Saturday 19 December 2020

16.12.2020: Today's Banking / Financial News

16.12.2020: Today's Banking / Financial News at a Glance

🍒 PNB sets floor price for QIP at Rs 37.35 per share : Punjab National Bank (PNB) has set the floor price for its proposed QIP of Rs 7,000 crore at Rs 37.35 per share. The Capital Raising Committee of the bank at a meeting held on Tuesday authorised the opening of the QIP issue and approved the floor price at Rs 37.35 per equity share, PNB said in a regulatory filing. The bank may at its discretion offer a discount of not more than 5 per cent on the floor price, it added. PNB said the committee will meet on Friday to consider and determine the issue price for the equity shares, including a discount, if any, to be allotted to Qualified Institutional Buyers, pursuant to the QIP (qualified institutional placement). With this fund mobilisation, capital-to-risk-weighted assets ratio of the bank, which was at 12.8 per cent at the end of September quarter, would increase to 13.5-14 per cent. PNB stock closed 1.70 per cent down at Rs 40.55 on BSE.

🍒 IDBI Bank QIP to raise ₹6,000 crore opens : The Qualified Institutions Placement (QIP) committee of IDBI Bank’s board of directors has authorised the opening of the bank’s QIP issue on December 15. The bank plans to to raise up to ₹6,000 crore via the QIP issue. The floor price of the issue, based on the pricing formula as prescribed under SEBI ICDR Regulations, is ₹40.63 per equity share, the bank said in a regulatory filing. The bank said it may offer a discount of not more than 5 per cent on the floor price calculated for the issue. Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) had acquired a majority stake (51 per cent) in IDBI Bank in January 2019, becoming its promoter. The government owns 47.11 per cent stake. - Business Line

🍒 Disbursal of Mudra loans hits the slow lane in FY21 : The disbursal of small business loans under Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) has been trailing so far in the current fiscal. The disbursal of Mudra loans stood at ₹1,21,356 crore as on December 11, 2020, compared to about ₹1.51-lakh crore in the same period last year. While the going appears slow for the small business loan scheme of the government compared to last year, bankers actually see it in positive light. “One has to factor in the impact of Covid-19 pandemic. Despite constraints like lockdown and difficulty in reaching out to people, the difference between last year and this year’s disbursal amount is not so huge,” said a senior official with State Bank of India. “In fact, Mudra loan segment has been able to deal with Covid challenges and made up for the loss of time,” he added. - Business Line

🍒 Indian Bank declares IFIN account as fraud with over Rs 408 cr outstanding : Indian Bank said that it has reported to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) the account of IL&FS Financial Services (IFIN) as fraudulent with outstanding dues of over Rs 408 crore. In October, Punjab and Sind Bank had also reported the account of IFIN as fraud with outstanding dues of over Rs 561 crore to the RBI. In September 2018, the government ordered an SFIO probe into the affairs of IL&FS and its subsidiaries. In October the same year, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) suspended the erstwhile board of IL&FS amid the financial turmoil. On the resolution process proposed by the new board of directors of IL&FS, the company said it has submitted several progress reports and updates to the NCLT. - Business Standard

🍒 Loan disbursement by NBFC-MFIs dips 43% to ₹10,617 cr in Q : Loan disbursement by non-banking financial companies-microfinance institutions (NBFC-MFIs) declined 43% to ₹10,617 crore in the quarter ended September as against ₹18,565 crore in the same period of previous fiscal, according to a report by MFIN. In the quarter ended June 2020, loan disbursement had declined 96% to ₹570 crore from ₹15,865 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. The data pertains to NBFC-MFI members of the Microfinance Institutions Network (MFIN), a self-regulatory organisation and industry association of the microfinance industry in the country. Analysis on NBFC-MFIs is based on data collected from 54 members that are registered with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). - Live Mint

🍒 Punjab & Sind Bank and Central Bank of India offer car loans at 7.1 % : With interest rates in India at record lows, it has become easier to borrow funds to meet your various requirements. While it makes sense to buy a house, given the extended festive offers all round and 15-year-low home loan rates, you should treat with caution in case of other loans. Personal loans should definitely be avoided and used only as the last resort. A housing loan leads to the creation of an asset. Now, it is true of car loans as well, but remember that it is a depreciating asset. If you have set your heart on your dream car, however, ensure that you carry out thorough research before zeroing in on the bank that offers best terms. Punjab & Sind Bank offers the lowest rate – 7.1 percent - on a car loan of Rs 10 lakh with a tenure of seven years, as per data from Bankbazaar. Central Bank of India is next on the list of cheapest car loan lenders with 7.25 percent. It dominated by public sector banks – in fact, none of the private lenders figure in the list. - moneycontrol.

