Category: Banking & Finance

NARCL will empower lenders, but recovery from 26 accounts is not easy, industry says, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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The National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL) will kill all communication gaps that bank consortiums face, and will speed up the process. But chances are high that the NARCL will face a tough time recovering from the 26 accounts that have been identified.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said that the government has allocated more than Rs. 30,600 crore to the NARCL. The government will transfer the funds to the bad bank, according to their calendar. The Cabinet has approved to set up the NARCL, backed by the government securities, she added.

Read: Finance Minister Sitharaman announces bad bank, Cabinet approves backing of up to Rs 30,600 crore on securities receipts

NARCL – sole decision maker

Industry veterans believe that NARCL will strengthen the recovery process.

“The first and foremost advantage is that the NARCL will provide consolidation of the debt. The debt, which is spread out in 10-20 different entities of the consortium or the multiple banking arrangement, will be consolidated into one entity, providing ease of resolution. In a multiple banking arrangement, there is always a difference of opinion, which makes it difficult to reach a resolution plan,” said Sunil Mehta, chief executive officer at Indian Banks’ Association.

The biggest benefit banks will have is that they will get 15% funds upfront from the NARCL as soon as they transfer the assets. In the current scenario, it takes months for bankers to get their first cheque after a rigorous process either at the National Company Law Tribunal or at Debt Recovery Tribunals.

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

“The intention and the idea behind bad banks is that all the bad loans of the banks are concentrated at one place so there will be one common decision making entity. This will make the execution of asset resolution far faster,” said Jyoti Prakash Gadia, managing director at Resurgent India.

NARCL will empower lenders, but recovery from 26 accounts is not easy, industry says
Operations and recovery

Public sector banks will hold 51% stake in the NARCL, while debt management and other financial institutions will hold 49%. NARCL will be managed by professionals, and non performing asset accounts, which are larger than Rs. 500 crore, will be transferred to it. Currently, banks have identified 26 accounts, worth around Rs. 90,000 crore, which the NARCL will take over from them.

The hope is that the government-backed bad bank will bring in the right value for the banks. Because in the current situation, liquidation is much higher compared with resolution, and lenders have taken more than 90% haircuts in many accounts, including Videocon Industries, Siva Industries etc.

But while NARCL will reduce the gaps and speed up the recovery, experts have their own doubts on its recovery ratio, considering the quality of 26 assets, which will be transferred.

“I am not sure if NARCL will be able to fully recover all the accounts mentioned in the list. However, it is still better than individual recovery,” said Gadia.

Recovery has always been a challenge for lenders. RBI Governor Shakikanta Das had recently highlighted that the total recovery from Lokadalat is 5%, from DRT is 6% and from SARFAESI is 20%. The highest recovery was from the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, which was 30-45% in earlier days, is now reduced to 5% amid the pandemic, Das said.

Hence, despite having an NARCL, the industry is not hoping for a significant recovery. “The major challenge is that assets mentioned in the list are not very lucrative and buyers will also offer the cheapest rate,” said an industry expert, who did not wish to be quoted.

Siby Antony, former MD and CEO of Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction and a veteran in the sector, believes that ARCs will be better at reviving assets, but is not very sure whether the NARCL will recover.

“I am not hopeful. Because these (the 26 accounts) are bad assets, and finally all will go under liquidation,” Antony said.

Watch: Bad bank can only be a warehouse of bad assets, says Siby Antony



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Infosys wins five-year deal with US-based Frost Bank, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Infosys said it has won a five-year deal with US-based Frost Bank to provide strategic business consulting and digital capabilities that will enable the bank, which has over $ 46.7 billion in assets, to offer mortgage loans along with its other consumer loan products.

Infosys will help design the bank’s mortgage loan process landscape from origination to servicing, design the end-customer experience, and select the most effective technology platform to run and manage operations, while driving growth for its mortgage solutions over the next five years, it said in a statement.

The company did not disclose the financial details.

Infosys and Frost Bank will work together to create a human-centric, digital-first approach to customer mortgage loans that delivers superior borrower experience along with cutting-edge efficiency of operations. The implementation strategy will focus on accelerating launch of the new product, while also streamlining the mortgage value chain for Frost Bank by taking advantage of Infosys’ access to global best practices and innovations.

