World Bank’s call to discontinue ‘Doing Business Report’ irks Pakistan, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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The World Bank‘s decision to discontinue ‘Doing Business Report‘ has irked Pakistan as it was confident that the country would make a leap in the next report to improve the current ranking of 108th, Dawn newspaper reported.

Previously, Pakistan progressed 39 places to secure 108th place on the ease of doing business global ranking, in the last two years. According to the Pakistani daily, the companies’ registration through the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has shown a 63 per cent growth.

Fareena Mazhar, Board of Investment (BoI) Secretary said that they were hopeful that the work which they were doing in regulatory reforms would provide an edge in terms of any future mapping criteria. One of the main things that Pakistan was hoping to capitalize on was the promulgation of commercial courts in Punjab province.

Last week, the World Bank Group decided to discontinue publication of its Doing Business report following allegations of irregularities. The decision was taken after a probe of data irregularities due to pressure by some top bank officials to boost China‘s ranking in 2017 came forth.

The Doing Business report assesses regulatory environments, ease of business startups, infrastructure and other business climate measures.

“After reviewing all the information available to date on Doing Business, including the findings of past reviews, audits, and the report the Bank released today (Thursday) on behalf of the Board of Executive Directors, World Bank Group management has taken the decision to discontinue the Doing Business report,” it said in a statement posted on the website.

The probe of data irregularities cited ‘undue pressure’ by top bank officials, including then-Chief Executive Kristalina Georgieva, to boost China’s ranking in 2017.

Georgieva, now the Managing Director of International Monetary Fund, and a key adviser pressured staff to ‘make specific changes to China’s data points’ and boost its ranking at a time when the Bank was seeking China’s support for a big capital increase.



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Several NPAs transferred to bad bank may head to liquidation, cost govt a bomb, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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The government has announced the setting up of National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd with much fanfare and committed over Rs 30,000 crore guarantee for bad assets acquired by it, but it may be used up soon, going by the initial assets going by the list of assets proposed to be transferred to the bad bank.

Banks have identified Rs 82,496 crores worth of bad loans that could be transferred to the NARCL, which includes the following companies.

COMPANIES TOTAL BAD LOANS
Videocon Rs 22,532 crore
Reliance Naval & Engineering Rs 8,934 crore
Amtex Auto Rs 9,014 crore
Jaypee Infratech Rs 7, 950 crore
Castex Technologies Rs 6,337 crore
GTL Ltd Rs 4,866 crore
Visa Steel Rs 3,394 crore
Wind World India Ltd Rs 3,161 crore
Lavasa Corporation Rs 1,424 crore
Consolidated Construction Consortium Ltd Rs 1,353 crore

Also read: NARCL will empower lenders, but recovery from 26 accounts is not easy, industry says
Several assets such as Videocon have seen realisable value close to liquidation value in National Company Law Tribunal proceedings. Many big-ticket resolutions at Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code have seen haircuts over 90%. With most of the NPAs proposed to be transferred to the bad bank being old legacy ones, there has been an erosion in value, making them more likely to head to liquidation.

Lavasa Corporation has got bids worth Rs 700 crore for loan claims of over Rs 8,000 crore at NCLT.

Several NPAs transferred to bad bank may head to liquidation, cost govt a bomb

Close to liquidation

Though banks have made 100% provision for these assets, even Rajkiran Rai, chairman of Indian Banks Association, and MD & CEO of Union Bank of India does not expect more than 20-25 per cent recovery from these legacy accounts, he told a television channel.

The State Bank of India has identified NPAs with Rs 17,000-18,000 crore outstanding to be transferred to the NARCL, while Punjab National Bank has identified Rs 8,000 crore worth of NPAs, Union Bank of India Rs 7,800 crore of NPAs to be transferred to the National ARC. The Bank of India has identified about Rs 5,500 crores of assets for transfer while Indian Bank about Rs 1,900 crore.

“I am not hopeful. Because these are bad assets. Finally, all these will go under liquidation,” Siby Antony, chairman of the ARC Association of India.

The bad bank

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a Rs 30,600 crore government guarantee for the National Asset Reconstruction Company Limited (NARCL) for acquiring stressed loan assets, paving the way for operationalisation of the bad bank.

Also read: Finance Minister Sitharaman announces bad bank, Cabinet approves backing of up to Rs 30,600 crore

The finance minister in Budget 2021-22 announced the setting up of a bad bank as part of the resolution of bad loans worth about Rs 2 lakh crore.

