statutory Central Auditors (SCAs)/ Statutory Auditors (SAs) of Commercial Banks (excluding RRBs), UCBs and NBFCs (including HFCs)' will be applicable for financial year 2021-22 and onwards.
"The Central Government has nominated Ajay Seth, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India as a Director on the Central Board of Reserve Bank of India vice Tarun Bajaj," the RBI said in a statement.
It said banks supply non performing assets (NPAs) to the ARCs, hold shareholding in these entities and also lend to them, which makes it necessary to monitor if there is a "circuitous movement of funds between banks and these institutions (ARCs)".
Care Ratings in a recent report said the bank credit growth rate continues to decline, however, in absolute terms bank credit (in the fortnight ended April 9, 2021) increased by Rs 5.5 lakh crore as compared to the fortnight ended April 10, 2020, but declined by Rs 0.62 lakh crore from the previous fortnight ended March 26, 2021.
“While examining the matter of re-appointment of such MD&CEOs or WTDs within the 12-15 years period, the level of progress and adherence to the milestones for dilution of promoters’ shareholding in the bank shall also be factored in by the Reserve Bank,” the regulator said.
Bonds issued by InvITs or REITs are likely to offer at least 100 basis points more than vanilla corporate bonds, fund managers said. InvITs or REITs are formed using a pool of assets that are bunched up in a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which can sell bonds to raise debt up to 50 percent of net worth.
As a realignment strategy in its advances portfolio, the private sector lender said it has been eyeing credit exposure of minimum 50 per cent to retail, 35 per cent to mid corporates and not more than 15 per cent to large corporates. The intent is to minimise the concentration on large corporate borrowers and to ensure continued sustainability, it said.
According to a report by the Australian bank, going by SBI Card’s valuation, Citi’s 2.7 million cards would imply a figure of $2.7 billion. “This is above the top end of our valuation… To the the extent that a single buyer is able to purchase multiple businesses at once, we would expect some sort of valuation discount in order to expedite Citi’s exit,” the report said.
The regulator noted that there are reports of certain network providers (hospitals) charging high rates and insisting on cash payments from the policyholders for providing treatment to COVID-19 infected patients despite having cashless arrangement with insurers.
The action has been take as these entities have been found non-compliant with the directions on storage of payment system data which the central bank had asked them to store in India, RBI said.
The Australian brokerage has pencilled in DBS Bank Ltd, Oriental and Commercial Bank of China (OCBC) and Standard Chartered (StanC) as the most likely cross-border buyers for a bouquet of assets across Asia
Outstanding loans fell by 603.33 billion rupees ($8.04 billion) to 108.89 trillion rupees in the two weeks to April 9. Non-food credit fell by 487.78 billion rupees to 108.39 trillion rupees, while food credit fell by 115.55 billion rupees to 496.99 billion rupees.
Standalone health insurers like Star Health, Aditya Birla Health Insurance, Max Bupa reported robust growth in their gross direct premium income (GDPI) in FY21.
Muthoot Microfin has expanded its employee strength by 37 per cent during a period when retaining employees and maintaining salaries came across as a major challenge for businesses worldwide, the company said in a statement.
HDFC Bank said a meeting of the board of directors of the bank will be convened in due course inter-alia to consider the appointment of Atanu Chakraborty as the part-time chairman and additional independent director of the bank.
Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman too tweeted about this on Thursday evening saying: “Reports are being received of some hospitals denying cashless insurance. Spoken to chairman, Irdai SC Khuntia to act immediately. In March’20 Covid included as a part of comprehensive health insurance. Cashless available at networked or even temporary hospitals.”
"Reports are being received of some hospitals denying cashless insurance. Spoken to Chairman, IRDAI Shri SC Khuntia to act immediately. In March'20 #Covid included as a part of comprehensive health insurance. Cashless available at networked or even temporary hospitals," the minister said in a series of tweets.
Near-term business prospects across states are, however, more clouded with the outburst of Covid-19 cases over the past couple of weeks. Industry leaders, especially those with small and medium sized NBFC-MFIs, are anticipating a liquidity crunch in the event of fresh lockdowns.
Managing director Gagan Banga said the company has taken a conscious decision to no longer expand its balance sheet but instead earn income by originating loans for HDFC.