Issue: 1164
Bears tighten grip: Nifty
slips to 10-month low as geopolitical jitters slam D-Street: Markets suffered a sharp broad-based
selloff on Wednesday, with the Nifty50 closing at its lowest level in nearly 10
months, as escalating geopolitical tensions in the West Asia, a firming dollar
and persistent foreign institutional selling battered investor confidence. The
Sensex plunged 1,342.27 points or 1.72 per cent to close at 76,863.71, while
the Nifty50 shed 394.75 points or 1.63 per cent to end the session at 23,866.85
— slipping below the psychologically critical 24,000 mark for the first time
since the record highs seen at the start of 2026. Markets opened on a subdued
note — the Sensex at 78,238.91 and Nifty at 24,231.85 — but faced relentless
selling pressure through the day. A brief recovery attempt in the latter half
failed to sustain, and both indices settled near their day’s lows.
(Business Line)
Retail inflation in Feb
likely to have moved above 3%: Retail inflation, measured by
the Consumer Price Index (CPI), is expected to have climbed past 3 per cent in
February, though some economists anticipate a higher print of 4 per cent.
Experts further warn that the economic fallout from the ongoing war will likely
surface in the March data, scheduled for release in April.” The Statistics
Ministry is set to release February's retail inflation data this Thursday.
Following a 2.7 per cent print in January, this will be the second CPI report
of 2024 series."
(Business Line)
Odisha retains top spot in
NITI Aayog’s fiscal health index: Odisha retained its top
position in the latest Fiscal Health Index (FHI) 2026 released by NITI Aayog,
securing an overall score of 73.1. The state also improved its score from the
previous year, reinforcing its lead in fiscal management among India’s major
states. Goa and Jharkhand follow in the rankings, emerging alongside Odisha in
the group of top “Achiever” states. Gujarat and Maharashtra continue to feature
among the top five performers, reflecting relatively stable fiscal
fundamentals. Bihar, Karnataka and Telangana
showed signs of mild recovery, while Punjab, West Bengal and Kerala remained at
the bottom of the rankings.
(Financial Express)
Japan's MUFG,
State Bank of India partner to finance projects, including M&A: Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group
(MUFG) and the State Bank of India (SBI) on Wednesday announced a strategic
partnership to structure and finance projects, including mergers, acquisitions
and real estate financing for Indian and global clients. The
alliance follows recent reforms by India's central bank permitting domestic
lenders to ?finance corporate ?acquisitions, ?funding up to 75% of the deal value for
listed and unlisted firms. These new ?rules, effective April 1, also
allow funding acquisitions up to 20% of a ?bank's eligible capital base,
providing Indian banks with fresh credit growth opportunities.
(Economic Times)
HDFC ERGO General Insurance
names Parthanil Ghosh as MD & CEO: HDFC ERGO General Insurance
has appointed Parthanil Ghosh as its new Managing Director and Chief Executive
Officer. Ghosh will assume leadership from Anuj Tyagi. This significant change
is scheduled to take effect from April 16, 2026. The decision has received
approval from the company's Board of Directors. Regulatory clearances are
pending.
(Economic Times)
CRED gets RBI nod to operate
as payment aggregator: Fintech firm CRED has secured
final approval from the Reserve Bank of India to function as a payment
aggregator. This new authorisation complements its existing Prepaid Payment
Instrument license. CRED can now onboard merchants, process payments, and manage
settlements. The company reported reduced operating losses and revenue growth
in FY25.
(Economic Times)
PhonePe launches ‘RuPay
On-The-Go’ Card to simplify commuter payments across India:
honePe has announced the launch of the PhonePe
'RuPay On-The-Go' Card, a National Common Mobility Card (NCMC). This launch is a step towards India's 'One Nation
One Card' vision, aimed at digitizing transit payments across India. The PhonePe 'On-The-Go' Card is designed to simplify
the user's daily commute by functioning as an all-in-one transit card. It
allows for quick, tap-and-pay transactions on all NCMC-enabled services,
including metros, buses, trains, tolls, and parking across India in a fully
interoperable manner.
(Economic Times)
NPS Corporate scheme
reclassified for government, non-govt entities:
PFRDA has reclassified the National Pension System's
Corporate scheme into 'Legal Entities (Other than Government)' and 'Government
Entities'. This reclassification, effective January 1, 2026, also involves
revised charge structures for Points of Presence (PoPs) for both legal entities
and individual subscribers. Other than
that, the pension body has also revised the charge structure for Point of
Presence (PoP) under NPS for both legal entities and individual subscribers.
(Economic Times)
RIL to invest in US' first
major refinery in 50 years: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced
setting up of a new refinery in Brownsville, Texas, with investment from Mukesh
Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), which operates the world’s largest
and most complex single-site refinery in Gujarat’s Jamnagar. The refinery
project represents a $300 billion deal, Trump said on social media platform
Truth Social. “Thank you to our partners in India, and their largest privately
held energy company, Reliance, for this tremendous investment. It is because of
our America First Agenda, streamlining permits, and lowering taxes, that have
attracted billions of dollars in deals coming back to our nation,” he said.
