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RBI’s Acharya suggests shift in monetary policy stance, show minutes One member of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) rate-setting panel suggested starting the process of shifting the monetary policy stance from neutral to “withdrawal of accommodation”, increasing the odds of a rate hike this year. Noting the upside risks to inflation, Viral Acharya, RBI deputy governor, said he is likely to shift decisively to vote for a beginning of “withdrawal of accommodation” at the next Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in June. “Reinforcement of inflationtargeting credibility that such a shift would signal is crucial in my view for prudent macroeconomic management, on both the domestic and external sector fronts,” he said According to Gaurav Kapur, chief economist at IndusInd Bank, a combination of risk factors, both on the demand and supply side, should play out for changing the monetary policy stance to restrictive from neutral. “Such a shift is unlikely in June because there ...

I-T department seizes Rs4 crore in drive against cash hoarders   New Delhi: In a drive against cash hoarders, the income tax (I-T) department has seized currency worth Rs4 crore from people in states, including Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, which have reported cash shortages. The drive is part of the tax department’s efforts to track down currency hoarders suspected of gaming the formal banking system to mobilize currency for making unaccounted payments. The search operations were conducted over the last few days, said a government official who did not wish to be identified. The Mint, New Delhi, 20th April 2018 ---------------

Govt to continue talks with RBI on easing non-performing asset norms Officials said the Prime Minister's Office and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had been apprised of the matter A day after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor N S Vishwanathan ruled out easing new norms for non-performing asset (NPA) resolution, the government doubled down on its stance that a strict application of these norms could send too many cases to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and clog the insolvency pipeline. Business Standard has learnt from senior government sources that the finance ministry will initiate a fresh round of communication with the RBI once Governor Urjit Patel returns to India. Patel, along with Deputy Governor Viral Acharya, is in Washington, DC for the World Bank-International Monetary Fund Spring meeting, which is slated to end on April 22. Officials also said the Prime Minister’s Office and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had been apprised of the matter. A so...

  Wrong info in ITR will be reported to employers: I-T to salaried class The tax filing season for salaried class taxpayers has just begun with the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), that frames policy for the department, recently notifying the new ITRs The Income Tax Department on Wednesday cautioned salaried class taxpayers against using illegal means like under-reporting of income or "inflating" deductions while filing their returns, stating violators will be prosecuted and their employers will be intimated to take action against them. The Central Processing Centre (CPC) of the department in Bengaluru, that receives and processes the Income Tax Returns (ITRs), has issued an advisory specifying such taxpayers should not "fall prey" to unscrupulous tax advisors or planners who help them in preparing wrong claims to get tax benefits. Calling it a "cautionary advisory" on reports of tax evasion by under-reporting of income or inflating deductio...

RBI firm on new NPA rules, says cos should not take loan contract casually The deputy governor said even some highly rated borrowers had failed on the one-day default norm Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor N S Vishwanathan strongly defended its new rules on debt resolution, including the one-day default norm, stating that banks should get into action before any such default takes place and that companies should not take the covenants of a loan contract casually.  “The debt contract embedded in bank loans has been continuously losing its sanctity, especially where the borrowing is large. There is a need to change this and restore sanctity of the debt contract, lest bank debt becomes subordinate even to equity,” said Vishwanathan at the National Institute of Bank Management, Pune. The new framework aimed to restore the sanctity of such debt contracts, he stressed. The speech addressed several issues raised by bankers and some government officials. It indicated the...

  Supreme Court says biometric authentication of Aadhaar prone to misuse If a person is unable to get ration due to failure of authentication, then any other family member can produce the Aadhaar number to get the benefits. If biometric authentication is attached to every transaction entered into by a person, it would "form a wealth of information" necessitating the need for data protection, the Supreme Court observed on Wednesday. A five judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, hearing a clutch of petitions challenging Aadhaar and its enabling 2016 law, apprised the UIDAI of its apprehensions saying biometric authentication of Aadhaar number in every transaction could lead to aggregation of meta data of citizens, which can be collated and used for many purposes including surveillance. Aadhaar "Fingerprint by itself does not disclose any information. But, when it attaches with all the other information, it forms a wealth of information and then comes th...

