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Lead by PSBs, NPAs soar 34.5% in Q3; pain to linger on, claims report Public sector banks had a weaker performance on various indicators, including the key parameter of NPAs and also profitability, according to the agency The issue of impaired assets may be far from over for the banking system as gross non- performing assets have grown by 34.5 per cent in the December quarter, says a report. Even as bankers guide towards a better position with regard to bad loans, rating agency Care has said the issue of impaired assets is not yet over, including on recognition and accretion of loans into the dud assets category. In the report based on the performances of 30 lenders, including 17 private sector banks and 13 state-run ones, the agency said the quantum of gross NPAs moved up to 9.45 per cent as of December from 8.34 per cent a year ago. While private sector banks' bad loans ratio was maintained broadly at 4.1 per cent, their state-run counterparts registered a spike in the pr...

IT Raid Cases Not to be Processed Under E-assessment: CBDT The soon-to-be rolled out pan India e-assessment system for scrutiny cases of taxpayers will not be applicable to instances where a raid has been conducted against an assessee by the Income Tax (IT) department, the CBDT has said. It has added that the current system of manual assessment will continue in cases, where the books of accounts or original documents have to be examined, the taxman has to conduct a third-party investigation and where the tax officer has to examine a witness It will also be applicable to cases where the taxman has issued a show-cause notice to the assessee, "contemplating any adverse view", and cases where the taxpayer has requested for a "personal hearing" to explain the matter to the assessing officer The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the policy-making body of the IT department, issued an instruction on Monday to further explain how the system would work, once ful...

PF body proposes decreasing administrative charges for employers The central board of trustees (CBT) of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) will discuss a proposal to decrease the administrative charges for employers in a bid to boost social security coverage for the workers later this month. The EPFO has proposed to decrease the administrative charges to 0.50 per cent from 0.65 per cent of the worker’s monthly income that goes as employer’s share. This is the third year in a row that the EPFO has proposed decreasing the administrative charges for employers. “It is recommended that the administrative charges may further be reduced to 0.50 per cent of pay to ensure that the benefits of efficiency and savings are passed on to employers. The reduced liability on establishment can provide incentive to the employers to extend social security coverage to more employees or workers,” the agenda item of the CBT meeting, to be held on February 21, said. The EPFO meets the e...

‘Revised RBI norms to clean up NPAs in one go’ Expressing the government’s firm commitment to deal with the problem of non-performing assets (NPAs), Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar on Tuesday said the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) revised guidelines would help clean up the bad loan mess in one go within a strict timeframe. “It is a wake up call to defaulters. Government is determined to clean up things in one go and not defer it. Resolution now will happen within a timeframe,” he said. Resolution Now Will Happen  Within a Timeframe The revised framework has specified norms for “early identification” of stressed assets, timelines for implementation of resolution plans, and a penalty on banks for failing to adhere to the prescribed timelines.The latest notification issued by the RBI on Monday has also withdrawn the existing mechanism. The Joint Lenders’ Forum as an institutional mechanism for resolution of stressed accounts also stands discontinued, it said, ad...

Sebi to meet rating agencies on faster access to default data Capital market regulator Sebi will meet credit rating agencies this week to explore ways to have quicker access to information on loan defaults by corporates. With the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) having so far refused to share the sensitive information beyond the banking industry, Sebi is keen that all rating agencies take membership of credit information companies (CICs) to obtain default data that banks have to report to CICs. Many corporates as well as banks are reluctant to share default information with rating agencies. The only agency that receives the data on a daily basis is Central Repository of Information on Large Credit (CRILC), a RBI controlled entity, which only gives banks (but not other lenders and market participants like NBFCs) access to the data. Compared to this, CICs typically come to know about defaults after a month or a fortnight."The regulator may discuss ways to improve the quality of d...

IIP GROWTH, RETAIL INFLATION DIP The economy continued to witness high growth in industrial production in December and retail price inflation in January, despite both declining from their 17-month highs seen in the previous month. Despite persisting double-digit growth in capital goods and fast-moving consumer goods, the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) expanded at a slower pace of 7.4 per cent in December, from the upward revised 8.8 per cent in November. Provisional estimates had put the November growth at 8.4 per cent. Infrastructure and construction grew 6.7 per cent, against 13.89 per cent in November. The numbers were bolstered by manufacturing and a low growth of 2.4 per cent a year ago due to demonetisation. INDIVJAL DHASMANA & ISHAN BAKSHI write. The economy continued to witness high growth in industrial production in December and retail price inflation in January, despite both declining from their 17-month highs seen in the previous month.Despite persisting do...

