RBI to introduce ‘Interoperable payment system’ for quick fund settlements: Shaktikanta Das
To enable quicker settlements of funds to merchants, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das on Monday announced the introduction of an ‘interoperable payment system’ for Internet banking, which is likely to be launched during the current calendar year.

RBI asks OMCs to pay for some oil imports in Rupees next FY
The Reserve Bank of India has asked the country’s major state-owned refiners to press Persian Gulf suppliers to accept at least 10% of oil payments in rupees in the next financial year, three executives at the processors said.

Securitisation of loans originated by small finance banks to cross Rs 10,000 cr in FY2024, says ICRA
The amount of funds raised through securitisation by the small finance banks (SFBs) is expected to exceed Rs 10,000 crore in FY2024, as against Rs 6,400 crore in FY2023, including both pass-through certificate issuance as well as direct assignments, said ICRA. Q3FY2024 alone witnessed the quarterly record high securitisation volumes of ~Rs 4,200 crore. The market share of SFBs in the securitisation market would accordingly touch a peak of 6 per cent in FY2024 from levels of sub-2 per cent prior to FY2022, it added.

Taking steps to meet RBI's concern: IIFL Fin after ban on giving gold loans
Sources said that the board of IIFL Finance, chaired by former State Bank of India chairman A K Purwar, is assessing the situation; the company is awaiting an audience with the regulator. On Monday, the RBI barred IIFL Finance from extending gold loans and decided to conduct a special audit. Once the audit report is finalised, the restrictions will be reviewed to determine if any gaps have been addressed.  

Chinese EV maker BYD expects to get Indian homologation certificate soon
New Delhi: The Indian arm of the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker BYD, on Tuesday, said that it expects to get a homologation certificate from Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) soon, which can help it sell more cars in the country.

RBI stops JM Financial from doing any form of financing against shares with immediate effect
In a major decision, the Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday said that JM Financial has been barred from financing against shares, and debentures with ‘immediate effect.’ The central bank said that the action has been necessitated due to ‘serious deficiencies.’ The aforementioned deficiencies have reportedly been uncovered in the IPO financing of JM Financial.

Big liquidity surplus prompts RBI to soak it up via VRRR auctions
With short-term liquidity turning into a big surplus, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) conducted two back-to-back variable rate reverse repo (VRRR) auctions on Tuesday to soak it up. Short-term liquidity surplus stood at ₹1,62,347 crore as of March 4 against ₹65,620 crore on March 3, per RBI’s data on money market operations. Overall excess liquidity stood at ₹40,902 crore against a deficit of ₹19,220 crore.

Sharp rise in gold loans may have attracted RBI scrutiny
The gold loan portfolio of banks and NBFCs has sharply risen over the past four years, which may have attracted the scrutiny of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on gold loan companies.

Audit profession under great pressure: Kotak
Tighter regulations and lower fees are making the auditing profession challenging, said panelists at an international conference held by the National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA) here on Tuesday. “The business model of pure audit is under significant pressure. It’s getting tighter and tighter from the point of avoiding conflict,” said Uday Kotak, former managing director and CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank.

BoI ED Mishra to oversee functioning of key departments including stressed asset resolution and recovery, IT and Digital Banking
Mumbai: Newly appointed Bank of India (BoI) Executive Director Rajiv Mishra will oversee the functioning of key departments including stressed asset resolution and recovery, Information Technology, Digital Banking Department (including Transaction Banking).

Ex-LIC chief MR Kumar joins Bank of India as non-executive chairman
Kumar, a science graduate from the University of Madras, also serves on the board of Ambuja Cements. He joined Life Insurance Corporation in 1983 and was its chairman from 2019 to March 2023.

Banks to remain closed for 14 days in March 2024; Check the full list of bank holidays here
Bank Holidays March 2024: With the third month of the year already here, here is looking at the dates of the March 2024 bank holidays across regions. Bank holidays will differ from state to state and in the month of March, banks will remain closed for a total of 14 days including public holidays, regional holidays, and regular closures on second and fourth Saturdays and all Sundays. March also includes festivals like Mahashivratri and Holi. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has placed the holidays under three brackets: Holidays under the Negotiable Instruments Act; Holidays under the Negotiable Instruments Act and Real-Time Gross Settlement Holidays; and Banks’ Closing of Accounts. Banks remain closed on the second and fourth Saturdays of every month. The RBI in 2015, had announced that both private and PSU banks in India would remain closed on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month. While on other Saturdays, banks will stay operational full-day. Banks across the country remain closed on Sundays. Online banking services, meanwhile, will remain available nationwide despite these closures. 

SBI hits new high, up 31% in 6 weeks; market-cap hits Rs 7 trillion-mark

At closing, SBI’s market capitalisation was Rs 6.996 trillion on the BSE and Rs 7.002 trillion on the National Stock Exchange.

Union Bank chief sees 11-12% credit growth sector-wide in FY25
Tight liquidity, elevated credit-to-deposit ratio, and higher interest rates are likely to temper the credit expansion of banks in the coming fiscal year, according to A Manimekhalai, MD and CEO, Union Bank of India.

Standard Chartered Bank names Sanjay Gurjar as co-head of client coverage
Mumbai: Standard Chartered Bank, India, has appointed Sanjay Gurjar as the Co-Head, Client Coverage-Corporate, Commercial and Institutional Banking, for India and South Asia.