“Offering mortgage loans along with our other consumer loan products is integral to meeting our customers’ evolving needs and bringing the Frost experience to more Texans,” said Phil Green, Chairman and CEO at Frost Bank. “Working with a world-class company like Infosys will allow us to be involved in the entire process from start to finish and bring our industry-leading customer service experience to mortgages.”

Infosys also has deep expertise and long years of experience in collaborating with independent mortgage solution providers and regional banks in the US. Frost Bank can leverage this to compete profitably in a rapidly transforming competitive landscape.

Mohit Joshi, President, Infosys said, “At Infosys, we have built strong capabilities in transforming mortgage businesses by providing our clients with unique solutions that meet their customers’ expectations of speed, transparency, convenience, and personalization. Our collaboration with Frost Bank sets the stage for a new era of mortgage services, and we are excited to bring to this engagement, our collective expertise.”



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DoT may return Rs 14,000-crore bank guarantees to Vodafone Idea, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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MUMBAI: The government plans to return bank guarantees worth Rs 14,000 crore to Vodafone Idea (Vi) and Rs 8,000 crore to Bharti Airtel if they opt for a four-year moratorium on payment of spectrum dues, a person aware of the development said.

The development is expected to drastically reduce Vodafone Idea’s non-fund exposure to banks that have been hesitant to furnish fresh bank guarantees (BGs) to the loss-making telco due to its precarious financial position.

“BGs in deferred annual instalment against spectrum bought in earlier auction will be returned to telcos opting for moratorium,” the source told ET. “Vi stands to get about Rs 14,000 crore and Airtel about Rs 8,000 crore.”

Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal on Thursday said the telco will opt for the moratorium while cash-strapped Vodafone Idea too is widely expected to opt for it.

Experts said return of bank guarantees will allow banks more leeway to lend to Vodafone Idea in the future.

“A large part of our exposure (to Vi) is towards bank guarantees to the DoT (Department of Telecommunications),” a lender said on the condition of anonymity. “If those are returned, it gets cancelled and our exposure towards Vodafone Idea will drop significantly.”

Re-rating of the company could also lead to refinancing of existing loans at lower rates.

“We will have to see how this evolves, but in all likelihood, when the operating metrics of the telco improves, we will be able to offer them lower rates and rework loan covenants depending on how the cash flow situation improves,” the lender said.

Banks have a total exposure of a little over Rs 35,000 crore to the company, of which funded exposure is close to Rs 13,800 crore while the remaining is non-funded.

Vodafone Idea had a gross debt of Rs 1.9 lakh crore at June end – mostly in obligations to the government towards deferred spectrum charges and adjusted gross revenues (AGR)-related dues – while its cash and cash equivalents are only Rs 920 crore.

The government on Wednesday rolled out a four-year moratorium on the statutory dues of telcos and opened up the automatic route for 100% foreign direct investment in the sector, which is expected to help attract global investors.

Bank guarantees have long been a bone of contention between telcos and DoT.

Airtel’s Mittal has been propagating scrapping the practice of taking BGs. “Bank guarantee is something which the DoT must reconsider because those are from historical times,” he had told ET in a recent interview. “Now that you have exposure of tens of thousands of crores of spectrum payments to these operators without any such instruments, why bother about these small bank guarantees?”

Mittal also pointed out that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) norms mandate provisioning of that much capital allocation, thus reducing the capital pool, and the cost of bank guarantee has quadrupled.

The government had on Wednesday cut bank guarantee requirements against statutory dues such as licensee fees to 20% from 100%, and said the financial instrument won’t be required anymore to secure instalment payments in upcoming auctions.

This was over and above a four-year moratorium on AGR and spectrum payments, approved redefining AGR to exclude ‘non-telecom’ items and cut the spectrum usage charge (SUC) to zero — both prospectively — as part of wide-ranging reforms to improve the health of the debt-laden sector and make sure the market has at least three private players.

Vi stock has jumped about 30% in two days to close at Rs 11.25 on the BSE on Thursday.

Govt can also turn part of dues into equity after four-year period.



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World Bank kills ease of doing business report after probe cites undue pressure on rankings, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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The World Bank Group on Thursday said it ended publication of its “Doing Business” report on country investment climates after a probe of data irregularities cited “undue pressure” by top bank officials, including then-Chief Executive Kristalina Georgieva, to boost China‘s ranking in 2017.

The World Bank said in a statement said that the decision came after internal audit reports had raised “ethical matters, including the conduct of former Board officials as well as current and/or former Bank staff” and a board investigation conducted by the law firm Wilmer Hale.

