More than 97 pc of Rs 2,000 notes returned: RBI
The Reserve Bank on Wednesdays said more than 97 per cent of the Rs 2,000 banknotes in circulation have been returned to the banking system, and only Rs 10,000 crore worth of such notes are sill with public. On May 19 this year, the RBI had announced the withdrawal of Rs 2,000 denomination banknotes from circulation.

View: Privacy rules around credit information companies need tightening
The recent RBI circulars on customer service rendered by Credit Information Companies (CICs) and Credit Institutions (CIs) and the framework for compensation to customers for delayed updation have come not a day soon and reflect RBI's focus on customer issues in a critical area. Customer service issues which plagued credit information reporting arose out of multiple reasons, the most important being the multiplicity of entities involved and the absence of effective time-bound customer grievance redressal functionalities.

RBI rules raise credit bureaus’ accountability to borrowers
The emergence of Credit Information Companies (CICs), which collect data on retail borrower behaviour and assign credit scores, has been a boon for banks and NBFCs. They have leveraged on this information to expand their retail lending business manifold, while keeping delinquencies in check. But with CICs interacting directly with lenders, retail borrowers are often left out of the loop. They have had to contend with the CICs’ opaque functioning and poor service standards.

Q2 GDP numbers may surprise on the upside: RBI governor
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das on Tuesday said that the second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) numbers are expected to surprise everyone on the upside. The central bank had earlier projected the GDP to grow at 6.5% in the second quarter of the current financial year.

RBI Governor stresses importance of governance amid healthy financial numbers
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) wants to ensure that the strong financial performance of banks and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) does not camouflage certain basic governance deficiencies, said Governor Shaktikanta Das. He observed that the financial numbers of the Indian banking and NBFCs (top 25 NBFCs, which represent 75-80 per cent of this sector) sectors at the moment are healthy and robust at the aggregate as well as at the individual entity level.

RBI to oversee all cross-border payment services
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has brought under its direct regulation all entities facilitating cross-border payments for import and export of goods and services. Such entities will be termed as Payment Aggregator-Cross Border (PA-CB)

RBI launches two key surveys for monetary policy inputs
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced the introduction of two crucial surveys, namely the 'Inflation Expectations Survey of Households' and the 'Consumer Confidence Survey,' aimed at gathering essential data for the upcoming bi-monthly monetary policy. The next monetary policy review is scheduled to take place from December 6-8.

RBI appoints Manoranjan Mishra as Executive Director effective from Nov 1
As the ED he will be looking after the Enforcement Directorate, Risk Monitoring Department and Department of External Investments & Operations. 
 

Dhanlaxmi Bank starts hunt for new CEO, Shivan's term to be over in January
The search-cum-selection committee, constituted by the board at its meeting held on Wednesday, will identify and evaluate suitable candidates for the position, the bank informed its shareholders. In its advertisement, the bank said that the candidate should have good knowledge in credit and overall experience of around 25 years as a commercial banker, covering branch operation, administration, retail, SME, treasury, risk management and planning.
 

State Bank of India's debt sale could prove costly for other lenders: Bankers
The decision by State Bank of India, the country's top lender, to accept slightly higher-than-expected yields at its Tier-II bond sale on Wednesday is likely to push up the cost of borrowing for other lenders, bankers said.

Tech is critical, but banks won't like to be tech companies: Citi India CEO
He added: "Two-thirds of Citi's total technology analytics is done out of India."
 

Akhil Handa quits days after BoB World fiasco
A few weeks after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) barred Bank of Baroda (BoB) from onboarding new customers on its flagship BoB World app, the bank’s chief of digital lending business, Akhil Handa, has quit from his position, the lender said in an exchange notice on Tuesday night.

IDBI Bank moves to sell Rs 8,843 crore of bad loans

Mumbai: IDBI Bank has put bad loans worth ₹8,843 crore for sale in what is one of the biggest such offers by a single bank in recent times.

ICICI Bank, Bank of India hiked loan rates from November 1, 2023; check new rates

ICICI Bank and Bank of India have revised their marginal cost-based lending rates (MCLR) on loans of various maturities. According to the banks' websites, the increased interest rates will come into effect from November 1, 2023.

Fino Payments Bank likely to apply for small finance bank license by year end: MD

Fino Payments Bank is likely to apply for the small finance bank license by the end of this year, managing director Rishi Gupta said.