🍒 India Post, IPPB customers can now transact through app DakPay : Customers of the Department of Post (India Post) and the India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) can now operate their banking service through an app DakPay, which was unveiled by Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday. DakPay will provide digital financial and assisted banking services provided by India Post and IPPB through the postal network across the country. It will facilitate services such as sending money, scanning QR code and making payment for services and merchants digitally. It will also provide interoperable banking services to the customers with any bank in the country. "Launch of DakPay adds up to the legacy of India Post, which is about reaching out to every household. "This innovative service will not only give access to banking services and postal products online but also is a unique concept where one can order and avail postal financial services at doorsteps," Prasad said while launching the app. - Moneycontrol.

🍒 SBI Card, BPCL jointly launch credit card offering benefits to high fuel spending customers : SBI Card on Tuesday announced launch of "BPCL SBI Card Octane" in association with Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), offering maximum savings to consumers who spend a significant amount on fuel. The credit card has been designed to offer maximum savings to the well-heeled consumer segment which spends a significant amount on fuel.The BPCL SBI Card Octane brings 25X reward points on spends for BPCL fuel and MAK Lubricants, Bharat Gas (LPG) spends (website and app only) and BPCL''s ''In & Out'' convenience store spends, SBI Card said in a release. The card offers 7.25 per cent value back (including 1 per cent surcharge waiver) on fuel and lubricant spends at BPCL fuel stations and 6.25 per cent value back on Bharat Gas spends, it added. - moneycontrol.

🍒 Paytm launches 24x7 RTGS money transfer for merchants : Digital financial services platform Paytm on December 15 launched a 24x7 RTGS facility to support the companies that make high-value transactions. It also enables businesses to make bulk and instant money transfers to their employees, vendors & partners. Customers can instantly make bulk payments to Bank Accounts, UPI addresses, and Paytm Wallets through Paytm Payouts' APIs and Paytm for Business Dashboard.Paytm Payout is the only service provider that offers seamless round the clock money transfers through Wallet, UPI, IMPS, NEFT & RTGS.The company has made this announcement after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decision to make RTGS facility 24x7. This service saves time and resources and it is beneficial for SME & large enterprises who use it to adopt an automated payment mechanism. "RBI's move supports commerce in the country and enhances ease of doing business recently allowed the transfer of funds through Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) round-the-clock, 365 days a year," Paytm said in a statement. - moneycontrol.

🍒 South Indian Bank shares fall 6%; year-to-date stock is down 11% : Shares of South Indian Bank fell over 6 percent in intraday trade on BSE on December 15, looking on course to extend the losing run into the fourth consecutive session. Year-to-date the stock is down about 11 percent on BSE. The stock traded in the red even as CNBC-TV18 reported that the bank was planning to raise money at the right price. There is an approval of Rs 750 crore fundraising by the board and the focus is on improving fundamentals, it said. The bank had reported a 23 percent decline in net profit at Rs 65.09 crore for the September quarter of the current fiscal year. The lender posted a net profit of Rs 84.48 crore in July-September 2019-20. In the June quarter, SIB had a profit of Rs 81.65 crore. - moneycontrol.

🍒 Aceware launches micro ATM service in association with ICICI Bank : Aceware, a fintech company based in Infopark, has launched a micro ATM service in association with ICICI Bank. The company will bring a micro ATM to the customer’s house and he/she can collect the money by swiping the ATM card, Nimisha J Vadakkan, managing director at Aceware, said. Initially, the service will be available in Kochi city and the company has already recruited delivery executives for rolling out the service. The company is planning to expand the same to all the municipalities in Kerala by January, she said. “The customers can place the order for money on the Ace Money app, which can be downloaded from Google Play Store and App Store. The money will be delivered at the doorstep within 30-40 minutes after the order is placed,” she said. - financial express

