Experts, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Ahead of the government’s bill on cryptocurrency, there is no clarity on whether the government plans to ban cryptocurrencies or regulate them.

The bill intends to ban all private cryptocurrencies, with certain exceptions, to promote the use of the underlying technology of cryptocurrency. The much-awaited bill also aims to provide a framework for the creation of an official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India. The government has already made it clear it has no plan to make cryptocurrency a legal tender.

What if govt bans cryptos

In the event government plans to ban cryptocurrencies, experts said any crypto ban could cause investors to move underground and obtain cryptos and trade in them illegally. Moreover, the P2P transactions do not fall under any legal ambit and hence, decentralised exchanges would continue to thrive regardless of the ban. Banning cryptos would not only prove a technological challenge for the government but also mean huge capital funds moving out of the country.

The Blockchain and Crypto Assets Council, the association of crypto exchanges in the country, released a statement reiterating the futility of the ban. A blanket ban on cryptocurrencies will encourage non-state players, thereby leading to more unlawful usage of such currencies, it said.

“The Council has always argued in favour of prohibiting the usage of private cryptocurrencies as a currency in India by law since usage as currency is likely to interfere with monetary policy and fiscal controls. On the other hand, the council has advocated their use only as an asset. The council believes that a smartly regulated crypto assets business will protect investors, help monitor Indian buyers and sellers, lead to better taxation of the industry, and limit illegal usage of cryptos,” BACC said in a statement.

Grey areas

Also, the government needs to define the scope and meaning of the term ‘private cryptocurrencies.’ Almost all the cryptocurrencies would be private except significant cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum that the miners collectively own, if the definition concerns ownership rights or anonymity of transactions.

However, except like Bitcoin, not all cryptocurrencies are store of value with there being utility tokens like Ethereum, Cardano.

Experts said the exchanges could be asked to follow stringent KYC/AML procedures to dissuade money laundering and terror financing activities.



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MYRE Capital helps investors to acquire Rs 31cr office space in Mumbai; its AUM crosses Rs 100cr, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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New Delhi, MYRE Capital, which facilitates investors to have fractional ownership of commercial properties, has raised Rs 31 crore from high net-worth individuals for the purchase of nearly 18,000 square feet of office space in Mumbai and announced that its asset under management (AUM) has crossed Rs 100 crore mark. Mumbai-based MYRE Capital, which is a tech-enabled fractional ownership real estate platform, has been formed by architect firm Morphogenesis.

“We have raised Rs 31 crore from investors for the acquisition of 17,817 square feet office space in Times Square office complex at Andheri, Mumbai. Our asset under management has crossed Rs 100 crore and we are targeting to reach Rs 250 crore by March 2022,” MYRE Capital Founder and Chief Executive Officer Aryaman Vir told PTI.

On its platform, MYRE Capital had offered to investors the office space, which is leased to co-working operator Smartworks and further sub-leased to IFTAS, a fully-owned subsidiary of the RBI.

The office space, which has been acquired from Ajmera Group, is expected to generate a rental yield of 10.5 per cent and an Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 13.6 per cent to investors.

NRI investors, chartered accountants, lawyers, and high salaried professionals have mainly invested in this round, he said.

“Achieving Rs 100+ crore AUM in 10 months further pushes us to expand our horizon and to contribute significantly to democratising fractional ownership of commercial real estate,” Vir said.

For expansion, he said the company is looking for more properties in major cities for offering to investors.

“Office assets will continue to remain high on the investor radar as mobility improves and a comeback to the physical office environment picks up,” Vir said.

He noted that the concept of fractional ownership, while at its nascent stage in India, has shown a tremendous shift in mindset among HNI as well as retail investors.

In June this year, MYRE Capital raised Rs 50 crore from investors for the acquisition of nearly 47,000 sq ft prime office space at Magarpatta Cybercity in Hadapsar, Pune. It has also facilitated acquisition of 3,000 square feet at Maker Maxity, BKC, Mumbai.