(Business Standard)
FDI easing under Press Note
3 not meant for Chinese firms, clarifies govt: Global investors having Chinese shareholding
of up to 10 per cent will be eligible to invest in India under the automatic
route, across sectors. But this would depend on sectoral caps, according to
changes approved under the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy, government
officials said on Wednesday. Earlier, foreign firms with shareholders from
China or land-border nations owning even a single share had to seek mandatory
approval to invest in any sector in India under the Press Note 3 of the FDI
policy. However, entities registered in China and Hong Kong and countries
sharing land borders with India, will continue to need prior government
approval in case they want to invest in India. “All the restrictions for investors from
land-bordering countries (LBCs) are still applicable. There is no relaxation so
far as entities or investors in LBCs are concerned. This relaxation is only for
entities in non-LBCs and having beneficial owners from LBCs below 10 per cent
and non-controlling stake... there are no relaxations as far as investments
from LBCs are concerned,” Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal
Trade (DPIIT) joint secretary Jai Prakash Shivahare said.
(Business Standard)
Govt sets 60-day deadline
for select FDI proposals from border nations: Proposals for investments from China and other
land-border countries will include advanced battery components, rare earth
permanent magnets, rare earth processing sectors and such applications will be
processed and decided within 60 days under the latest foreign direct investment
(FDI) policy guidelines approved by the Union Cabinet.
(Business Standard)
GST alert: Undelivered
‘welcome kit’ can lead to suspension of registration: Businesses that have recently obtained a goods
and services tax (GST) registration should ensure that their registered
business address is correct and accessible. Tax experts warn that GST
registrations may be suspended if the physical "welcome kit" sent by
the tax department is returned undelivered. In many instances, in the case
of new GST registrations, the welcome letter returns unserved. This is due to
the fact that premises may be locked or the entity, being a new entity, may not
yet be located at the premises. In such cases, many times a show-cause notice is
served for cancellation of registration. The issue surfaced after the
introduction of a faster GST registration process under Rule 14A of the CGST
Rules, which allows low-risk applicants to receive registration quickly through
PAN and Aadhaar authentication.
(Moneycontrol)
UIDAI Launches Bug Bounty
Programme to Further Strengthen Aadhaar Security: The Unique Identification
Authority of India (UIDAI) has launched its first structured Bug Bounty
Programme to further strengthen the security of the Aadhaar system. The
programme allows cybersecurity experts to look for possible weaknesses in some
of UIDAI’s key digital platforms. If they find genuine security gaps and report
them responsibly, they will receive rewards based on the seriousness of the
issue. A panel of 20 experienced security researchers and ethical hackers has
been selected to take part in the initiative. They will examine UIDAI digital
assets such as UIDAI official website, myAadhaar portal and the Secure QR Code
application.
(PiB)
India developing indigenous
capability to detect unregistered virtual asset service providers: FATF report: India is launching a
groundbreaking Virtual Asset Lab to identify unregistered offshore virtual
asset service providers. This initiative targets firms that exploit
international boundaries to evade Indian regulations and facilitate money
laundering. With this proactive measure, India is reinforcing its financial
security and enhancing regulatory monitoring in the burgeoning realm of virtual
assets.
(PiB)
BUG BOUNTY PROGRAM
§ A
bug bounty program is a structured, incentivized initiative where organizations
invite independent security researchers (ethical hackers) to identify and
responsibly disclose vulnerabilities in their systems, apps, or software in
exchange for monetary rewards or recognition.
§ These
programs help improve security posture by crowdsourcing testing, with payouts
for critical bugs ranging from thousands to over $100,000, commonly managed
through platforms like HackerOne or Bugcrowd.
§ The
purpose is to find vulnerabilities, such as code injection or remote code
execution, before they are exploited by malicious actors.
RBI KEY RATES
Repo
Rate: 5.25%
SDF:
5.00%
MSF
/Bank Rate: 5.50%
CRR:
3.00%
SLR:
18.00%
FOREX RATES (RBI
REF. RATE)
INR
/ 1 USD : 91.9257
INR
/ 1 GBP : 123.6425
INR
/ 1 EUR : 106.9611
INR
/100 JPY: 58.2100
EQUITY INDEX
Sensex: 76863.71 (-1342.27)
NIFTY: 23866.85 (-394.75)
Bnk NIFTY: 55735.75 (-1215.05)
Historical
events: March 12 is a
significant date, most notably marked by Mahatma Gandhi starting the historic
240-mile Salt March (Dandi March) from Sabarmati Ashram in 1930 to protest
British salt taxes. Globally, this day in 1913 saw Canberra named as
Australia's capital, and in 1918, Moscow regained its status as Russia's
capital.
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