With the ongoing cash crunch, digital money gets another lifeline As news of no-cash flooded social media sites and news channels, the past 24 hours have seen a surge in people queuing to get the KYC done After a lull for months, things might be again looking up for the country’s digital money entities, due to the ongoing cash shortage. After demonetisation, the sector had a shortlived dream run, from November 2016 to mid-2017. According to the Reserve Bank of India’s data on prepaid payment instruments (a chunk of which is mobile wallets), these collectively clocked Rs 38.3 billion in transactions during January, falling to Rs 36.5 billion in February. The March numbers are not out, but might fall again - many users stopped using mobile wallets after the February 28 deadline for getting the know-your-customer (KYC) checks done by mobile wallet entities. Many had decided not to get this done and, say observers, the digital money space had lost almost 45 per cent of its user bas...

Govt advances deadline for GST seller returns for April, May, June However, the government has not changed the deadline for filing GSTR-3B The government has advanced the deadlines for filing of seller forms under the goods and services tax, GSTR-1, for April, May and June, in comparison to those given for previous months. GSTR-1 for the month of April will have to be filed by May 31. Earlier, 40 days were given for filing these, which would have made June 10 the deadline. Returns for May have to be filed by June 10 and for June by July 10. So, only 10 days after the month ends, against the earlier 40 days. Abhishek Jain, indirect tax partner at consultants EY India, said businesses take four of five days to close the accounts after the month ends. Leaving them five or six days to file the return. However, the government has not changed the deadline for filing GSTR-3B. These are to still be filed by the 20th of the following month. The idea is to allow reconciliation between th...

RBI scotches speculation on easing default norms  Mint Street has virtually scotched speculation regarding the easing of norms on default classification, saying that the new rules seek to change the credit culture in a country where even big companies that can repay on time tend to game the system to earn additional income.  Complaints that the timeline given to regularise a defaulter’s account is insufficient are misplaced and the effort is to ensure that arbitrage between different markets are eliminated, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor NS Vishwanathan said Wednesday.  “It is a behaviour change in repayment of credit that has to come about," Vishwanathan told graduating students at the National Institute of Bank Management. “The data show that a large number of borrowers, even some highly rated ones, have failed on the 1-day default norm. This has got to change." On February 12, the central bank came up with a tight set of norms for the recognition o...

Private Banks Feeling the Heat Tighten Loan Sanction Process BANKERS TURNING more cautious in granting new loans after the latest controversies The ICICI Bank controversy and Axis Bank’s chief cutting short her tenure have now made private sector lenders extra watchful about making loans, picking up a trend that’s been prevalent at state-owned banks in the wake of corruption investigations. Decisions that were considered routine a few months ago are getting delayed, said bankers and others with knowledge of the matter. “Bankers are unwilling to sign a single paper especially after these issues about ICICI Bank and the Axis Bank CEO have come to light,” said Purvesh Shelatkar, senior vice president, institutional sales at Centrum Broking. “In one case that I personally know of, an IT solutions provider had been sanctioned a loan but the money has not been released because there are questions over its credit rating. These things will happen more often now.” It’s too early to sa...

Relaxed Currency Derivatives Norms to Bring More Arbitrage Opportunities Move likely to deepen domestic currency market and make it more popular among overseas investors Easier currency derivative rules have helped traders exploit the opportunities of arbitrage between rates in the overseas options markets and those back home. In effect, the arbitrage is helping deepening the domestic currency market, which is increasingly becoming a preferred destination for overseas investors. The option premium, or the cost of insurance against volatility, is about 50 basis points less than the offshore market across various currency pairs – the rupee-dollar, rupee-pound, rupee-yen, and the rupee-euro. “Arbitragers have found a new destination – the options market,” said Anindya Banerjee, currency analyst at Kotak Securities. “With more space available, they are now betting between the offshore and domestic exchange traded options markets. This will help deepen the currency derivative mark...