Issue: 1328
·
Pine Labs block deal: Mastercard Asia-Pacific to sell entire
4.31% stake for nearly Rs 890 crore.
·
RBI's forex swap scheme pulls in $143.6 billion till Sep 18.
·
NSE IPO subscribed 5.71 times as institutional demand surges.
·
HDFC Securities says 98% of digital transactions insulated
from UPI MDR.
·
Godrej Wealth plans mutual fund business, targets Rs.1 lakh
crore AUM by 2031.
·
RBI weighs Anup Bagchi for HDFC top job; seeks feedback from
Irda.
India-New Zealand FTA to
kick in on Oct 20 with zero tariffs on Indian goods: The India-New Zealand FTA will be implemented on
October 20, paving the way for duty-free exports of 100 per cent of Indian
goods, including labour-intensive items such as textiles, carpets, chemicals,
gems and jewellery, pharmaceuticals, auto and auto components and machinery.
This move has the potential to double bilateral trade in goods and services to
Rs 35,000 crore (about $4 billion) in four-five years, Commerce Minister Piyush
Goyal said. “New Zealand has furthermore committed to investing
$20 billion in India as Foreign Direct Investment under the FTA. This will
provide our manufacturing sectors with both capital and technology, while also
attracting New Zealand companies to invest in India…,” Goyal said at a media
briefing on Monday.
(Business Line)
India stands firm on
Russian oil amid US tariff threat: India is holding firm on its
decision to source energy from Russia and has signalled that it will not allow
the threat of higher US tariffs to dictate its energy choices, even as it
prepares for the possibility of additional tariffs by Washington following the
US House of Representatives’ passage of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia
and Iran Act on Wednesday. The Ministry of External Affairs, in a statement on
Thursday, said its energy procurement and response to trade measures will be
guided by its national interests. It also cautioned that targeting India
through the legislation could adversely affect the bilateral relationship and
may affect the global energy market.
(Business Line)
Core sector growth down to
4.8% in August: Production
growth of nine key infrastructure sectors slowed to a three-month low of 4.8
per cent in August, according to the latest government data released on Monday.
Growth rate was 5 per cent in July and 6.2 per cent in August last year. During April-August, the pace of growth was
higher at 4.3 per cent compared to 2.4 per cent in the same period of 2025-26.
(Business Line)
Govt urges bank employees
to refrain from strikes, resolve issues through dialogue: The Finance Ministry urged
bank employees to refrain from resorting to strikes and resolve their remaining
demands through dialogue, saying most concerns of the unions have been
substantially addressed. The appeal from the government
comes ahead of a three-day nationwide strike called by the United Forum of Bank
Unions beginning September 28. The finance ministry, said the
remaining demand continues to be examined and highlighted that the welfare
measures are being introduced for the banking workforce. It
also said that one of the main demands of the unions is withdrawal of the
Performance Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, which was put in abeyance earlier
this month after detailed discussion.
(Moneycontrol)
RBI issues final directions
for minimum capital requirement for market risk under Basel III: RBI said on September 21 that
it has issued the final directions for the minimum capital requirement for
market risk under Basel III for commercial banks. The guidelines, which were first
introduced back in April 2023, proposed the adoption of the Simplified
Standardised Approach (SSA) for computing capital requirements for market risk
under the revised Basel III framework. Now, under the final directions of the
framework, the RBI has clarified the boundary between the banking book and
trading book for a commercial bank. It has said that the trading book, for
capital adequacy, will include all instruments that are classified as ‘Held for
Trading’ (HFT). The RBI said that a bank should not classify any instrument
under the trading book as part of the banking book to showcase lower capital
requirements. A bank can hedge risk in the
banking book either directly through an external hedge or through internal risk
transfer, according to the RBI. The RBI has prescribed an SSA
for calculating market-risk risk-weighted assets. The framework covers three
broad risk classes: interest-rate risk, equity risk and foreign-exchange risk. The
new directions will come into effect from April 1, 2027.
(Moneycontrol)
FinMin tells banks to stock
ATMs, minimise disruption during strike: The Finance Ministry on Monday
asked the chiefs of public sector banks (PSBs) and regional rural banks (RRBs)
to take appropriate measures to ensure uninterrupted banking operations and
essential customer services, including sufficient cash in ATMs, during the bank
strike called by employee unions from September 28 to 30, sources said. In
view of the bank strike called by the unions, Financial Services Secretary
Sanjay Lohiya held a meeting on Monday to take stock of the situation with the
heads of PSBs, RRBs, the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) and NABARD. Banks have
been advised to fill ATMs and try to keep as many branches functioning as
possible to reduce inconvenience to the public, sources said.
(Financial Express)
Bandhan Bank promoter to
gradually reduce stake to meet RBI norms: Bandhan Financial Services
will reduce its stake in Bandhan Bank gradually. The promoter aims to comply
with RBI regulations by 2030. Recent share sales occurred on the open market, lowering
holdings. A proposed stock split will divide shares to attract retail
investors. Shareholders will review this plan at the upcoming annual general
meeting.
(Economic Times)
RNFI Money gets RBI
approval to undertake cross-border trade remittances: RNFI Money, a wholly owned
subsidiary of RNFI Services, has received RBI approval to undertake
cross-border trade remittances. The licence will allow it to expand regulated
foreign exchange, remittance and trade-payment services through RNFI’s existing
last-mile network, alongside the parent company’s recent in-principle
authorisation to operate as a Payment Aggregator–Physical (PA-P). The company
said the licence has perpetual validity.