🍒 DHFL Case: Latest Grant Thornton report flags fraudulent transactions of Rs 1,058 crore : Crisis-ridden non-banking finance company DHFL on Sunday said fraudulent transactions of Rs 1,058.32 crore by way of undervaluation, fraud and preferential treatment to certain entities have been detected by transaction auditor Grant Thornton (GT). The company is undergoing resolution process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). The company, which is now being run under an administrator, had engaged Grant Thornton earlier this year to conduct an investigation into the affairs of the mortgage lender. The administrator of the company received additional report from professional agency (Grant Thornton), indicating that there are certain transactions which are undervalued, fraudulent and preferential in nature, Dewan Housing Finance Company Ltd (DHFL) said in a regulatory filing. - financial express

🍒 Coronavirus pandemic dents growth of personal loans segment in FY21 : The coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic dented the growth in the personal loans segment as the portfolio expanded by a meager 0.57 per cent in the first five months of the current fiscal (FY21), according to CRIF High Mark. The outstanding portfolio stood at Rs 5.07 trillion at end of August 2020. Navin Chandani, MD & CEO, CRIF High Mark said that in FY21, Covid-19 disruptions had resulted in restricted lending by financiers who were earlier steering the volume growth of the PL market. There is small growth and not a sharp clampdown, he added. The personal loan segment had registered a growth of 26.5 per cent in the year ended March 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country and the portfolio outstanding was Rs 5.04 trillion. This segment has seen exponential growth in the last few years as lenders focused increasingly on customer acquisition through small ticket lending, targeting young, low-income borrowers with short term credit needs. - Business Standard

🍒 Financial sector players suggest ‘Aatmanirbhar bonds’, special tax breaks for insurance in upcoming budget : From asking government to issue tax free “Aatmanirbhar bonds” to retail investors in these pandemic times to allowing special tax breaks under Section 80C for life insurance premium payments—-Banks, insurers and non banking finance companies (NBFCs) on Tuesday came up with several interesting suggestions that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman could consider for her next budget in February 2021. At the pre-budget discussions that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman had with chiefs of financial sector players through video conferencing, it was also suggested that NBFCs be allowed to issue secured bonds/NCDs “on tap”; gold loan companies be permitted to issue credit cards and exempt NBFCs registered with RBI and classified by the central bank as deposit taking NBFC and non deposit taking systemically important NBFCs from the provisions of Tax Deduction at Source (TDS) on interest income. - Business Line 

🍒 Ewire Softtech ties up with YES Bank for prepaid card : Ewire Softtech, under Kerala Startup Mission, has launched a prepaid card in association with YES Bank, enabling the next-generation payment platform provider chart an all-India presence. The co-branded digital banking mobile application will help the public and corporate houses with loans, insurance and CASA account through its channel partners. This can be done via its dedicated RuPay prepaid cards platform. The partnership with YES Bank has come as a milestone for Ewire, keen to establish its presence across the country in its digitisation drive. “Our customers can now avail the convenience of digital payments. The card will be offered through YES Bank’s branches across 28 States and 8 UTs,” said Ewire’s CEO, Yunus Puthenpurayil. - Business Line

🍒 DakPay should become popular like Google Pay: Prasad : The Postal Department should become a big part of the financial inclusion platform and the India Post Payment Bank (IPPB) app can become popular like Google Payin no time, said Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Communications and IT, on Tuesday. Speaking at the launch of ‘DakPay’, a new digital payment app by IPPB, Prasad said that since the Department of Posts (DoP) has reach at the remotest areas of the country, the app can play a big role in digital financial inclusion at the last mile across India. - Business Line

🍒 ‘Credit channel of monetary policy transmission robust in India’ : The credit channel of monetary policy transmission is robust in India, according to a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) working paper. “Its efficacy, however, is impaired if there is a deterioration in asset quality but is reinforced by better capital position of banks,” the paper said. The paper assessed that an increase (decrease) in policy rate by 100 basis points causes the credit to decline (increase) by 1.95 per cent with a lag of six quarters, validating the existence of a robust credit channel of monetary transmission in India. - Business Line

🍒 India slated to become a premier digital society: Ambani : Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, on Tuesday, said that decisions that are made in India shape the global discussion about how technology can drive more economic opportunities and better outcomes for people. In a conversation with Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries, at a virtual event, ‘Facebook Fuel for India’, Zuckerberg said: “India is a very special and important country for us. Millions of people here use our products every day to stay in touch with friends and family. “Whether it’s a WhatsApp message or a Facebook post or photos on Instagram. And millions of small businesses across the country use WhatsApp Business and Messenger to reach customers, manage orders, and grow their businesses. And, in fact, we actually test some of our new features here first before rolling them out globally.” - business line