The Wilmer Hale report cited “direct and indirect pressure” from senior staff in the office of then-World Bank President Jim Yong Kim to change the report’s methodology to boost China’s score, and said it likely occurred at his direction.

It also said that Georgieva, now the managing director of the 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.

China’s ranking in the “Doing Business 2018” report published in October 2017, rose seven places to 78th after the data methodology changes were made, compared with the initial draft report.

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

“I disagree fundamentally with the findings and interpretations of the investigation of data irregularities as it relates to my role in the World Bank’s Doing Business report of 2018,” Georgieva said in a statement issued by the IMF. She added that she had met with the IMF’s executive board to discuss the matter.

The WilmerHale report also cited irregularities in the data used to determine rankings for Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan in the “Doing Business 2020” report published in 2019, but found no evidence that any members of the bank’s Office of the President or executive board were involved in these changes.

“Going forward, we will be working on a new approach to assessing the business and investment climate,” the World Bank said in a statement.



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What are NARCL and IDRCL? How do they work and what is the plan?, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced the formation of a government-backed bad bank, National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL). The Union Cabinet has approved up to Rs 30,600 crore of securities receipts.

What is NARCL?

The NARCL has been incorporated under the Companies Act and has applied to the Reserve Bank of India for license as an Asset Reconstruction Company (ARC). NARCL is basically a bad bank created by the government in the mould of an asset reconstruction company.

The NARCL will pick up bad loans above a certain threshold from banks and would aim to sell them to prospective buyers of distressed debt. The NARCL will also be responsible for valuing bad loans to determine at what price they would be sold. The bad bank would provide government receipts to banks as it takes on non-performing assets from their books.

State-owned banks will hold 51% stake, while FIs or debt management companies will hold 49%.

What is IDRCL?

Along with NARCL, the government will also set up the India Debt Resolution Company Ltd (IDRCL). The IDRCL is a service company or an operational entity, which will manage assets and loop in market professionals and turnaround experts. Public Sector Banks (PSBs) and Public FIs will hold a maximum of 49% stake and the rest will be with private sector lenders.

Background

Last year, The Indian Banks’ Association had proposed to create a bad bank for swift resolution of non-performing assets (NPAs). Following this, the finance minister in the 2021-22 Union Budget proposed the setting up of an ARC, along with an Asset Management Company (AMC), to take over the stressed debt of banks.

During the Union Budget 2021-22, Sitharaman said the bad bank will manage and dispose the assets to alternate investment funds and other potential investors for eventual value realisation.

In August, IBA moved an application to the RBI seeking licence to set up the over Rs 6,000-crore bad bank. The NARCL was incorporated last month in Mumbai, following the registration with the Registrar of Companies.

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

The Plan

The government will not have any direct equity contribution to NARCL. It will guarantee securities receipts issued by NARCL, which will buy the bad loans from banks.

These receipts will be valid for five years, and condition precedent for invocation of guarantee will be resolution or liquidation.

NARCL is intended to resolve stressed loan assets above Rs 500 crore each, amounting to about Rs 2 lakh crore. In phase I, fully provisioned assets of about Rs 90,000 crore are expected to be transferred to NARCL, while the remaining assets with lower provisions would be transferred in phase II.

As per industry practice, it will pay up to 15% of the agreed value for the loans in cash and the remaining 85% would be securities receipts.

The NARCL will acquire assets by making an offer to the lead bank. Once NARCL’s offer is accepted, IDRCL will be looped in for management and value addition.

How is NARCL different from existing ARCs?

The proposed bad bank will have a public sector character and majority ownership is likely to rest with state-owned banks.

At present, ARCs typically seek a steep discount on loans. With the NARCL, the valuation issue is unlikely to come up since this is a government initiative.

The government-backed ARC will have deep pockets to buy out big accounts, and thereby free up banks from carrying these accounts on their books.

Watch: Bad bank can be only a warehouse of bad assets, says Siby Antony

What benefit do banks get from this new structure?

It will incentivize quicker action on resolving stressed assets, and help in better value realisation. This approach will also permit freeing up banks personnel to focus on increasing business and credit growth.

As holders of these stressed assets and securities receipts, banks will receive the gains. Further, it aims to bring improvement in banks’ valuations and enhance their ability to raise market capital.

