Category: Banking & Finance

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.

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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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Most merchant bankers indicate 52 weeks’ time, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Most of the merchant bankers who had submitted bids for facilitating strategic sale of LIC-controlled IDBI Bank indicated a time-frame of one year to complete the elaborate process, sources said.

During a presentation before the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) held recently, most of the eligible transaction advisers gave a time-frame of 50-52 weeks to undertake several stages of the privatisation process of IDBI Bank, market sources said.

However, the government intends to complete the transaction during the current fiscal itself. Thus the merchant banker has to find a buyer in about 26 weeks or six months.

According to market sources, as many as seven bids — Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP, Ernst and Young LLP, ICICI Securities Ltd, JM Financial Ltd, KPMG, RBSA Capital Advisors LLP and SBI Capital Markets Ltd — were received.

DIPAM on behalf of Government of India had floated a tender in June inviting bids from transaction advisors from reputed professional consulting firms or investment bankers or merchant bankers or financial institutions for facilitating and assisting strategic disinvestment of IDBI Bank. The last date for submission of bids was July 13.

KPMG placed the lowest bid of Re 1, and was selected as the transaction adviser, market sources said, adding, the firm will assist the government in the sale for Re 1.

The Cabinet had in May given in-principle approval for IDBI Bank’s strategic disinvestment along with transfer of management control.

The central government and LIC together own more than 94 per cent equity of IDBI Bank. LIC, currently having management control, has 49.24 per cent stake, while the government holds 45.48 per cent. Non-promoter shareholding stands at 5.29 per cent.

The transaction advisor would be required to advise and assist the government on modalities of disinvestment and the timing; recommend the need for other intermediaries required for the process of sale/disinvestment and also help in identification and selection of the same with proper Terms of Reference.

The transaction advisor will also assist in preparation of all documents like Preliminary Information Memorandum (PIM), organise roadshows to generate interest among the prospective buyers and suggest measures to fetch optimum value.

The advisor would also be supporting IDBI Bank in setting up an e-data room and assisting in the smooth conduct of the due diligence process.

As per the eligibility criteria outlined in the RFP, the bidders should have advised at least one transaction of strategic disinvestment/strategic sale/M&A activities/private equity investment transaction of the size of Rs 5,000 crore or more during the period from April 2016 to March 2021.

The extent of shareholding to be divested by the central government and LIC shall be decided at the time of structuring of transaction in consultation with the RBI, the government had earlier said.

Insurance giant LIC had acquired controlling stake in IDBI Bank in January 2019.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget for 2021-22 had said the process of privatisation of IDBI Bank would be completed in the current fiscal.

The government aims to mop up Rs 1.75 lakh crore in the current fiscal from minority stake sale and privatisation. Of the Rs 1.75 lakh crore, Rs 1 lakh crore is to come from selling government stake in public sector banks and financial institutions, and Rs 75,000 crore through CPSE disinvestment receipts.



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US trade official called India’s Mastercard ban ‘draconian’, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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A senior US trade official privately criticised India’s July decision to ban Mastercard Inc from issuing new cards, calling it a “draconian” move that caused “panic”, according to US government emails seen by Reuters.

The documents show frustration within the US government after India’s central bank banned new card issuance by American Express and Diners Club International in April, then took similar action against Mastercard in July.

The Reserve Bank of India accuses the companies of breaking local data-storage rules. The bans do not affect existing customers.

The ban on Mastercard – a top payment network in India alongside Visa – triggered a flurry of emails between U.S. officials in Washington and India as they discussed next steps with Mastercard, including approaching the RBI, the government emails show.

“We’ve started hearing from stakeholders about some pretty draconian measures that the RBI has taken over the past couple days,” Brendan A. Lynch, the deputy assistant US trade representative for South and Central Asia, wrote on July 16, two days after the Mastercard announcement.

The RBI said that the restrictions have been imposed as in spite of lapse of considerable time and adequate opportunities being given, the entity has been found to be non-compliant with the directions on storage of Payment System Data.

“It sounds like some others (Amex, Diners) may have been impacted by similar actions recently,” wrote Lynch, asking his colleagues in India to get in touch with their central bank contacts “to see what’s going on”.

Lynch, spokespeople for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi did not respond to requests for comment. The U.S. government has not publicly commented on the Mastercard ban.

The RBI did not immediately respond.

A Mastercard spokesman told Reuters, “We’ve had very constructive engagements with the Indian and U.S. governments over the past few weeks and appreciate the support of both.” This includes discussions with the RBI, and Mastercard has “made good progress” as it looks to resolve the situation quickly, he said.

“PANIC”, “FULL COURT PRESS”
Mastercard counts India as a key growth market. In 2019 it said it was “bullish on India”, a country where it has made major investment bets and built research and technology centres.

The Mastercard ban rattled the company and upset India’s financial sector as Indian partner banks fear a hit to their income as they struggle to swiftly partner with new networks to offer cards.

The RBI acted against Mastercard because it was “found to be non-compliant” with the 2018 rules despite the “lapse of considerable time and adequate opportunities”.

