Mumbai: More than 20 Indian lenders on Monday signed a pact aimed at faster resolution of bad loans, officials said, while more could join by the end of the week in what is the latest bid to cut record levels of soured assets in Asia’s third-biggest economy.
A government-appointed panel this month proposed the so-called inter-creditor agreement among other measures after criticism that at times smaller lenders in a lending consortium were creating roadblocks for speedier resolution.
The agreement gives a bigger say to the lead lender in a consortium and allows a resolution plan to be approved if 66 percent of the banks in the group agree to it. Dissenting lenders have the option to sell their stressed loans to a company at a discount, or buy out loans to that entity from all other lenders at a premium.
“The objective is to use this inter-creditor agreement for faster facilitation of the stressed assets resolution,” said Sunil Mehta, the non-executive chairman of second-biggest state-run lender Punjab National Bank, who also headed the panel.
“One of the major issues was consensus among lending banks on what should have been a common resolution plan.”
Top lender State Bank of India was among banks which signed the agreement.
India’s banks had 12.5 percent of their total loans categorised as non-performing or restructured at the end of March, according to central bank data.
Kolkata, Jun 10: State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender expects to recover around Rs 30,000 crore from the resolution process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) during the current fiscal, an official said today.
From the two stressed assets’ list referred for resolution under IBC by the Reserve Bank of India, the bank’s total exposure was around Rs 78,000 crore, Pallav Mohapatra, DMD (stressed assets resolution group) of SBI said.
The bank had been able to recover Rs 8,500 crore from the Bhushan Steel-Tata Steel deal taking a haircut of 30 per cent.
From the Electrosteel-Vedanta deal, the bank expects to recover Rs 6,000 crore, he told reporters on the sidelines of a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) event here today.
The bank’s total NPA stood at Rs 2.20 lakh crore.
Besides recoveries from resolution under IBC, the bank expects to get back another Rs 10,000 crore from one-time settlement, sale to ARCs and some from outside NCLT, he said.
The bank had filed 250 cases under IBC with a total exposure of Rs 95,000 crore.
Mohapatra said “whatever stress is there has been recognised. We don’t expect recovery of the full amount”.
He said there will be no dent on profitability of the bank as adequate provisioning had been made for haircuts which is unavoidable.
Mumbai, June 6 : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday raised its key policy as the Repo rate by 25 bps to 6.25 per cent, in its second bi-monthly meeting of this fiscal.
The reverse repo rate under the LAF stands adjusted to 6.0 per cent, and the marginal standing facility rate and the Bank Rate to 6.50 per cent.
The six-member monetary policy committee of RBI headed by Governor Urjit Patel on Wednesday bit the bullet and hiked the repo the short-term lending rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 per cent.
This was the first rate hike by the Indian central bank in four-and-a-half years, since the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government was voted into office in May 2014.
The central bank kept cash reserve ratio (CRR) and statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) unchanged at 4 per cent and 19.5 per cent
The MPC kept its policy stance to ‘neutral’. It was MPC’s second bimonthly policy review of this financial year
New Delhi, May 30: Banking services including ATM services in the country will be hit as unions have given a call for two-day strike from Wednesday to press for their demands including early revision of the wages which is due since November 1, 2017.
ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, YES Bank and IndusInd Bank will not be impacted by the strike. These five banks have no trade unions.
As per the estimates over 10 lakh bankers in government and private sectors will go on a two-day strike from Wednesday to protest against the meagre two per cent wage hike proposed by the Indian Banks’ Association.
The bank strike is being spearheaded by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU).
The bank employees decided to go ahead with the strike after the failure of final round of negotiations on Monday. Foreign bank employees will also participate in the nation-wide strike as they are members of these unions, but not their bank officers.
The largest public sector lender State Bank of India (SBI) has informed the stock exchanges that Indian Banks Association (IBA) has communicated to the bank that the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBA) has served a notice to go on a nationwide bank strike on 30-31 May, 2018.
Several banks, including SBI, Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank, have cautioned that their services and normal banking operations would be impacted by the strike.
New Delhi, Jan 1 : In a bid to strengthen capital base of public sector banks (PSBs), the government has allowed 12 lenders to raise nearly Rs 3,000 crore via preferential shares over and above the Rs 22,915 crore capital support committed to them in July last year.
The Finance Ministry granted approval to 12 proposals of PSBs to raise a sum of Rs 2,914.038 crore through preferential allotment and permission given to raise Rs 200 crore by United Bank of India through QIP mode.
The government had already infused a sum of Rs 25,000 crore in 19 PSBs during FY 2015-16.
“A budgetary provision of Rs 25,000 crore has been made for 2016-17 and the government has already allocated Rs 22,915 crore to 13 PSBs on July 19, 2016 of which 75 per cent has been allocated in first tranche while remaining amount will be released on assessment of performance of PSBs, the Department of Finance in its year-end review for 2016 said on Sunday.
As regards consolidation in the banking space, it said, the Union Cabinet in June 2016 had approved the proposal of acquisition of assets and liabilities of subsidiary banks i.e.
State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Travancore and Bhartiya Mahila Bank (BMB).
With regard to financial inclusion, as many as 26.03 crore accounts have been opened under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), out of which 15.86 crore accounts are in rural areas and 10.17 crore in urban areas.