(Economic Times)
MSME credit hits Rs.47.4
trillion with clusters driving growth: Report: India’s micro, small and
medium enterprise (MSME) credit portfolio rose 12.5 per cent year-on-year to
~47.4 trillion as of June 2026, with lending increasingly concentrated in
established industrial and trading clusters, according to a report by CRIF High
Mark. CRIF classifies MSMEs by
credit exposure as micro (up to ~2 crore), small (~2-20 crore) and medium
(~20-100 crore). Small and medium enterprises drove credit growth, with their
portfolios expanding 20.3 per cent and 21.3 per cent, respectively, while lending
to micro enterprises remained largely stagnant.Micro enterprises accounted for
84.4 per cent of active MSME credit accounts, suggesting further scope for
credit expansion and formalisation, the report said.
(Business Standard)
Microsoft makes Hyderabad
AI hub: Microsoft has positioned
Hyderabad as a strategic hub for its next generation of artificial intelligence
(AI) services, as it on Monday formally launched its India South Central cloud
region, taking its hyperscale cloud footprint in the country to four regions. The
Hyderabad region, which is part of Microsoft’s $20.5-billion investment
commitment in India, has three availability zones and is designed to support AI
workloads. Puneet Chandok, president, Microsoft India and South Asia, said the
company would bring its frontier AI technology and services being built for the
next phase of AI adoption to the new region.
(Financial Express)
After Meta, Google to share
child sexual abuse case details with govt: Search engine major Google will also start
sharing details of child sexual abuse cases and repeat offenders with the
cybercrime division of the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) of the
Ministry of Home Affairs, sources told Business Standard. Google follows in Meta
India’s footsteps, which has also agreed to start reporting details of child
sexual abuse material (CSAM) cases as well as other details of repeat offenders
in such cases. A spokesperson for Google confirmed the development and said
that it had “proposed to operationalise the provision of relevant information
to the I4C in cases related to CSAM.”
(Business Standard)
First under Samudra
Manthan: ONGC strikes gas in Mahanadi offshore: In a major breakthrough for India's deepwater
exploration programme, state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has
struck gas in the deep waters of the Mahanadi Basin off the Odisha coast,
recording encouraging flow and sustained reservoir pressure. ONGC on Monday announced
that it made the discovery on September 18 at the MN-DW18-1-H-D well, which was
drilled to a target depth of 1,623 metres. This was the first well the company
drilled in the basin under the government’s Samudra Manthan initiative, the
national offshore exploration mission.
(Business Standard)
'Neither tax nor cess':
Sitharaman hits out at Opposition over UPI MDR 'misinformation': As Opposition continues to trade guns at the
Centre over UPI charges, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday
emphasised that the Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) transaction charges on UPI
payments will not be passed on to the consumers.
Speaking to ANI, the
Finance Minister said she had spoken about the matter during the Parliament
session also and accused the opposition parties of spreading misconceptions and
trying to mislead people. She said MDR is a charge levied by service providers
to improve the system and provide better service. ”It does not apply to transactions below Rs 2,000.
It is neither a tax nor a cess; the funds will not be deposited into the
Consolidated Fund of India. It is a charge levied by service providers to
improve the system and provide better service, not for small transactions.
Moreover, it is a charge between operators; it will not be passed on to the consumer.
The burden does not fall on the customer,” she said.
(Moneycontrol)
UP affirms its top position
in tax collection, followed by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu: Uttar Pradesh continues to lead among states
and Union Territories in collection from taxes during the April-August period
of the current fiscal, followed by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, data from the
Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) showed. The state also tops in
terms of the highest number of GST assessees with over 22 lakh. Uttar Pradesh
collected over Rs.2.06 lakh crore during the five-month period, which is around
12 per cent higher than the corresponding period of last fiscal. The study does not include
another large state, Maharashtra, as five-month data for the said state is not
available. However, in FY26, its collection from taxes in the five-month period
was lower than Uttar Pradesh.
(Business Line)
RBI OMOs reduce liquidity
to Rs.6 trn; GST outflows help absorb surplus: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s measures to
absorb liquidity through bond sales have been gaining traction, with the
banking system’s net liquidity falling to a surplus of around Rs.6 trillion
from a record high of over Rs.11 trillion and the weigh¬ted average call rate
aligning with the policy repo rate, market participants said. The overnight
WACR — the operating target of the RBI’s monetary policy — settled at 5.24 per
cent on Monday, against the previous close of 4.92 per cent as the central’s
open market operation (OMO) sales and GST related outflows helped absorb
surplus liquidity from the banking system. The RBI decided to conduct the OMOs
of bond sales to soak up surplus liquidity starting September 18. The net
liquidity in the banking system hovered around Rs.6 trillion between Friday and
Sunday, according to the latest data released by the RBI. The liquidity had
peaked at Rs.11.16 trillion during the first week of September.
(Business Standard)
SOVEREIGN WEALTH
FUND (SWF)
§ A
sovereign wealth fund is a state-owned investment fund comprised of money
generated by the government, often derived from a country's surplus reserves.
SWFs provide a benefit for a country's economy and its citizens.
§ The
funding for a sovereign wealth fund can come from a variety of sources. Popular
sources are surplus reserves from state-owned natural resource revenues, trade
surpluses, bank reserves that may accumulate from budgeting excesses, foreign
currency operations, money from privatizations, and governmental transfer
payments.
§ In
general, sovereign wealth funds usually have a targeted purpose. Some countries
have sovereign wealth funds that can be similar to venture capital for the
private sector.
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 : 95.7991
INR
/ 1 GBP : 128.1224
INR
/ 1 EUR : 109.9033
INR
/100 JPY: 60.9900
EQUITY INDEX
Sensex:
74858.99 (+564.03)
NIFTY:
23414.30 (+67.90)
Bnk NIFTY: 56470.65 (+111.95)
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