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Central bank's move may make lending to NBFCs relatively streamlined Large exposure norms for banks were on Monday amended by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The move will make lending to non-banking financial companies (NBFC) more streamlined and invite scrutiny on the structure of these entities.  The new framework, however, also makes it possible for government entities to borrow more, as they will not be considered part of a group of connected entities.  The central bank introduced economic interdependence criteria in the definition of connected counterparties and said banks must check how the different parties in a group were invested in each other's assets. The RBI also excluded entities connected with the sovereign from the definition of group of connected parties. This means that government-backed entities can expect to get higher loans from banks, without inviting objections of the RBI. All banks, however, have board-approved policies on lending to various enti...

The ministry said proactive measures undertaken by the government in past few months have led to increase in detection and reporting of bank frauds The finance ministry on Tuesday said there has been no rise in bank frauds in recent years, and an RBI reply to an RTI query on the issue pertained to the year in which the frauds were reported and not the year when they occurred.  The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in an RTI reply had disclosed that over 6,800 cases of bank fraud involving an unprecedented Rs 71,500 crore were reported in 2018-19 as against a total of 5,916 such cases in 2017-18 involving Rs 41,167.03 crore.  "The fact is that this data is by the year of reporting and not the year of occurrence of the fraud or sanction of loan, letter of undertaking etc, which in many cases is of an earlier period," the finance ministry said in a statement. The RBI data on frauds reported to it by banks has been cited in sections of the media to paint a picture of rising fraud...

That's more than the average length of a Masters thesis in economics and was before the adoption of inflation targeting in 2016 The Reserve Bank of India has come a long way from the days when monetary policy statements would average 13,000 words.  That’s more than the average length of a Masters thesis in economics and was before the adoption of inflation targeting in 2016. Since then, the central bank has become briefer and less complex in its policy communication, according to a recent paper published by the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research in Mumbai.  RBI statements have averaged 3,084 words in the post-inflation targeting regime, still pretty high if compared to the Federal Reserve’s average of 500 words, the paper’s authors, Aakriti Mathur and Rajeswari Sengupta, say. The readability of the RBI’s statements —based on the number of one syllable words in the text — has also improved. The researchers matched the policy communication against financial ma...

The report said that the relatively high level of cash in circulation offers scope for a higher level of digitisation of payments The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday released a report on Benchmarking India’s Payments Systems, which provides a comparative position of the payments ecosystem in India relative to comparable payments systems and usage trends in other major economies.  The study found that India has a strong regulatory system and robust large value and retail payments structure, which have contributed to the rapid growth in the volume of transactions. There has been substantial growth in e-payments by the Centre and in digital infrastructure, in terms of mobile networks. The report, however, notes that India is required to take further efforts to bring down the volume of paper clearing and increase acceptance infrastructure to enhance digital payments. This echoes the targets of the RBI’s Payments Vision Report 2021 and recommendations of the Nandan Nilekani...

Likely to replace ordinance on ease of doing business, corporate governance The government has begun work to bring in legislation to replace an ordinance that it had promulgated to improve corporate governance, ease of doing business and reduce the caseload on company law tribunals.  It will reintroduce the Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2019 in the upcoming budget session of Parliament starting June 17, said a senior official at the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The Bill will replace the ordinance re-promulgated in February.  The Bill seeks to help improve ease of doing business and reduce the caseload on the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). The ordinance, which first came into force in November last year, was re-promulgated in February after the replacement Bill was not ratified by the upper house of Parliament in the winter session because of time constraints. Bills replacing ordinances need to be placed before Parliament within six weeks of the reassembly of Parli...

Till about a month ago, the central bank was ranked 11th, but in March it added 3.7 tonnes of gold to its forex reserves and dislodged the Netherlands from the 10th spot The Reserve Bank of India purchased 52.3 tonnes gold in FY19 to augment its foreign exchange reserves, according to the latest data released on Tuesday by the World Gold Council. With this, it has entered league of world's top-10 gold holding central banks. RBI currently holds 612.6 tonnes of the metal as part of its foreign exchange reserves. Till about a month ago, the central bank was ranked 11th, but in March it added 3.7 tonnes of gold to its forex reserves and dislodged the Netherlands from the 10th spot.  The World Gold Council derives data on gold reserves from International Financial Statistics under International Monetary Fund. All signatory central banks have to provide monthly updates to the IMF on their gold purchases forming part of their foreign exchange reserves. The latest data shows the RBI’...

GST returns and accounts of firms to be audited for the first time; June 30 last date to file returns India Inc. is gearing up to face the first test of their goods and services tax filings, with the authorities looking to initiate audits by picking up returns for risk-based assessment from July.  “There is a direction that the audits should begin in July,” a government official said.  The audit is significant because this is the first time that GST returns and the accounts of companies will be scrutinised for compliance levels and the positions they had taken — whether they had interpreted tax provisions correctly and paid tax — after GST was introduced in July 2017. However, tax experts have called for the authorities to adopt a moderate approach during the reviews. Companies are required to file two returns by December 31, following the financial year ended March, although for FY18, the deadline was extended to June 30, 2019.  The returns are the GSTR9, or the an...