Deposits of Rs 71,557.90 crore have been mobilised and 19.93 crore RuPay Debit cards have been issued under PMJDY.
Zero balance accounts has been reduced to 23.86 per cent.
Aadhaar seeding has been done in 14.43 crore account under PMJDY, while 99.9 per cent households out of the 21.22 crore households surveyed have been covered under PMJDY.
As on December 23, 2016, out of total requirement of 1,27,198 fixed location ‘bank mitras’ in sub service areas (SSAs), 1,26,985 ‘bank mitras’ have been deployed by banks.
Out of 1,712 claims lodged, 1,626 claims have been disposed of under accidental insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh under RuPay debit card.
Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) cumulative Gross enrolment reported by banks, subject to verification of eligibility, etc. is over 3.08 crore, while Rs 9.88 crore under Pradhan Mantri Suraksha BimaYojana (PMSBY) as of December 28.
A total of 38.23 lakh subscribers have been enrolled under the Atal Pension Yojana (APY) with a total pension wealth of Rs 1,344.70 crore. Out of the total subscribers, 19.74 lakh subscribers have been enrolled during 2016 (up to December 15, 2016). .
Mumbai, Dec 21 : The Reserve Bank today imposed penalty on five foreign banks, including Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered Bank, for violation of its instructions on reporting requirements of the FEMA.
The three other banks are: Bank of America, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi and The Royal Bank of Scotland.
RBI said they have been fined for violation of its instructions on reporting requirements of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA).
Germany’s Deutsche Bank has been imposed fine of Rs 20,000, while Bank of America, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi, The Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered Bank have been fined Rs 10,000 each.
“The penalties have been imposed in exercise of the powers vested in the Reserve Bank under the provisions of Section 11(3) of FEMA 1999, taking into account, the violations of the instructions/directions/guidelines issued by the Reserve Bank of India, from time to time,” RBI said.
RBI said it has issued show cause notices to all the banks, in response to which the banks submitted written replies and also made oral submissions thereon.
“After considering the facts of the cases and the banks’ replies in the matter, Reserve Bank came to the conclusion that the violations were substantiated and warranted imposition of penalty,” RBI said further.
New Delhi : Offering one last chance to black money holders, the Indian government on Friday said they have time until March-end to come clean by paying 50 per cent tax on bank deposits of junk currencies made post demonetisation.
Offering tax dodgers confidentially and immunity from prosecution under the new tax evasion amnesty scheme Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY), which kicks-in from tomorrow, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said non disclosure of deposits made in banks after the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes were junked will attract stiffer penalties as well as prosecution.
Not declaring the black money under the scheme now but showing it as income in the tax return form would lead to a total levy of 77.25 per cent in taxes and penalty. In case the disclosure is not made either using the scheme or in return, a further 10 per cent penalty on tax will be levied followed by prosecution, he said.
The disclosure scheme is part of The Taxation Laws (Second Amendment) Act, 2016, which was approved by the Lok Sabha earlier this month and has been assented by the President.
The Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) will commence on December 17 and shall remain open for declarations up to March 31, Adhia told reporters here.
“Beginning tomorrow most of the banks will have challans to be filled for depositing tax for availing the PMGKY scheme.
Only after payment of 50 per cent tax and setting aside the 25 per cent of the remaining undisclosed amount for 4 year, a person can avail the PMGKY scheme,” he said.
Adhia emphasised that mere depositing of cash in banks will not convert black money into white. Taxes have to be paid.
As per the scheme, taxes will have to be paid first and then the scheme can be availed on production of tax receipt, unlike the recent Income Disclosure Scheme and other such plans wherein disclosures were made first and taxes were recovered later.
Also, as the disclosures will be kept confidential, the holder of unaccounted cash need not disclose it in Income Tax Returns forms.
After the shock November 8 demonetisation announcement, the government allowed the junked Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes to be deposited in bank accounts.
For those holding unaccounted cash, it offered new tax evasion amnesty scheme wherein 50 per cent tax will be charged on declarations and quarter of the total sum be parked in a non-interest bearing deposit for four years. .
Mumbai, Dec 13 : RBI today said banks have garnered Rs 12.44 trillion (Rs 12.44 lakh crore) in banned notes till December 10, while they have issued Rs 4.61 trillion to them since the demonetisation drive began 35 days ago.
“The old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, which have been returned to the Reserve Bank and the currency chest, amounted Rs to 12.44 trillion as of December 10,” RBI Deputy Governor R Gandhi told reporters here.
The money that various banks have issued through their counters and ATMs since November 10 and up to December 10 stood at Rs 4.61 trillion, he added.
In volume terms the number stood at 21.8 billion pieces of notes of various denominations, of which 20.1 billion pieces were of Rs 10, Rs 20, Rs 50 and Rs 100. The number of higher denomination of new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes stood at 1.7 billion, he said.
Hence, while the notes surrendered have risen by almost Rs 1 trillion, cash disbursal has risen only a little since December 7, when RBI had said that banks had issued Rs 4.27 trillion of new notes post demonetisation through ATMs and bank counters, the banned notes collected stood at Rs 11.55 trillion.
“The entire system is continuously gearing up for supporting the circulation of notes in the hands of the public. Daily, we are issuing more and more notes, getting it printed and issuing it and this will be a continuous affair.
The public are requested to freely use the notes that they have in their hands rather than hoard it,” Gandhi said.