Saturday 19 December 2020

19.12.2020: Today's Banking / Financial News

 19.12.2020: Today's Banking / Financial News at a Glance

🍒 Bank credit grows by 5.73%, deposits by 11.34% : Bank credit grew by 5.73 per cent to Rs 105.04 lakh crore while deposits increased by 11.34 per cent to Rs 145.92 lakh crore in the fortnight ended December 4, the RBI data showed. In the fortnight ended December 6, 2019, bank credit had stood at Rs 99.35 lakh crore and deposits at Rs 131.06 lakh crore. In the previous fortnight ended November 20, credit grew by 5.82 per cent to Rs 104.34 lakh crore and deposits by 10.89 per cent to Rs to Rs 143.70 lakh crore.In October, non-food credit growth decelerated to 5.6 per cent compared to a growth of 8.3 per cent in the same month of the previous year.Growth in loans to agriculture and allied activities accelerated to 7.4 per cent in the month from a growth rate of 7.1 per cent last year.Credit to industry contracted by 1.7 per cent in October 2020 as compared with 3.4 per cent growth in October 2019.Growth in loans to the services sector accelerated to 9.5 per cent in October 2020 from 6.5 per cent in the same month of the previous year. - economic times

🍒 PNB QIP issue falls short of target by 46 per cent : State-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) has raised a little over 54 per cent of the targeted fund mop-up through QIP, which closed on Friday with Rs 3,788.04 crore in the kitty. Private sector IDBI Bank too closed its QIP without disclosing the amount raised. PNB had planned to raise up to Rs 7,000 crore through qualified institutional placement (QIP) that had opened on Tuesday (December 15). The capital raising committee of the board of directors of the bank has its meeting held on December 18, 2020, passed the resolution to declare the closure of the QIP today (December 18) pursuant to the receipt of applications from eligible qualified institutional buyers, PNB said in a regulatory filing. - Business Line

🍒 Govt exploring setting up bad bank, all other options: DEA Secretary : The government is exploring all options, including setting up of a bad bank, to improve the health of the country's banking sector, Economic Affairs Secretary Tarun Bajaj said on Friday. He also said the government has recapitalised public sector banks and continue to pump in c apital as per requirements. "We are looking at various options, including the option you mentioned (of bad bank), and it is still in the works... The RBI has been asking us, and we ourselves also feel that we need to recapitalise. We have recapitalised to a large extent and this year too, we have kept some money for recapitalisation so that commitment is there...," he said. - Business Standard

🍒 PMC Bank gets four investment proposals, says RBI : Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank has received four investment proposals, the RBI said on Friday while extending the restrictions imposed on the crisis-hit lender to March 31 to enable it to finalise the reconstruction plan. In September 2019, the RBI had imposed restrictions on the fraud-hit multi-state urban cooperative bank, including on withdrawals by customers, following a scam. Depositors had held several protests demanding their money back. Last month, PMC had invited expression of interest (EoI) from potential investors for investment or equity participation in the bank for its reconstruction. The last date for submission of EoIs by potential investors was kept as December 15. - economic times

🍒 Bad loans set to rise in H2 of FY21 despite improving outlook: Axis Bank : Despite improving economic conditions, private sector lender Axis Bank sees bad loans rising and said it will continue to be conservative. “Collection efficiency has been in the range of 95-97 per cent. We saw payments bouncing in September (when the EMI moratorium came to an end) but since then, we have seen improvement month-on-month,” said Sumit Bali, president, retail lending and payments, Axis Bank. “While the stress is lower than projections, it would be higher than what we saw last year because of the pandemic. But it is getting better for us. However, Q3 and Q4 will see some slippages (in the retail book).” He said the bank has surpassed pre-Covid levels in secured loans. “The unsecured part of the business continues to at 60-70 per cent of pre-pandemic level. We are conservative on the unsecured part and would want to see some more series of data points before we start going back to the pre-pandemic level,” he added. - Business Standard

🍒 Too much fall in short term rates poses threat to financial stability: RBI minutes : The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) that voted unanimously to keep interest rates to ensure economic revival has raised red flags on short-term interest rates falling below the desired levels raising the risk of financial instability. The MPC members also warned that rising pricing power of oligopolistic businesses and commodity prices could narrow the room available to continue with accommodative monetary policy even as concerns over the fragility of economic revival remain. “Liquidity, credit and monetary aggregates will need to be closely monitored with an eye on macro-financial stability that can be enervated when short-term borrowing costs fall below the operational policy rate. If this results in persistence of negative real rates for too long, it can adversely affect savings, lend support to mispricing of financial asset prices and encourage excessive leveraging,” said Mridul K Saggar.- economic times

🍒 Rising inflation is of concern: HDFC Chief Economist : ur Bureau Inflation has been rising and is at over 7 per cent as against the RBI mandated 6 per cent. This is a matter of concern as it has gone up substantially over the past three months, said Abheek Barua, Chief Economist, HDFC Bank. This means that if one is expecting more help from the RBI, it may become difficult to come by as there will be liquidity pressure, he said. “The fiscal deficit has gone for a toss. The government had set a target of 3.5 per cent of GDP for Centre and 3 per cent for the States. This is now at 6.5 per cent for the Centre and 4.5 per cent for States. Together it is at 11 per cent, which will be dangerous if not brought down,” he stated. - Business Line