Punjab & Sind Bank celebrating Vigilance Awareness Week (VAW)
 

IDFC FIRST Bank foresees steady surge in profit in next few years
IDFC FIRST Bank is confident of clocking a much stronger profit growth over the next five years on the back of a good show in its core operating performance, its MD & CEO V Vaidyanathan has said.

Kerala: ED files 1st charge sheet in Karuvannur cooperative bank money laundering case; names 55 accused
Kochi: The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday filed its first charge sheet against 55 accused entities as part of its money laundering probe linked to the Karuvannur Service cooperative bank of Kerala, official sources said. The prosecution complaint, filed under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), contains more than 10,000 pages including relied upon documents and other annexures appended by the federal probe agency.

PNB Housing will resume corporate lending in 2-3 quarters
PNB Housing Finance will resume corporate lending in the next 2-3 quarters, managing director and chief executive officer Girish Kousgi has said. However, this will be with the sole purpose of fuelling growth in its retail segment.

LIC Housing Finance Q2 Results: Co reports four-fold jump in net profit to Rs 1188 crore

LIC Housing Finance reported a nearly four-fold jump in net profit at Rs 1188 crore for the September quarter against Rs 305 crore backed by an improvement in asset quality.

Reliance & SBI Card tie-up to launch lifestyle-focused credit card
SBI Card has tied up with Reliance Retail to launch the Reliance SBI Card credit card, giving customers who shop at its retail outlets access to rewards and benefits, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

HDFC Bank changes rules of its two popular credit cards Regalia, and Millenia credit card; check new rules

HDFC Bank has made certain changes to the rules of its two popular credit cards — Regalia, and Millenia credit card. Check here

Motilal Oswal's Q2 revenue rises 24%
Mumbai: Motilal Oswal Financial Services reported a 24% year-on-year rise in consolidated revenue at ₹1,639.2 crore for the September quarter.

KFin Technologies launches trade reporting platform
Hyderabad: KFin Technologies has launched Guardian, an advanced trade reporting and trade compliance management platform aimed at bolstering defences against trade reporting failures and non-compliant trading activities. Guardian’s alert and reporting framework is driven by advanced trade identification algorithms that identify and report the trade and alert the risk/compliance officers on unauthorised trades, which will help them maintain the ‘highest’ degree of trade compliance. 

Geojit Financial Services shares jump over 14%, hit 52-week high as Q2 profit rises 58% YoY

Shares of smallcap stock broking firm Geojit Financial Services jumped 14.5% to Rs 68.9 in Wednesday's trade on BSE as the company reported a 58% YoY rise in second-quarter profit at Rs 38 crore as against Rs 24 crore a year earlier.

Apollo Global Management is betting big on the private credit space in India

Moving away from their swashbuckling playbook of big bang buyouts most of Wall Street’s marque private equity funds are pivoting away from record deal making and into areas like private credit. Higher interest rates to push down inflation have fractured the traditional banks led syndicated loan market. With traditional lenders retrenching, alternative asset managers like Apollo Global Management are accelerating their efforts to fill the vacuum to position themselves as an alternative to the traditional banking system — offering corporates as well large PE funds who are saddled with big bets in their portfolios bought at higher prices — with loans and financing.

UPI transactions surpass 11 billion in Oct on strong festive spending
Transactions on the unified payments interface (UPI) platform surpassed 11 billion in October as consumer spending increased during the festive season. The transaction volume rose 56.2% year-on-year(y-o-y) in October, latest data from National Payments Corporation of India(NPCI) showed.

UPI transactions via voice command from April
Individuals will be able to make UPI transactions through voice command from April. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), in a circular, has asked banks, payment service providers and other stakeholders to enable the ‘Hello! UPI’ feature in their apps by March 31.

India's UPI transactions scale new high in Oct; clock Rs 17.2 trn in value
In volume terms, too, transactions touched a new high at 11.41 billion, up 8 per cent compared to 10.56 billion in September.
 

Fintech Zype targets ₹500-cr lending book within a year
“We have built Zype on the foundation of an intuitive user experience that is easy to navigate, personalised offers for users tailored to their credit profile, and transparency of credit terms,” he said.

NSE revenues rise 24% in Q2, profit up 13%
Mumbai: The National Stock Exchange (NSE) reported a 24% year-on-year increase in consolidated revenue from operations at ₹3,652 crore for the quarter ending September 2023.

NSE Q2 Results: Net profit rises 13% YoY to Rs 1,999 cr; revenue climbs 24%

India’s leading exchange NSE reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 1,999 crore for the second quarter, up 13% on a year-on-year basis. Revenue from operations at Rs 3,652 crore for Q2FY24 was up by 24% year-on-year.