Watch: Bad bank to preserve value, timely sale of stressed assets: IBA CEO



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RBI remains net purchaser of US dollar in July; buys USD 7.205 bn, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) continued to remain net buyer of the US dollar in July 2021, after it net purchased USD 7.205 billion from the spot market, according to the latest data from the RBI. In the reporting month, the central bank purchased USD 16.16 billion while sold USD 8.955 billion in the spot market, the monthly RBI bulletin for September 2021, released on Thursday, showed.

In June 2021, the RBI net purchased USD 18.633 billion. It had bought USD 21.923 billion and sold USD 3.29 billion during the month.

In July last year, the central bank had net bought USD 15.973 billion.

During 2020-21, the RBI had net purchased USD 68.315 billion from the spot market. It had bought USD 162.479 billion from the spot market and sold USD 94.164 billion during the fiscal 2020-21, the data showed.

In the forward dollar market, the outstanding net purchase at the end of July 2021 was USD 49.01 billion, compared with a net purchase of USD 49.573 billion in June 2021, the data showed. PTI HV HRS hrs



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Mastercard ban boosts Visa’s biz, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Mumbai: Visa is consolidating its leadership in the Indian credit card market with most issuers who had partnered with Mastercard earlier signing up with it to continue issuing credit cards.

Shares of RBL Bank, the latest to sign up with Visa, rose over 2% on Tuesday after the private lender announced that it has signed up with Visa to issue credit cards. RBL has a 5% share of the Indian credit card market, which is disproportionate to its size due to its partnerships for co-branded cards, particularly the one with Bajaj Finserv.

“We would like to thank Visa as well as Finserv, our technology partner, for enabling this journey. With this launch, we are confident of meeting our annual plan of issuing 1.2-1.4 million credit cards in FY22,” said RBL Bank head (retail, inclusion & rural business) Harjeet Toor.

Like RBL Bank, Yes Bank and Federal Bank have said that they will start issuing Visa credit cards. Both private lenders have said that they would also be issuing RuPay credit cards.

What will help Visa gain more market share is the lifting of the ban on HDFC Bank from issuing credit cards. The embargo on HDFC Bank on issuing cards was lifted soon after Mastercard received a ban from RBI for not adhering to norms that require customer data to be stored only in India. HDFC Bank is the largest issuer of credit cards in the country and the lifting of the ban is expected to spur pent-up demand from its customer base.



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Poonawalla Fincorp’s Managing Director, Abhay Bhutada, resigns after SEBI action, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Poonwalla Fincorp managing director Abhay Bhutada has resigned from the non banking finance company (NBFC) a day after Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) barred him from dealing in securities, for allegedly using price sensitive information in trading in the shares of Magma Fincorp before it was acquired by the Poonawalla Group.

Bhutada will step down with immediate effect after the company’s board accepted his Bhutada’s resignation, the company said in a statement to the exchanges. Group CEO Vijay Deshwal is likely to continue to run the operations of the company. In its order on Wednesday, SEBI said

Sebi said its surveillance alert system had detected suspicious trading pattern in the shares of Magma Fincorp around the announcement of Magma Fincorp’s acquisition by Rising Sun Holding Private Limited (RSHPL), a company controlled by Poonawalla Group, on February 10,2021.

On analysis of the alerts for the announcement, a group of connected entities were observed to have taken long position in the shares. Subsequently, these entities had squared off the long positions thereby generating substantial profits. The regulator said Bhutada was the contact person for the deal from the very beginning of the discussion and has been involved in the matter throughout the UPSI (unpublished price sensitive information) period.

Sebi’s probe, based on call data records and bank statement analysis revealed that Abhay Bhutada had passed on the inside information to his connected entities — Abhijit Pawar, Saumil Shah and Rakesh Bhojgadhiya, who in turn passed on this information to Amit Agrawal.

Seven people besides Bhutada have been barred from trading and their bank accounts have been impounded to the extent of Rs 13.58 crores. Earlier in the day in a notice to the stock exchanges Poonwalla Fincorp had said Bhutada had denied the allegations.

“With respect to above subject i would like to clarify as follows. 1. I am denying all allegations mentioned against me in the order. 2. I have not shared any unpublished price sensitive information (UPSI) directly or indirectly to the entities mentioned in the order except the official discussion with entity no 2 who was working as an advisor for the Acquisition transaction. 3. I have not received any kind of financial benefit directly or indirectly from the entities mentioned in the order. 4. My transactions with the entities mentioned in the order are genuine business transaction and legitimate in nature including few of the past transaction,” Bhutada said in a letter addressed to board of directors.

