Small non-banking finance companies continued to be shunned by banks, which availed only half of the Rs 25,000-crore refinance offered by the RBI for lending to NBFCs. This was despite the RBI’s attempt to improve the market for long-term bonds.
Sri Lanka is set to enter into an agreement with the Reserve Bank of India for a currency swap worth $400 million to boost the foreign reserves and ensure the financial stability of the country which is badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, a top minister has said. Cabinet approved the proposal, enabling RBI to meet short-term international liquidity requirements.
Relaxing norms, the Reserve Bank of India on Thursday permitted banks to issue electronic cards to persons having overdraft accounts that are only in the nature of personal loan without any specific end-use restrictions.
The HC has granted Indiabulls, a non-banking financial company (NBFC), the permission to not pay its debenture holders, including fund houses, interest and principal as long as the RBI allows banks and NBFCs to offer moratorium to their borrowers. Fund managers now fear that other NBFCs may take the same route and not pay MFs for the next few weeks.
The Reserve Bank of India has a number of policy options to draw upon to cushion the economic blow from the coronavirus pandemic. With a limited fiscal response so far, the RBI has provided some virus relief to the economy but analysts say these areas need to be addressed further like rate cuts, deficit financing, bond purchases, corporate debt and looser rules.
Investor wealth on Friday rose by Rs 2,83,740.31 crore as markets soared over 986 points after a second batch of stimulus measures by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The 30-share BSE sensex ended 986.11 points or 3.22 per cent higher at 31,588.72.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said the RBI has taken a slew of steps to maintain adequate liquidity in the system, incentivise bank credit flows, ease financial stress and enable normal functioning of markets, as part of the second stimulus package to deal with the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. The first stimulus package was announced on March 27.
PM Narendra Modi said that the RBI’s announcements “will greatly enhance liquidity and improve credit supply” in the system. PM Modi tweeted — “Today’s announcements by @RBI will greatly enhance liquidity and improve credit supply. These steps would help our small businesses, MSMEs, farmers and the poor. It will also help all states by increasing WMA limits.”
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday addressed the media via video conferencing to announce measures to support economy during the ongoing coronavirus crisis. The RBI chief unveiled a slew of measures which included reduction in reverse repo rate and liquidity support for financial institutions, among others.
RBI governor Shaktikanta Das addressed the media amid the ongoing coronavirus crisis. Under liquidity adjustment facility (LAF), reverse repo rate (rate at which RBI borrows funds from banks) reduced by 25 basis points to 3.75%; repo rate unchanged (4.40%) as the decision is taken by the Monetary Policy Committee, Das announced.
All-out efforts are needed to mitigate the adverse impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the RBI will use any instrument necessary to revive growth and preserve financial stability, according to the minutes of the central bank’s policy meeting.
The country’s top NBFCs that are actively monitored by the RBI have around Rs 65,000 crore of bank debt maturing in three months and may not get any reprieve via a moratorium on loans.
The outlook for India’s economic recovery has been sharply altered by the coronavirus outbreak, the central bank said in its Monetary Policy Report, underlining the pandemic’s deepening impact on South Asia’s engine of growth.
The RBI has restricted operating hours for all the markets that it regulates from 10am to 2pm until April 17. The shorter hours will not impact retail bank customers as all their regular banking services — including Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) and e-Kuber facilities — will continue to be available according to extant timings.
The revised market timings will be effective during April 7-17, 2020, the central bank said in a circular on Friday. The market will open at 10 am instead of the current 9 am and closing timings too have been revised to 2 pm for all segments. The lockdown has adversely impacted the functioning of financial markets, the RBI said.
The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday announced more measures to counter the economic fallout of the fast-spreading coronavirus pandemic. In a notification, the central bank mentioned that it has extended the realisation period of export proceeds, increased WMA (Way and Means Advances) limit and implemented countercyclical capital buffer.
The Finance Ministry and RBI will hold a meeting on Tuesday to decide on the government’s borrowing plan for the first half of 2020-21 amid the lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus. According to sources, the government would resort to front-load it’s borrowing plan to deal with the challenges posed by COVID-19 on the economy.
The Reserve Bank of India on Friday cut interest rates by 75 basis points (bps)—the sharpest in over a decade. It also made available Rs 3.74 lakh crore of additional liquidity to banks and allowed almost all borrowers to defer loan repayments by three months.
State Bank of India (SBI) has passed on the entire cut in interest rates by the RBI to its borrowers by bringing down its external benchmark-linked lending rate as well as the repo-linked lending rate by 75 basis points (100bps = 1 percentage point) from April 1.
Amid stress in the financial system due to COVID-19, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday announced measures to inject Rs 3.74 lakh crore into the banking system through a slew of instruments, including the reduction in cash reserve ratio. The other liquidity support measures included targeted long-term repo operation (TLTRO) and increasing the limit under the marginal standing facility (MSF) to 3 per […]
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday announced a 75 basis points cut in its policy repo rate to deal with the impact of deadly coronavirus outbbreak on the economy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the RBI had taken giant steps to safeguard the economy from the impact of the coronavirus. “The announcements will improve liquidity, reduce cost of funds, help middle class and businesses,” Modi wrote on Twitter.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut repo to 4.4 per cent, the lowest in at least 15 years. Also, it reduced the cash reserve ratio maintained by the banks for the first time in over seven years. CRR for all banks was cut by 100 basis points to release Rs 1.37 lakh crore across banking system.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday asked banks for “quick transmission” of slashed interest rate as the RBI cut the key lending rate sharply by 75 basis points (bps) to boost liquidity in financial system to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has rejected a proposal by TCG Capital to acquire Religare Enterprises’ arms Religare Finvest and Religare Housing Development Finance. The central bank has also asked the company to find another suitor.
With 38 central banks around the world reducing interest rates in recent weeks in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, Reserve Bank of India is widely expected to follow suit.
The RBI will inject liquidity of Rs 30,000 crore through open market operations next week to maintain financial stability in the system in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. The RBI has decided to conduct purchase of government securities under open market operations (OMOs) for an aggregate amount of Rs 30,000 crore in two tranches of Rs 15K crore each.
Relief to coronavirus-hit borrowers from being classified as defaulters and additional funding to help businesses tackle a shutdown are measures that lenders want the regulator to allow to help tide over the pandemic-triggered economic shock. The Indian Banks Association (IBA) has also created a working group to study the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will buy bonds on the open market for a total of Rs 10,000 crore ($1.35 billion) on Friday to try to keep all market segments liquid and stable, the central bank said on Wednesday. Spreads between government bonds and corporate bonds have risen in recent days because of the extreme risk aversion that has led investors to dump all […]