The rules, requiring foreign card networks to store Indian payments data locally for “unfettered supervisory access”, were implemented after failed lobbying efforts of U.S. firms also soured trade ties between New Delhi and Washington.

Mastercard has said it was “disappointed” with the decision. The company has told Reuters it had submitted an additional audit report to the RBI before the ban took effect on July 22.

The US government emails show there was hope things could be sorted out before that.

In one, Lynch told colleagues the understanding was that “the RBI has info they need and are hopeful that they will respond appropriately.” But as the ban approached, “if the RBI doesn’t change course, I’m sure the panic will resume,” he wrote.

Days later, he wrote that Mastercard was continuing “to put on the full court press” in Washington.

While RBL Bank signed up with Visa as recently as last week, a Yes Bank spokesperson said the bank is evaluating migrating to other platforms. Both banks said they expect no disruption to their existing customers due to the RBI action.

Indian regulations require all foreign payment operators to store card and customer related data in servers physically located in the country.



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BCs emerging as predominant delivery channels for banks to expand last mile outreach: RBI study

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From being an alternate model, the Business Correspondent (BC) model is emerging as the predominant delivery model for banks to expand their last mile outreach in unserved/ underserved areas of the country, per a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) study.

The number of BCs across the country have grown at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.05 per cent to 11,76,221 as at March-end 2020 from 6,37,029 as at March-end 2016. However, the number of branches/ banking outlets in villages have only increased at a CAGR of 2.29 per cent to 58,042 as at March-end 2020 from 51,830 as at March-end 2016.

“Over the years, the BC model has assumed greater prominence over the traditional brick and mortar branches. Increasingly, the access to banking services in rural areas, particularly in the unserved/ underserved parts, is being provisioned through BC outlets,” according to the study by RBI officials Sushmita Phukan, Saju Thomas Punnoose, Abhishek Kumar, Dineshkumar S and Abhishek Kumar.

Retail agents

BCs are retail agents engaged by banks for providing banking services at locations other than a bank branch/ATM. BCs perform a variety of activities which include identification of borrowers, collection and preliminary processing of loan applications including verification of primary information/data, collection of small value deposit, disbursal of small value credit, and recovery of principal/ collection of interest.

They also undertake sale of micro insurance/ mutual fund products/ pension products/ other third party products and receipt and delivery of small value remittances/ other payment instruments. “While the growth in number of rural branches remained subdued during the review period (2016-2020), there was a significant growth in BC outlets in both villages and urban pockets providing formal financial services at the doorstep of large number of unserved/ underserved population,” the study, published in RBI’s latest monthly bulletin, said.

Also read: Banks should embrace digitisation to ensure govt schemes reach needy: FM Nirmala Sitharaman

The study noted that about 56 per cent of total Basic Savings Bank Deposit Accounts (BSBDAs) and 65 per cent of General Credit Cards (GCCs) were channelled through BCs. While BCs of public sector banks (PSBs) dominated the deposit space, private sector banks (PVBs) accounted for a major share in GCCs through BCs.

During the review period, the total transactions routed through BC outlets increased considerably both in terms of volume as well as value, the authors said.

Financial inclusion

Through the review of FIP data furnished by banks (PSBs, PVBs and Regional Rural Banks/RRBs) over the five years (2016- 2020), the study observed that the dominance of PSBs has continued in the financial inclusion space.

PSBs accounted for about 56 per cent of total rural branches in 2020. They were also predominantly present in the rural areas accounting for 60 per cent of total BC outlets in villages in 2020. “Similarly, of the total BSBDAs, the contribution of PSBs remained over 70 per cent during the review period. Further, among the credit products, KCCs were channeled mainly through PSBs, which accounted for 58 per cent of the total number of KCCs (Kisan Credit Cards) in 2020,” the authors said.

As PSBs continued to maintain their hold, the authors underscored that PVBs too registered a higher growth in both access and usage indicators during the review period.

The study noted that there was a growth in BC outlets in villages for PVBs with the growth being significantly high for the northeastern, eastern and central regions, surpassing the growth of PSBs and RRBs together. PVBs also significantly improved their tally of urban BC outlets during the five years with their share growing from 77 per cent in 2016 to 97 per cent in 2020, the authors said.

On similar lines, contribution of PVBs in the total number of BC agents too grew exponentially from 37 per cent in 2016 to 80 per cent in 2020.

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LIC launches mobile app for its Development Officers

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Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has launched a new mobile app for exclusive use of its Development Officers.

Called PRAGATI (Performance Review Application, Growth And Trend Indicator), it is a comprehensive mobile application which gives information that is updated near real-time on the performance of their agency force in critical areas of business like premium collection and agency activisation, apart from monitoring the team in activities such as usage of agents mobile app and NACH validations, LIC said in a statement.

Also see: LIC launches Ananda mobile app for agents, intermediaries

There is also a calculator that measures their cost ratio, it added.

“We believe that this mobile app, PRAGATI, will be a major asset in the arsenal of our development officers which will empower them to plan their business strategies and monitor the performance of their team,” it said.

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