The bad bank or NARCL will pay up to 15 per cent of the agreed value for the loans in cash and the remaining 85 per cent would be government-guaranteed security receipts (SRs). The government guarantee would be invoked if there is a loss against the threshold value.

Also read: What are NARCL and IDRCL? How do they work and what is the plan?

This sovereign guarantee would be for a period of five years and NARCL would have to pay a fee for this.

“The SRs are getting the backstop through government funding only in as much as to pay the gap between the realised value (resolution/liquidation) and the face value of SRs and this will hold good for five years,” Sitharaman said.

The fee for the guarantee would be initially 0.25 per cent, which would progressively increase to 0.5 per cent in case of delay in resolution of bad loans.

Click here to read more stories on banking



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Reserve Bank of India – Press Releases

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April 14, 2015




Dear All




Welcome to the refurbished site of the Reserve Bank of India.





The two most important features of the site are: One, in addition to the default site, the refurbished site also has all the information bifurcated functionwise; two, a much improved search – well, at least we think so but you be the judge.




With this makeover, we also take a small step into social media. We will now use Twitter (albeit one way) to send out alerts on the announcements we make and YouTube to place in public domain our press conferences, interviews of our top management, events, such as, town halls and of course, some films aimed at consumer literacy.




The site can be accessed through most browsers and devices; it also meets accessibility standards.



Please save the url of the refurbished site in your favourites as we will give up the existing site shortly and register or re-register yourselves for receiving RSS feeds for uninterrupted alerts from the Reserve Bank.



Do feel free to give us your feedback by clicking on the feedback button on the right hand corner of the refurbished site.



Thank you for your continued support.




Department of Communication

Reserve Bank of India


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Key solutions to avoid delay in Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Delay in resolving the bad debt of companies have led to disruption of assets for all parties, experts say. According to data, of the ongoing cases, 75% have already exceeded 270 days and took more than 400 days on average.

The Supreme Court also expressed its concerns in its ruling recently, and ordered that the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) should not exceed more than 330 days.

Also read: Delay in resolutions raise questions on IBC regime

There is a need to remember the very essence of the Insolvency and Bank Code – timely resolution. To avoid delay and make CIRP faster, Ashok Paranjpe, managing partner at legal firm MDP & Partners, gives three solutions :

1. Preventing delay in admission of cases

One of the main reasons for delay in CIRP is at the root of it, admission of cases, he says. When it takes time to admit cases, the company remains under the control of the defaulting owner enabling value shifting, data transfers and funds diversion.

The adjudicating authority must make sure that the case is admitted within the stipulated time period of 14 days from the filing of the application. The abuse of the provision under Section 12 of IBC has led to delay in adjudicating the pending matters under National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT). Additionally, any successful bidder should not be permitted to suggest changes to any scheme approved by the committee of creditors and the adjudicating authority.

2. Professional code of conduct for the committee of creditors

According to Paranjpe, there is an urgent need to have a professional code of conduct for the committee of creditors, which will highlight specific duties and powers to take decisions on resolution plans, selection of the interim resolution professional and resolution professional.

3. Experienced and trained members of NCLT and NCLAT

It has been observed that very often orders passed by NCLT are appealed against to the NCLAT and ultimately the Supreme Court due to the lack of quality decisions from the judicial members of the adjudicating authorities. Recently, the Centre cleared appointments of 18 members to various tribunals in India, owing to the growing criticism over delays in filling up vacancies in NCLT.

Click here to read our coverage on IBC



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Rapid digitisation of banks invites cyber risks as well. What are the risks, and what should banks do?, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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-By Ishwari Chavan

The banking sector has always been victim of cyberattacks, and with COVID-19, it has become more vulnerable. Cyberattacks against banks and financial institutions across the globe increased to 238% between February 2020 and April 2020, according to VMware Carbon Black.

According to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), over 2.9 lakh cyberattacks related to digital banking were reported in 2020. A total number of 1,59,761; 2,46,514 and 2,90,445 cyber security incidents related to digital banking were reported during 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively. These incidents included phishing attacks, network scanning and probing, viruses and website hacking.

Year Number of cyber security incidents
2018 1,59,761
2019 2,46,514
2020 2,90,445

Source: Indian Computer Emergency Response Team

“The kind of security threats that we see whether it is a remote mirroring of applications, localization of your data stores in your mobile, hijacking of your sessions, social engineering attacks, all of those are very easy things to do. You don’t need real hackers to do that, smart people can do this too. That’s what has happened in the banking sector where we’ve seen a lot of increase in fraud, whether it’s on the UPI side or the traditional payment side,” said Ramesh Lakshminarayan, chief information officer at HDFC Bank.