EAC-PM discusses ways to rollout of mega healthcare scheme The Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) today discussed possible modalities for implementing the world's largest health protection scheme announced in the Union Budget, said an official release. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in his Budget Speech on February 1, had announced that the government would launch a flagship 'National Health Protection Scheme' to cover over 10 crore households (about 50 crore people) by providing annual coverage of up to Rs 5 lakh per family for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation. "Keeping in view the national health scheme announced by the government in the Budget for the year 2018-19 presented in Parliament on February 1, 2018, the EAC-PM discussed the possible modalities of implementing the scheme," said a release.The mega scheme is likely to be launched either on August 15 or October 2. The Business Standard, New Delhi, 13th February 20...

With IBC the Default Tool, RBI Retires Debt Rejig Processes Puts strict time limits on resolution of defaults, warns lenders of penalties on violations The Reserve Bank of India has scrapped a number of loan-restructuring programmes that banks were using to recast debt, with the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) having become the main tool to deal with defaulters. It also put strict time limits on the resolution of defaults in a notification issued late on Monday. T he central bank warned lenders of monetary penalties and higher provisions if they are found to have violated the rules or ‘evergreening’ accounts to escape the stringent new norms on CDR, JLF frameworks from March 2018 stressed asset resolution framework in view of enactment of IBC all stressed cases of over 2,000 cr must be completed within 180 days then account to be referred to IBC in 15 days outside IBC, account should not be in default with an exposure of more than 5 crore have to be reported on a weekly ba...

EPFO sells a portion of equity to maintain 8.65% interest rate EPFO has encashed its first tranche of equity investments it made in 2015 and made capital gain, including dividends, of Rs1,053.75 crore India’s retirement fund manager, the Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO), has booked a profit of over Rs1,000 crore by selling some of its equity investments to maintain interest rate at the same level as last fiscal, said two officials in the know.The move, which comes ahead of its annual interest rate declaration, may help EPFO offset relatively low returns from debt investments this year, two officials aware of the matter said. If EPFO pays 8.65% this year, the same as last fiscal, it will be considered a net positive for subscribers in the current market situation, especially when other PF and small saving rates including Public Provident Fund (PPF) and Government Provident Fund (GPF) rates are going down.PPF and GPF earned 7.6% rate in the current quarter. “The org...

Govt removes exemptions for ITR filing In a move to crack down on shell companies, the government has proposed to remove exemption available to firms with tax liability of up to Rs 3,000 from filing incometax (IT) returns from the next fiscal year.The Union Budget 201819 has rationalised the ITAct provision relating to prosecution for failure to furnish the returns. Thus,amanaging director oradirector incharge of the company duringaparticular financial year could be liable for prosecution in case of any lapse in ITreturn filings for any financial year beginning April 1. “The incometax departments would now track investments by these companies. Also, the focus will be on those firms that show less profit and also those who file ITreturns for the first time,”afinance ministry official said.There are about 1.2 million active companies in the country, out of which about 700,000 are filing their returns, including annual audited report, with the ministry of corporate affairs. Of thi...

RBI withdraws SDR, S4A, sets banks 180-day timeline for bad loan resolution Banks must implement a resolution plan within 180 days where exposure is Rs2,000 crore and above, failing which the NPA account has to be referred to the insolvency and bankruptcy code within 15 daysThe Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday tightened norms for bad loan resolution by setting timelines for resolving large NPAs, failing which banks will have to mandatory refer them for insolvency proceedings. It also withdrew existing debt restructuring schemes such as SDR and S4A. RBI has issued definitions of different resolution plans and an indicative list of financial difficultly, and directed lenders to share data on certain defaulted borrowers with the central bank’s database on large exposures on every Friday.The large accounts are mainly those where banks have initiated resolution and are classified as restructured standard assets. Indian banks are sitting on a stressed assets pool of over Rs10 tril...