Co-operative banks to be linked to nationalized bank ATMs

Surat : Lakhs of account holders of co-operative banks will soon be able to withdraw money from nationalized banks' 84,000 ATMs across the country. Nearly 60 cooperative banks in the state, including 15 from south Gujarat, have started the process to get connected with the nationalized banks after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) took a decision in this regard recently……….

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Fake Indian currency recovered, three held

…..Four northeastern states – Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram – share a 1,879-km border with Bangladesh, part of which is porous, riverine and unfenced. The area is prone to frequent smuggling of numerous items, infiltration and occasional skirmishes. Fake currency in Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 denomination is mostly in circulation in the northeast region. Nationalised banks and various other financial institutions in northeast India have taken a series of measures, including installation of fake note detection machines, to identify fake currency.

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It's fake money, honey

………"The actual amount of fake currency floating in Gujarat could be much more - at least 10 times the amount recovered from banks," said a police official who is probing the case. The matter is now being investigated by the city police as an RBI directive makes it mandatory for all banks to hand over fake currency notes to the Special Operations Group (SOG) and the crime branch every month.…….

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Meet the right man in wrong job: Kaushik Basu never cut out to be govt economist

…….FMs haven't always had good relationships with CEAs. That's not true of Kaushik Basu and Pranab Mukherjee. However, after Bimal Jalan (CEA stint in early 1980s) I can't think of a single CEA who has had significant impact on policy. Kaushik is no exception. Perhaps times have changed. Perhaps it requires good inter-personal relationships with higher rungs of civil servants (especially North Block and RBI), which "government economists" possess and completely lateral entrants don't. What about the Economic Survey. Few CEAs paid any attention to Survey. (Arvind Virmani was an exception. Rakesh Mohan talked about it, but didn't do much.)……… 

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Where will the money come from?

…….Even after cutting CRR twice, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has not yet pared its policy rate—something that doesn’t happen too often. This marks quite a shift in the Indian central bank’s monetary policy—CRR has become an independent tool for liquidity management. The reason behind the CRR cut is acute cash crunch in the system. The daily cash crunch, which peaked at Rs. 1.90 trillion in early March, could have risen further by this time on account of advance tax outflow had RBI not gone for CRR cut ahead of its quarterly review of monetary policy……..

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HDFC Bank crosses 1 m in rural loan initiative

.............The objective of the programme was to help 10 million families (40 million families) become self-sufficient through its ‘Viable Finance' initiative. RBI Deputy Governor, Dr. K C Chakrabarty, and HDFC Bank MD, Mr Aditya Puri, participated in the programme.

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Caveat emptor — Boon or bane?

The credit / debit card market has witnessed a fast growth with increasing number of banks offering the facility, more establishments willing to accept them and more consumers finding it a convenient mode of payment. In such a scenario, the Reserve Bank of India has issued several guidelines to protect the interests of card holders. However, issues persist..........

Read - The Hindu

Corporate finance - less capex, more financialisation

Growth feedback effect and productivity gains emanating from a steady capex in the industrial sector provides a sustainable base for GDP growth trajectory. However, a comparative analysis of the Reserve Bank of India's annual study of financials of non-government, non-financial public limited companies during the decade of 2000s over the decade of 1990s, reveal a disturbing trend. ..................

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Banks to start rate cuts after prod by govt

Taking cues from the government, banks led by State Bank of India are going to begin selective reduction in interest rates, starting this week…………

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RBI says meeting higher Govt. borrowing a challenge

The Reserve Bank has said it is a tall order to manage government’s enhanced borrowing next fiscal but it will do its best. “It is going to be a challenge managing the enlarged borrowing programme ... but certainly we will see how best we manage,” Deputy Governor H.R. Khan, who oversees the government’s borrowing programme at the central bank, said...............

Read - The Hindu

Budget 2012: Time is right for rate cut, says R. Gopalan

Can this growth scenario play out without support from the monetary policy?

The RBI takes a number of things into account. It takes into account fiscal deficit and the underlying inflationary pressures in an economy. It looks at global factors and the core inflation. RBI has to take care of inflation but it has multiple roles. It also has to look at growth. So, with all this it ismore reasonable to presume that there could be rate reversal. The time is ripe for it to happen……………

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Bond yields may stay firm amid tight liquidity

…………..Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor H R Khan said the government’s market borrowing programme is a challenge for the central bank. However, RBI has tools like OMO, cash reserve ratio and liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) to manage liquidity-related issues…………

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Bank rate lives to die another day

…..Rangarajan’s successor Bimal Jalan repositioned the bank rate as the real signalling rate on the lines of the US Federal Reserve rate and delinked it from all refinance rates. This is in conformity with the recommendations of the report of a panel on financial sector reforms, headed by former RBI governor M. Narasimham. Jalan was in favour of using the bank rate sparsely, and focus on other instruments like repo rates, etc., to send short-term interest-rate signals…………

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'Present situation not right for rate cut'

.........."In my opinion, if the RBI cuts CRR by 100 bps...the banking system on its own will reduce interest rates. So, CRR is more important at this point of time than policy rate cuts."...........

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Clamour for 10-year NRE deposits increases

.......Banks in India received a net inflow of $1,067 million into non-resident external (NRE) accounts during November 2011, compared with $406 million in October 2011, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, coinciding with the depriciation of the Indian rupee and the higher interest rates offered on NRE deposits. However, there are those who feel that 10 years is too long a time to take a stance on interest rates........

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Swiss bank account: The smart ones saw it coming as fewer rooms left at home to park black money abroad

……A typical transaction to move money from Switzerland involves buying a shell company in Dubai or Singapore, opening an account of the company through the Reserve Bank-approved liberalised remittance scheme that allows investments up to $200,000 a year per person. This allows the Indian resident to hold shares of a paper company having account with a bank in Dubai or Singapore. A year ago, RBI, which perhaps had a whiff of what was on, barred residents from using the scheme to float new companies. But it has hardly been a deterrent as there is an army of lawyers ready with paper companies that are up for sale…….

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ED asked to look into deals of Dubai hotelier who saved Indians from gallows

……….Indicating a nexus, the whistle blower has said despite he being an informer on whose information, the income tax survey was made, the department is withholding information regarding the seizure to the informer. Vijay Pal Singh has moved an RTI appeal for this information.  The complaint has also recorded that banks are duty-bound to report the matter to Reserve Bank of India but nothing happened.

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