The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on March 17 had announced that State Bank of India (SBI) would extend a term loan of $1 billion to Sri Lanka, fully guaranteed by the Indian government, and this was part of India's financial aid to the troubled island nation. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Arindam Bagchi was quoted saying by news agency PTI that the loan would be used for importing food, medicines, and other essential items. "India has always stood with the people of Sri Lanka and we will continue to extend all possible support at this juncture.

Most members of the monetary policy committee (MPC) argued for front-loading interest rate hikes in view of rapidly rising inflation during the off-cycle monetary policy review earlier this month - the minutes of the meeting published on Wednesday showed. In early May, the rate setting committee met unscheduled and unanimously decided to hike the repo rate by 40 bps. This was the first repo rate hike in four years, and an inter-meeting hike in more than a decade.

Prices of food items like cereals, pulses, and edible oils rose or remained steady in May, a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report said, indicating there could be another higher inflation print. However, it observed that the Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC's) surprise move to increase interest rates bodes well for its credibility. The RBI's monthly State of the Economy report, released on Tuesday, citing high frequency food price data from the Ministry of Consumer Affairs for the period May 1-12, said the increase in the prices of cereals was primarily because of the surge in wheat prices.

After selling dollars for the past few months, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may take a hands-off approach before its annual account closing by not trying to prop up the rupee as geopolitical tensions show signs of stabilising with global crude oil prices easing from its $140 peak. The central bank was a net buyer of dollars between April and September, and then turned a net seller in the following months, the data released by the RBI showed. The RBI continued to be a net buyer of $36.6 billion in this fiscal year - between April and January. In 2020-21, it purchased $68 billion on a net basis.

As stringent sanctions imposed by the European Union and US are crippling business and trade, desperate Russian oil companies are offering huge discounts to India, provided a payment mechanism to bypass the SWIFT ban is quickly approved by the government. According to sources familiar with the development, Russian oil firms are offering 25-27 per cent discount to the dated Brent crude prices. State-run Rosneft is one the biggest oil companies that supply crude to India.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced a dollar-rupee two-year sell-buy swap auction for $5 billion on March 8, which will suck out rupee liquidity from the system. The swap will be in the nature of a simple sell/buy foreign exchange from the RBI side, in which a bank will buy US dollars from the central bank and simultaneously agree to sell the same amount of US dollars at the end of the swap period. "With a view to elongating the maturity profile of its forward book and smoothen the receivables relating to forward assets, it has been decided to undertake sell/buy swap auction of $5 billion on March 8, 2022," the RBI said in a statement. The auction cut-off will be based on the premium amount in paisa terms up to two decimal points.

The total amount of fraud reported by banks showed a drop in 2020-21 - for the first time in eight years - though there is an emerging trend of private sector banks reporting a larger number of frauds related to card and internet banking. According to the latest data released by the Reserve Bank of India, commercial banks reported Rs 1.38 trillion of frauds in 2020-21, as compared to Rs 1.85 trillion in the previous year. The first half of the current fiscal year saw banks reporting frauds worth Rs 36,342 crore.

The Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (Irdai), the regulator for insurance companies, is set to allow the insurers to offer wellness programmes along with life insurance policies that can earn reward points for the policyholders. These reward points can be redeemed for getting a discount during renewal. The insurance regulator has circulated draft guidelines to insurance companies for feedback before issuing the final guidelines, as is the norm.

A lot depends on how Srei shapes up under the new administrator and his team, which is critical for investors' interest.

Term insurance policy premiums are set to rise by 25 to 30 per cent with Munich Re, the largest reinsurer for the Indian insurance market, increasing its rates for underwriting portfolios of pure protection plans by up to 40 per cent. According to a senior executive of a private life insurance company, the global reinsurer has communicated its decision about increasing rates. About 8-10 insurance companies have been informed about the move, sources said.

The recent Reserve Bank of India (RBI) norms on tokenisation services, which will be offered by card networks, are likely to result in merchants and payment aggregators incurring a cost as they have to pay a fee to the networks. The merchants and the payment aggregators, in turn, may pass on the cost to the customers. The norms, which were issued by the banking regulator released on September 7, allow card networks like Visa and Mastercard to offer the tokenisation service.

'Even if there is a third wave or a fourth wave, it is hard to see the economy will suffer like that (during the first wave).'

'Spends are likely to increase from the current levels because recovery is yet to fully be over.'

'People know if inflation is not within the tolerance band, then action will be taken so they do not expect inflation to rise above that.'

The talk of governance reforms at public-sector banks seems to remain on paper, as a majority of them continue to be working with just a handful board members. Half of the board seat at these banks have been vacant. Ten of the 12 public-sector banks, even large ones like Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank and Union Bank of India - all except State Bank of India (SBI) and Bank of Baroda - don't even have a chairman. In 2014, while splitting the post of chairman & managing director (CMD), the government had decided to appoint non-executive chairmen at these banks. SBI, which has an executive chairman and four managing directors, was an exception.

Public sector banks (PSBs) have written off a massive Rs 8 trillion of loans in the seven years of the Narendra Modi government in office. This is more than twice the capital infused by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government during the period. Between 2014-15 and 2020-21 (FY21), the Centre had infused Rs 3.37 trillion into PSBs. At Rs 1.06 trillion, FY19 saw the highest capital infusion.

Only when we are part of the same family, which will happen down the line, then, of course, we will give them (PMC depositors) all the assurance and the comfort.'

Experts disagree with the idea and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which has the sole right to print money, is not comfortable with it as well.

Banks operating in India reported fraud of Rs 4.92 trillion as on March 31, 2021, which represents nearly 4.5 per cent of the total bank credit, showed Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, which was sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act by Saurabh Pandhare. The data showed 90 banks and financial institutions reported a total of 45,613 cases of loan fraud till March 31, 2021. State Bank of India - the country's largest lender - reported the highest amount of loans as fraud - Rs 78,072 crore as on March 31, 2021.

The flow of deposits from non-resident Indians (NRIs) hit a four-year low in the financial year 2020-21 mainly due to contraction in foreign currency deposits, latest data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) shows. Total NRI deposits during FY21 were $7.3 billion as compared to $8.6 billion in FY20 - the lowest since 2016-17, when such deposits had contracted by $12.3 billion. Indian banks have three kinds of deposit accounts where NRIs or PIOs (persons of Indian origin) can park their funds: non-resident external-rupee account (NRE); non-resident ordinary rupee account (NRO); and foreign currency non-resident bank account (FCNR [B]).