According to Heeral Sharma, senior cyber security advisor at McAfee, three challenges must be tackled to ensure cyber safety. First is the challenge of internal IT security, second is digitization of applications and of critical data such as payments and personally identifiable information (PII), and third are cloud native threats.

What are the risks?

More and more individuals are now accessing their bank accounts through banks’ mobile apps. Many of these apps, and even customers, tend to have minimal or no security, such as users keeping easy passwords or banks keeping minimum password checks for transactions.

“The cloud threats in the BFSI segment increased by 571%, which is huge. The reason is simple, the network boundaries are no longer defined. It’s all borderless. So the attackers have found out new ways to get in and penetrate at times even by using legitimate credentials.” said Sharma.

Cyber security infrastructure as a whole needs an upgrade. Banks need to rightfully utilise their cyber security budget to help advance their technology and detect all kinds of risks.

As banks have upgraded their cyber security, attackers have turned to shared banking systems and third-party networks to gain access. In case, these are not as protected, there is more risk for cyberattacks.

Even for cryptocurrency, hacks have become more advanced as the segment is still unsure on how to implement cyber security.

What should banks do?

Banks should prioritise investing in cybersecurity and build a resilient infrastructure, to address current cyber security threats and prepare for challenges in the future.

“When we talk about digital we talk about investments. Our investments will also go into the cybersecurity segment as we move towards digitization. There should not be any compromise as far as the data securities and the Data Protection Service securities are concerned,” said Upma Goel, chief financial officer at Ujjivan Small Finance Bank.

Sharma stressed on how data protection requires a completely different approach so that banks are aware on what’s happening in the cloud. “Data protection, threat protection and network security model all built in together will provide a better approach and also take care of the complexity in the multi state and collaborative environment,” she said.

“If you look at the entire security landscape, right from an employee experience to the customer experience to our own, huge disruptions are happening in the area,” Lakshminarayan said. Banks are required to reimagine some of their own technology and adapt to a three-year or four-year journey, he added.

The article is based on the panel discussion on: Fireside Chat on Bankers Chariot, Riding on Tech that took place at ETBFSI CXO conclave



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Bond market enjoys its Yhprum’s law moment

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The bond market is experiencing the corollary of Murphy’s law – called the Yhprum’s law – that states, “Everything that can work, will work.”

Just when market participants were beginning to worry about the absence of the G-SAP announcement last week, two things happened. First, the CPI inflation number at 5.3 per cent stood reasonably below the market expectations. Second, and a crucial factor, is the talk on Indian government securities’ inclusion in global bond indices.

Comments made by the Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor Michael Patra assuaged markets regarding future monetary policy normalisation. “We don’t like tantrums; we like tepid and transparent transitions – glidepaths rather than crash landings,” said Patra.

Market participants believe that even if the economy starts to pick-up further and inflation continues to remain under control, any rate hike may still be far away. “The envisaged glidepath should take inflation down to 5.7 per cent or lower in 2021-22, to below 5 per cent in 2022-23 and closer to the target of 4 per cent by 2023-24,” Patra stated in his speech. Bond traders are of the view that with no upside shocks to inflation or the second half borrowing figure slotted to be announced later this month, there is no reason in the near term to discontinue the bullish stance. “If the second half borrowing figure comes in below or at the ₹5 lakh crore mark, it should be positive for the market,” a trader said.

On the cards

Steam picking-up on India’s inclusion in global bond indices is another crucial factor that could soften the yields further. Principal economic advisor Sanjeev Sanyal reportedly stated that preparatory work for the inclusion of certain G-secs in global bond indices is over and there could be some announcement pertaining to the matter this fiscal. The matter has been on the cards over the last few years.

Interestingly, so much has been talked about this matter over the last few years that at one point, bond traders simply began to ignore the sound bytes regarding any news on index inclusion. However, the conviction seems to be stronger this time and the same seems to be reflecting across the trading community.

Last week, the benchmark yield traded between 6.15 and 6.2 per cent. Bond traders say that in the absence of any major trigger in the immediate short term, the 10-year should continue to trade in the range of 6.1-6.2 per cent with a bias towards long positions.