Bitcoin trades above $34,400; Solana, XRP rise up to 6%

Major crypto tokens were trading mixed in Wednesday's trading amid jitters among investors ahead of the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision.

SEBI unveils new format for MFs’ SID
SEBI has directed mutual funds to disclose scheme’s portfolio holdings including top 10 holdings by issuer and fund allocation towards various sectors through a functional web link and the aggregate investment in the scheme made by the concerned scheme’s fund managers as part of the ‘skin-in-the-game’ regulations.

MFs draw flak on social media for investment in Mamaearth IPO
Mumbai: The mutual funds that have subscribed to Mamaearth’s initial public offering are facing criticism on social media. About a third of the total allocation reserved for anchor investors were allocated to seven domestic mutual funds through 19 schemes. A few more funds may have invested in the main book. The issue has been subscribed 70 per cent on day 2, with the QIB or institutional portion seeing full subscription. There are concerns on rich valuations and wild swings post-listing.

Samir Arora’s Helios launches Flexi Cap NFO: Should you invest?
As one of the largest categories with relatively non-restrictive mandates, flexi cap funds have been quite popular with investors. Given that there are no rigid rules in market cap allocation in the portfolio, flexi caps give fund managers a fairly large universe to invest in over the long term.

Tata Capital PE plans to invest over Rs 400 cr in healthcare, senior care
Visalakshi Chandramouli, managing partner, TCHF, said the fund has already invested 60 per cent of the corpus in a range of segments in the healthcare sector, such as pharma manufacturing, cancer care, and diagnostics. This fund assesses the impact of investments made on health beneficiaries and employment generation.
 

PE/VC investments up 60% in September: EY
Private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) investments rose 60% on a YoY basis in Q32023 and touched $13.6 billion, said consulting and audit firm EY India in its latest PE newsletter.  

Bajaj Allianz Life Mid Cap Index Fund NFO Launched – Should you invest?
 

REC to raise $300-$500 million in Yen-denominated green bonds
Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) Ltd, a public sector enterprise under the Ministry of Power, plans to raise $300 million to $500 million in yen-denominated green bonds to fund its green loan portfolio, a senior company official said on Wednesday.

SBI mops up ₹10,000 cr via Basel III compliant Tier 2 Bonds
Mumbai: State Bank of India (SBI) has raised ₹10,000 crores through its first Basel III compliant Tier 2 Bonds issuance in the current fiscal  at a coupon rate of 7.81 per cent 

Adani Green working on refinancing $750 m worth bonds
Mumbai: Adani Green Energy is working on refinancing $750 million (₹6,250 crore) worth of bonds at the holding company level that are maturing in September next year. As per the terms of the bond issuance, the refinancing plan has to be submitted by early December this year. To repay the bonds at maturity, the promoters have created a liquidity pool , that “will be tapped into” at the time of maturity, Chief Executive Officer Amit Singh told in an Investor-call. The promoters led by Gautam Adani, had raised over $5billion (₹41,500 crore) between March and August this year through strategic stake-sales in group entities.

Sparkling returns for gold bond investors this Diwali
Mumbai: A potential ₹300-crore Diwali bonanza awaits investors in the first tranche of sovereign gold bonds (SGBs) that took off modestly eight years ago but have since enamoured investors with returns rivalling those of stock markets.

India's ultra-long bond debut to see strong demand, keep borrowing costs low
India's maiden sale of ultra-long bonds this week will lower borrowing costs for the government as large insurance and pension funds are expected to scoop up the issue, fund managers and analysts said.

India Exim Bank lists $1 billion sustainability bond at London Stock Exchange
 

Fed leaves rates unchanged, acknowledges economy is 'strong'
Washington: The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday but left the door open to a further increase in borrowing costs in a policy statement that acknowledged the U.S. economy's surprising strength, but also nodded to the tighter financial conditions faced by businesses and households.

Fed holds rates at 22-year high, signals concern on yield rise
The Federal Reserve held interest rates at a 22-year high for a second straight meeting, while suggesting that the recent rise in Treasury yields may weigh on the economy and inflation.

Fed's Powell: On a path to make more progress on inflation, though likely to be 'bumpy'
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday said the U.S. central bank is on a path to make more progress in lowering inflation back to its targeted rate of 2% but that progress was likely to come "in lumps" and be "bumpy."