He also said that he will tak appropriate legal recourse.

Poonawalla shares fell 5% on Thursday to Rs 172 a piece as investors sold the company’s shares after the SEBI order on Wednesday night. Bhutada had set an ambitious target to increase the company’s loan assets by three times in the next four years.



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RBI nod to special committee to oversee operations at Ujjivan SFB, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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The Reserve Bank has given its go-ahead to Ujjivan Small Finance Bank (SFB) to form a special committee of directors to oversee operations in the absence of an MD and CEO. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in a letter dated September 15, 2021, has approved the constitution of ‘Special Committee of Directors’ with three independent directors as its members, Ujjivan SFB said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.

The committee will “oversee the operations and administration of the bank in the absence of the Managing Director and CEO with effect from September 16, 2021,” it said.

Last month, the Bengaluru-based company had appointed old hand Carol Furtado to take charge as officer on special duty (OSD) till September 30, 2021, following the resignation of Nitin Chugh as MD and CEO.

She will take charge as the interim CEO from October.

“The board of Ujjivan SFB, in parallel, will evaluate suitable candidates for the MD & CEO position, and submit two names to RBI for approval,” the lender had said.

Furtado has been associated with Ujjivan SFB since inception and has spearheaded the organisation on numerous occasions, playing critical roles.

She is the head of operations of the bank.

Ujjivan SFB, which began operations from February 2017, recently saw some top-level exits amid high level of bad assets and management issues, among others.

The lender’s overall recognised stressed pool stands at 15.6 per cent of the loan book. This includes gross non-performing assets of 9.8 per cent and restructured loans of 5.8 per cent.

Also, the portfolio-at-risk has swelled to 30 per cent as of June 2021.

The bank’s early-stage strategy to mobilise deposits from microfinance customers, higher dependence on the vulnerable microfinance business, among others, have led to the current troubles, according to experts.

Ujjivan SFB stock closed at Rs 20.60 apiece on BSE, up 1.23 per cent from the previous close.



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RBI study, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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The uptick in the credit growth in the recent months notwithstanding the second COVID-19 wave augurs well for the economy, said an article published in the RBI’s latest bulletin. Bank credit growth has witnessed significant fluctuations in the past one and a half decades.

The period between 2007-08 and 2013-14 could be characterised as a bank credit boom period in the Indian economy, as non-food credit registered double-digit growth, primarily driven by robust credit growth to the industrial sector, the article said.

“Both dominant-group and other-group of banks lent aggressively to the industrial as well as other sectors,” it said adding that within industries, infrastructure, and basic metal and metal product industries accounted for a major portion of credit offtake from both the bank groups during the credit boom period.

Thereafter, however, the credit cycle reversed along with a shift in the sectoral deployment of bank credit.

The article said that during 2014-15 to 2020-21, overall credit growth decelerated, primarily driven down by a reversal in credit growth to the industrial sector.

The overall non-food credit growth during 2014-15 to 2020-21 was almost entirely driven by the expansion of credit to the non-industrial sectors, particularly lending to the retail segment in the form of personal loans.

Active participation of both the dominant-group and the other-group of banks is driving credit growth to the non-industrial sectors, the article said.

The sharp slowdown in industrial credit warrants attention and steps to step up credit offtake commensurate with appropriate risk-taking, a number of which have already been taken by the government and the RBI, could de-freeze the credit market for the industrial sector. It can help in reviving the growth momentum derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, it said.

“After witnessing a significant slowdown in credit offtake during 2019-20 and 2020-21, there has been some uptick in credit growth in the recent months notwithstanding the second COVID-19 wave, which augurs well for the economy,” the article said.

Another article published in the bulletin titled ‘Private Corporate Investment: Growth in 2020-21 and Outlook for 2021-22′ said the investment intentions of the Indian private corporates remained sluggish as reflected by lower numbers of new announcements and completions of projects.

The article highlighted that the pandemic uncertainties adversely impacted appetite for new projects during 2020-21 and posed impediments to the timely completion of pipeline projects.

In 2021-22, demand for new projects would shape the private investment outlook, along with the progress of the projects already in the pipeline, it added.

The central bank, however, said the views in the articles are of the authors and do not represent the views of the Reserve Bank of India.



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