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E-mandate processing: Banks, payment aggregators rush to meet deadline for recurring online transactions

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Banks and payment aggregators are scrambling to meet the October 1 deadline for standing instructions for recurring online transactions. Many banks are sending communications to customers saying that they will have to make payments directly to merchants.

“In compliance with the regulatory requirements, we are currently building a solution to seamlessly manage all your domestic standing instructions for recurring payments. This solution will be available soon for you. Starting October 1, any existing standing instruction for domestic and international recurring transactions on your card account will not be processed. We request you to make these payments directly to the service providers to avoid any interruptions,” American Express said in a recent message to customers.

American Express did not respond to an e-mail query from BusinessLine on the issue.

While a number of other banks are also working to comply with the norms, some are sending similar messages to customers.

Working to meet deadline

“This time around, the RBI norms will have to be met. But what may happen is that the existing standing instruction will become invalid and, as and when any issuer is ready, the customer can sign up for any new registration. There will be a period when the customer will have to pay the merchant directly. All of us are ensuring suitable customer communication and working to meet the deadline,” explained a banker.

As the new standing instruction will not get registered immediately, there may be one or two bill cycles that the merchant and consumer will have to take care of, he said.

The RBI had, in March, extended the deadline for banks to comply with norms for processing recurring online transactions by six months to September 30.

To make online transactions secure, the RBI has introduced an additional factor authentication for cards, wallets, prepaid instruments and UPI during registration and first transaction (with relaxation for subsequent transactions up to a limit of ₹5,000), as well as pre-transaction notification and facility to withdraw the mandate. However, many banks had failed to comply with the earlier deadline of March-end following which the RBI had decided to extend the deadline to prevent any inconvenience to the customers.

Bharat Panchal, Chief Risk Officer – India, Middle East and Africa, FIS, said banks are prepared to meet the deadline for standing instruction for recurring payments. But there are many in the ecosystem and some of them may not be prepared.

Other payment options

“Technically, there is not a significant challenge in implementing it. The infrastructure is available but just need to be extended. In case, customers are unable to do standing instruction for recurring payments on their credit cards, they still have a number of options such as UPI Autopay, BharatBill Pay, net banking and e-wallets,” he said.

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International arbitration centre at Gift City: IFSCA in talks with Law Ministry

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Gift City regulator IFSCA is close to setting up an international arbitration centre in Gift-IFSC, its Chairman Injeti Srinivas has said.

This international arbitration centre will be on the lines of Singapore international Arbitration Centre or London Commercial Arbitration centre.

“We will be able to do this by little tweaking of the Arbitration & Conciliation Act. IFSCA has already prepared a proposal and is in discussion with Union Law Ministry on this”, Srinivas said at a recent CII organised Financial Summit.

Gift-IFSC, which is currently the country’s sole international financial services centre, has an entirely separate financial jurisdiction with the International Financial Services Centre Authority ( IFSCA) as the unified regulator that has a holistic view of financial sector and enables its seamless integration. IFSCA has been empowered under 14 separate Central Acts

Srinivas said that IFSC should be looked at as a great opportunity for making India global and be treated as project of national importance.

IFSCA Chairman urged Corporate India to look at IFSC with more greater intent and integrate it with their plans to expand their global footprint.

Foreign bank branches

Today in less than a year, six foreign banks have opened their branches, Srinivas said. There are another eight in the pipeline, he added. “Gradually concentration of financial institution is also taking place in Gift City. Banks are the backbone of financial centre. Banks have much more liberty in terms of activities that can be undertaken in IFSC”, he added.

Fintechs

Srinivas said that IFSCA wants to leverage “our strength” with respect to cross border fintechs. “We are in the process of coming up with a fintech incentive scheme’, he added.

Company Law

Srinivas also said that IFSCA is looking at the company law tweaks to encourage SPACs (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) so as to enable them to look at Indian conpanies.

He highlighted that company law has been amended to allow unlisted companies to directly list abroad. ” The rules are yet to come for this. We are hopeful this would soon happen”, he said. It would then encourage Indian startups to first list at Gift City instead of going to Singapore or other overseas markets, he added.

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What Is Cyber Insurance In India? What Does Cyber Insurance Policy Include?

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What Is Cyber Insurance?

Cyber insurance is a type of insurance that protects organizations from the effects of cyber-attacks. After a cyber-attack/breach, it assists an organization in mitigating risk exposure by setting expenses. To put it another way, cyber insurance is intended to cover the fees, expenses, and legal costs involved with cyber breaches that occur after an organization has been hacked, as well as the theft or loss of client/employee information.