🍒 PayU to offer Google Pay tokenised payment flow for merchants : PayU, an online payments solutions provider, has collaborated with Google Pay, a leading digital payments app, to introduce tokenised payments flow for merchants. With this collaboration, PayU’s merchants can offer Google Pay users the option to use their debit cards, credit cards, or Google Pay UPI to make repeated payments without having to physically share their card details. According to the joint official release, the card information is tokenised, and the digital token is linked to the phone, allowing Google Pay users to make repeat payments seamlessly and securely. It also added that during checkout, users can avail one-click payment experience as they do not have to re-enter the payment data. The OTP is read automatically, and the payment is processed instantaneously, without redirections to third party sites (3D secure). - Business Line

🍒 RBI central board reviews current economic situation : The central board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), on Friday, reviewed the current economic situation in the backdrop of global and domestic challenges and various areas of operations of the RBI, including the customer education initiatives and resolution of customer complaints. The board meeting, chaired by Governor Shaktikanta Das, noted the change in the bank’s Financial Year from July-June to April-March, and the changes in the unit of presentation from millions / billions to lakh / crore, the central bank said in a statement. - Business Line

🍒 CBI registers cases against Transstroy for alleged bank fraud, conducts raids : The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a case against Hyderabad-based infrastructure company Transstroy (India) Ltd and its directors for alleged bank fraud estimated at more than ₹7,926 crore. Following a complaint by Canara Bank, which along with its consortium partners had extended credit facilities to the infra firm, the investigating agency has registered a case against the company and named its Chairman and MD, Cherukuri Sridhar, and additional directors, Rayapati Sambasiva Rao, former MP, and Akkineni Satish, in the case. - Business Line

🍒 Sipadan Investments (Mauritius) sells 2.17% stake in IDFC : After selling the shares in the open market, Sipadan holds 7.30 per cent stake in IDFC, as per the company’s regulatory filing. IDFC is registered with the Reserve Bank of India as an ‘non-banking finance company — investment company’. It mainly holds investment in IDFC Financial Holding Company Ltd, which is a non-operative financial holding company. IDFC FHCL in turn holds investments in IDFC FIRST Bank Ltd and IDFC Asset Management Company Ltd. As at September-end 2020, the government was the single largest shareholder in IDFC, with 16.37 per cent stake.- Business Line

🍒 Bids for DHFL still under evaluation : The Committee of Creditors (CoC) for the troubled Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd (DHFL) on Friday evaluated the bids by Oaktree Capital, Piramal Capital and Housing Finance Ltd (PCHFL) and the Adani Group for buying the company. There was no word yet on the fate of the bids as the CoC meeting was in progress at the time of going to press. Voting on the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) is expected to take place next week. Lenders are evaluating the bids based on four quantitative parameters — upfront cash recovery; net present value of the cash recovery; equity allotment; and infusion of funds in the corporate debtor; and two qualitative parameters — track record of the resolution applicant and key managerial personnel. Lenders are keen on ensuring a smooth resolution of the debt-ridden housing finance company. They want to iron out all wrinkles to ensure that the CIRP does not face last minute legal challenges like it did previously. - Business Line

🍒 Premature rollback of RBI policies could derail nascent growth: RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das : RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das voted for status quo at the last bi-monthly monetary policy review arguing that premature rollback of policies undertaken to mitigate the impact of the pandemic would be detrimental to nascent growth and recovery, minutes of the meeting showed on Friday. All members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) — Shashanka Bhide, Ashima Goyal, Jayanth R Varma, Mridul K Saggar, Michael Debabrata Patra and Shaktikanta Das — had voted for maintaining status quo in the policy review announced on December 4. - financial express

🍒 Markets extend winning run to 6th session; Sensex ends at record high : After opening at its lifetime intra-day high of 47,026.02, the 30-share BSE index pared some gains to finish at 46,960.69, up 70.35 points or 0.15 per cent. Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty rose 19.85 points or 0.14 per cent to 13,760.55 -- its new closing record. Infosys was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rising around 3 per cent, followed by Bajaj Auto, SBI, ICICI Bank, HCL Tech, Titan and Asian Paints. On the other hand, IndusInd Bank, ONGC, HDFC Bank, Maruti and Bajaj Finserv were among the laggards.

🍒 Rupee ends 3 paise up at 73.56 against US dollar : The rupee appreciated by 3 paise to close at 73.56 (provisional) against the US dollar on Friday amid sustained foreign fund inflows and positive domestic equities. Traders said weakness in the American currency in the overseas market supported the domestic unit. At the interbank forex market, the local unit opened at 73.55 against the greenback and witnessed an intra-day high of 73.49 and a low of 73.57.

🍒 India's forex reserves down by $778 million to $578.568 billion : The country's foreign exchange reserves declined by $778 million to $578.568 billion in the week to December 11, RBI data showed on December 18. In the previous week, the reserves had touched a lifetime high of $579.346 billion after increasing by $4.525 billion. In the reporting week, the reserves declined due to a fall in foreign currency assets (FCAs), a major component of the overall reserves. FCAs dropped by $1.042 billion to $536.344 billion, as per the weekly data by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). 

🍒 Gold price rises for fourth day in a row to Rs 50,108 per 10 gram; silver up by Rs 50 a kg : Gold prices jumped for the fourth straight day by Rs 101 to Rs 50,108 per 10 gram in the Mumbai retail market on subdued global cues and a flat rupee. The precious metal price was supported by the weakness in dollar and expectation of a stimulus package for the US economy. The bullion metal ended the week with a gain of Rs 1,062 or 2.17 percent for the week. The rate of 10 gram 22-carat gold in Mumbai was Rs 45,899 plus 3 percent GST, while 24-carat 10 gram was Rs 50,108 plus GST. The 18-carat gold quoted at Rs 37,581 plus GST in the retail market. Silver prices gained Rs 50 to Rs 66,519 per kg from its closing on December 17..

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