RCap’s lenders urge Indusind to complete resolution process by March 31
Mumbai: The Committee of Creditors of Reliance Capital Ltd has written to Hinduja-backed Indusind International Holdings Ltd. to fulfill its commitments as part of the debt resolution process ahead of the March 31 deadline.

Only operational issues, no ethical breach, says IIFL Finance
Mumbai : IIFL Finance Ltd on Tuesday tried to assuage investor concerns, stating there were no governance lapses, after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) barred the non-banking financial company (NBFC) from offering any loans against gold.

IIFL Finance to appoint external assayers to assess gold quality
IIFL Finance’s gold business is expected to undergo some massive changes in the coming months. As a start, the company will replace its internal assayers with certified external personnel to assess the value and quality of the underlying asset before loans can be extended.

mPokket raises Rs 500 crore debt from BPEA Credit
Digital lending platform mPokket on Tuesday said it has raised Rs 500 crore (including a green shoe option) in debt capital from the private credit platform of BPEA Credit.

Microfinance industry may clock 25% growth in FY24 on positive momentum
Chennai: The microfinance industry is expected to end this fiscal year with a growth rate of about 25 per cent, aided by the sustained positive momentum in the industry. In FY23, the microfinance sector recorded 21 per cent growth with a total outstanding of ₹3.52-lakh crore as of March 31, 2023.

Select NBFCs rally up to 20% after RBI action on IIFL Finance

Capri Global Capital (CGCL), CSB Bank, Muthoot Finance and Manappuram Finance are up between 7 per cent and 20 per cent. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 0.25 per cent at 73,684 at Tuesday's intra day deals.

Paytm boss Vijay Shekhar Sharma breaks silence over RBI action: ‘The biggest thing that I’ve learned…’
Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the maverick founder of Paytm, on Tuesday broke silence on the ongoing crisis after RBI issued stringent curbs against Paytm Payments Bank. Confident of the comeback, Sharma said that the biggest lesson he has learned from the biggest crisis that the fintech major has since its inception is – “Your teammate may not be getting it correct.”

Paytm Bank’s ex-ID Manju Agarwal slammed for resigning selectively, steps down from CMS Info
The troubles of Paytm Payments Bank (PPBL) with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are beginning to affect the reputation of people associated with it, thereby impacting their roles in other organisations.

Paytm Payments Bank failed to put apparatus for detecting, reporting suspicious transactions under PMLA: FIU
Paytm Payments Bank failed to put in place an internal mechanism to “detect and report” suspicious transactions as stipulated under the anti-money laundering law and was unsuccessful in conducting due diligence of its payout service, the FIU said in its order that imposed a fine of Rs 5.49 crore on the digital entity.

Payments bank model flawed, prone to risk
The recent fallout of the Paytm crisis exposes some inherent flaws in India’s evolving fintech industry, which needs an urgent course correction for maintaining stability in the sector. Dichotomous as it may sound, while UPI has remained insulated from headwinds, Paytm as one of the main user platforms has found itself in troubled waters with a significant erosion in market value.

Over $1 billion liquidated from cryptocurrency market over the past 24 hours, Bitcoin tumbles after reaching $69,191.95
Over $1 billion liquidated from the cryptocurrency market over the past 24 hours. This was followed by Bitcoin surging to a new all-time high in more than two years, yet the original cryptocurrency didn’t stay at its new all-time high very long as many traders appear to have taken the opportunity to book some profit.

Bitcoin crosses $68,000
On March 5, 2024, the market value of Bitcoin has reached new heights amounting to $68,000 surpassing early records. It is believed that Bitcoin reached a session high of $68,828, which is about 2% away from the all-time peak of $68,999.99 it set in November 2021.

Bitcoin hits record high on increased investor appetite
Bitcoin hit a record high on Tuesday, fueled by investors pouring money into U.S. spot exchange-traded crypto products and the prospect that global interest rates may fall.

No foreign trips, gifts to incentivize distributors, Amfi tells mutual funds
Mumbai: The Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) on Tuesday warned mutual funds (MFs) not to offer foreign trips, gadgets or any incentive in kind to their distributors for achieving targets, reminding them that they are allowed to offer only trail commissions.

AMFI allows distributors to earn trail commission on switched AUM
In a best-practices circular released on Tuesday, the Association of Mutual Funds in (AMFI) India said distributors can now earn trail commission on assets under management (AUM) switched to them by investors. Previously, AMCs withheld this commission to discourage unhealthy competition among distributors. However, the industry body has stipulated a cooling-off period of six months.

Kedaara Capital, Partners Group sell 12.6 pc stake in Aavas Financiers for Rs 1,369 crore
Kedaara Capital and Partners Group, promoters of Aavas Financiers, on Tuesday divested 12.6 per cent in the housing finance company for Rs 1,369 crore through open market transactions.

After JP Morgan, Bloomberg index to include Indian bonds
Mumbai: Bloomberg on Tuesday said it will include India Fully Accessible Route (FAR) bonds in the Bloomberg Emerging Market (EM) Local Currency Government Index and related indices, to be phased in over a ten-month period, starting January 31, 2025. This comes about five months after JP Morgan had announced it would include India in its widely tracked emerging market debt.

Indians buy gold bonds worth a record ₹8,000 cr in February
Mumbai : Mumbai: Indian residents' appetite for gold bonds knows no bounds, despite the metal hitting record high prices this fiscal year, and stock markets trading at life highs.