🍒 Channelising long-term pension, insurance monies to even lower grade paper is need of the hour, says SBI Chief Khara : SBI Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara on Tuesday said that India must look to channelise the long term liabilities (funds) available with pension and insurance sector into capital market to make the debt side of this market more vibrant. These long term liabilities should be made available to even lower grade paper which will make the debt market even more vibrant and this is need of the hour, Khara said at CII organised Partnership Summit, which is happening virtually for the first time ever. “If you want to create infrastructure in the country, this money (pension and insurance monies) has to flow into infrastructure, which is what we see around the globe”, Khara said. - business line

🍒 ‘JM Fin will apply for a bank licence if there is a right policy’ : JM Financial Ltd will apply for a bank licence if there is a right policy and right construct, according to Vishal Kampani, Group Managing Director. In reply to a specific question whether his company will consider applying for a bank licence, Kampani observed that for India to become a $5-trillion economy, it will need all sorts of banks and it will need many more banks. “So, it is not just about JM applying for a bank licence. “...And if the right policy and the right construct is there, definitely JM would apply for a bank licence. I mean there is no two ways about it that JM would apply for a bank licence,” said Kampani at the CII Partnership Summit.- business line

🍒 With collections yet to reach pre-Covid levels, banks keep a tab on repayments : Banks are watchful on repayments by retail borrowers as collection efficiencies are yet to reach pre-Covid levels. With the loan moratorium ending on August 30 this year, a large number of retail borrowers have managed to make repayments, with banks reporting collection efficiencies at about 90 per cent of pre-Covid level. However, there are worries about the remaining borrowers who have not been able to fully restart payments of their EMIs. A clearer picture is expected to emerge by the end of the month when the loan restructuring window will also end. “Anywhere between 12 per cent to 15 per cent of customers would have gone through trouble in this period. Cheque bounce rates are elevated and collection efficiencies are still in the 90s,” noted a banker. - Business Line

🍒 Strong show: Pension assets surge 35.65% as of November 2020 : India’s pension assets continue to record smart growth, with the latest Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) data showing an overall growth in assets under management (AUM) of 35.65 per cent on a year-on-year basis to ₹5,32,378 crore as of end November 2020. The overall AUM as of end-November 2019 stood at ₹3,92,467 crore. And, as against the AUM of ₹4,17,479 crore as of end-March 2020, the latest reading reflects a growth of 27.5 per cent on a sequential basis, implying that the Covid-19 pandemic has had little impact on the growth of pension assets this year. - Business Line

🍒 ‘NBFCs continue to shine in personal loan segment’ : Non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) continue to grow in the personal loan (PL) segment in volume terms, doubling their market share in the last two years up to March-end 2020, according to CRIF High Mark. In terms of volume, NBFCs’ market share in PLs improved from 22.68 per cent in March 2018 to 44.92 per cent in March 2020. Their market share in August 2020 was at 42.16 per cent, according to the credit information bureau. Public sector banks (PSBs) and private sector banks (PvBs) lost significant volume share in PLs over the last 2 years. - Business Line

🍒 Rupee slips 8 paise to 73.63 against US dollar : The rupee depreciated by 8 paise to settle at 73.63 (provisional) against the US dollar on Tuesday, tracking muted domestic equities. At the interbank forex market, the domestic unit opened at 73.62 against the US dollar and witnessed an intra-day high of 73.59 and a low of 73.67. The local unit finally closed at 73.63 against the American currency, registering a fall of 8 paise over its previous close.

🍒 Market ends flat, Nifty holds 13,500; US Fed outcome in focus : Key equity indices the Sensex and the Nifty ended flat on December 15 as gains in select heavyweights such as Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Finserv were offset by losses in those of Hindustan Unilever, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and State Bank of India. The Sensex opened in the red and traded in the lower territory for the most part of the session but at the fag end, it managed to erase losses and ended with nominal gains.It closed 10 points, or 0.02 percent, up at 46,263.17 and the Nifty, too, gained 10 points, or 0.07 percent, to close at 13,567.85. The BSE midcap index outperformed the Sensex, rising 0.42 percent, while the smallcap index closed 0.07 percent up..

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