A typical cybersecurity insurance policy, also known as cyber risk insurance, is designed to protect businesses from cybercrime such as ransomware, spyware, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Costs of privacy investigations or litigation following an assault could also be included in the claims.

What is covered under Cyber Insurance?

What is covered under Cyber Insurance?

The coverage protects the insured’s bank account, credit card, debit card, or mobile wallet if money are stolen as a result of a cyber event/hacking of the insured’s bank account, credit card, debit card, or mobile wallet by a third party. It also covers defence costs for claims made against the insured by a third party who has been a victim of identity theft fraud.

  • The policy covers defence costs for claims brought against the insured by a third party or an affected party as a result of the insured’s hacked social media account.
  • It covers the costs of prosecuting the stalker. Malware-related data restoration costs are covered by the coverage.
  • It also protects against phishing attacks. The policy safeguards against the fraudulent use of a bank account, credit card, debit card, or e-wallet by a third party to make online purchases.
  • The policy covers financial losses incurred as a result of a faked email attack, as well as the cost of prosecuting the culprits.
  • It covers defence costs in defamation/invasion of privacy claims brought by third parties as a result of the insured’s publication/broadcasting of any digital media content.
  • It protects against extortion losses as a result of the cyber extortion danger and reimburses the cost of prosecuting criminals.
  • Because of the high demand for new cyber insurance products due to the ever-changing nature of cyber-attacks and new difficulties, general insurers must continue to strive to create custom-made products based on the model policy wordings and recommendations offered in the text.
  • Insurers should carry out the foregoing aims in a fair and useful manner for policyholders.

What is not covered?

What is not covered?

Prior notice of a fact or circumstance that has been accepted by the previous insurer is excluded.

Exclusions with Full Severability: The knowledge of one Insured Person is not imputed to another, and only the knowledge of the Organization’s Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, or Chief Operating Officer is imputed to the Organization.

An insured’s fraudulent act or wilful breach of any such law or regulation.

Mechanical failure, progressive deterioration, electric disturbance, media failure or breakdown, or any malfunction are all examples of mechanical failure.

Should you buy Cyber Insurance in India?

Business executives are becoming more anxious than ever about hackers and other data security breaches, with cyber intrusions and data breaches seemingly dominating the media on a daily basis. This global threat is compounded for accounting firm CEOs, who are faced with the dual problem of not just preserving their own information, such as a business, but also safeguarding the information of their clients.

Any security violation in your company’s technology can cost you money and, worse, cause mental distress. As a result, it’s always a good idea to cover your company with the best cyber liability insurance policies in order to deal with any ramifications that may arise as a result of any technological security difficulties.



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Analysts, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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With no major domestic macroeconomic data announcement this week, equity markets would keenly track the US Fed interest rate decision and other global trends to decide its further movement, analysts said. Equity benchmarks surged to their fresh lifetime peaks on Friday.

Analysts said positive economic data and government reforms in telecom, banking and automobile sectors helped in boosting market sentiments.

“This week is going to be critical for the Indian market after a recent outperformance because there is some weakness in global markets where the outcome of FOMC’s meeting, which is scheduled for September 21-22, will be a critical factor.

Other than the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan will also come out with its monetary policy on September 22, said Santosh Meena, head (research) at Swastika Investmart Ltd.

The movement of the dollar index and US bond yield will play a key role in the behaviour of emerging markets like India, Meena added.

“We are in a roaring bull market and I believe it may continue for the next 2-3 years but after a long time, I am sounding a little cautious as there are some signs which indicate that a short-term correction is around the corner,” Meena said.

During the last week, the 30-share BSE benchmark jumped 710 points or 1.21 per cent. Market benchmark Sensex scaled the 59,000-mark for the first time on Thursday.

“Nervousness would be seen in the market this week ahead of the US Federal Reserve meeting,” said Siddhartha Khemka, head (retail research) at Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd.

Shrikant Chouhan, head (equity research-retail) at Kotak Securities Ltd, said the Federal Reserve will kick off a two-day meeting on September 21, and the global markets will watch for an update on their bond-buying programme.

According to a note by Samco Research, “Investors across the world will be eyeing the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) meeting for more clarity on the outlook for both tapering as well as interest rate timelines.”

Markets would also track foreign institutional investors movement, rupee-dollar trend and Brent crude.

Vinod Nair, head (research) at Geojit Financial Services, said that this week, the global focus will be on the policy meetings of a few central banks including the Fed.



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