“Our portfolio has reached nearly 70,000 square feet now,” Vir said.

As per the business model of MYRE Capital, properties are being acquired into an SPV (Private Limited Company) and proportional stakeholding of the SPV is allocated to the investors.

MYRE Capital serves as the manager of the investors, the property, and the SPV.

Through its platform, investors can track their investments in real-time and access all relevant documents.

The tenant continues to pay rental to the SPV on a monthly basis, which in turn gets distributed to all investors proportionately by MYRE Capital.



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IPO rush continues; 10 cos line up public issues worth Rs 10,000 cr in Dec, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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New Delhi, Dec 1 : The IPO lane will continue to be busy in December as 10 companies have lined up initial share-sale plans worth more than Rs 10,000 crore, merchant banking sources said on Wednesday. Moreover, the initial public offerings of Star Health and Allied Insurance and Tega Industries are currently open for public subscription.

This comes after 10 firms successfully concluded their initial public offerings (IPOs) in November.

Among the companies that scheduled their IPOs in this month include RateGain Travel Technologies, travel and hospitality technology services provider, and Anand Rathi Wealth Ltd, part of Mumbai-based financial services group Anand Rathi.

RateGain’s Rs 1,335-crore initial share-sale will open for public subscription during December 7-9, and the Rs 660-crore IPO of Anand Rathi Wealth will open on December 2.

In addition, the companies that have firmed up their IPO plans are — Global Health Ltd, which operates and manages hospitals under the Medanta brand, pharmacy retail chain MedPlus Health Services and Healthium Medtech, merchant banking sources said.

Apart from these, Metro Brands, Shriram Properties, AGS Transact Technologies, Shri Bajrang Power and Ispat and VLCC Health Care may also float their public issues in the period under review, they added.

Investment bankers said these companies will raise more than Rs 10,000 crore collectively.

The companies are raising funds to support business expansion plans, to retire debt and for general corporate purposes.

Some of the IPOs are an offer for sale (OFS), where private equity players or the promoter wants to cash out part of their holding.

Prateek Singh, founder and CEO of LearnApp.com, attributed the impressive pipeline to the bull run in the equity markets.

“The best time for any company to go for an IPO is during the Bull market, which is also the reason why many companies are going for a public listing at this time. Companies look to tap into the sentiment from the public markets at such opportune times and are highly successful,” he said.

Further, initial share-sales are receiving tremendous applications from the investors and IPOs have been subscribing multifold times.This has pushed companies to raise funds through IPO.

He further said the trend will continue and more tech companies will try to go public in the immediate future until the market calms down and moves downward.

“So, if the markets fall in the future, the IPOs will also reduce,” he added.

So far in 2021, as many as 51 companies have launched their IPOs to raise over Rs 1 lakh crore, according to analysis of data with exchanges.

Apart from these, PowerGrid InvIT, the infrastructure investment trust (InvIT) sponsored by the Power Grid Corporation of India, mopped-up Rs 7,735 crore through its IPO and Brookfield India Real Estate Trust raised Rs 3,800 crore via its initial share-sale.

The fundraising so far this year is way higher than the Rs 26,611 crore collected by 15 companies through initial share-sales in the entire 2020.

Such impressive fundraising through IPOs was last seen in 2017 when firms mobilised Rs 67,147 crore through 36 initial share-sales.



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States debt-to-GDP ratio worryingly higher than FY23 target, says RBI report, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Mumbai, The combined debt-to-GDP ratio of states is expected to remain at 31 per cent by end-March 2022 which is worryingly higher than the target of 20 per cent to be achieved by 2022-23, according to a RBI report. The Reserve Bank’s annual publication titled ‘State Finances: A Study of Budgets of 2021-22’ further said as the impact of the second COVID-19 wave wanes, state governments need to take credible steps to address debt sustainability concerns.

“The combined debt to GDP ratio of States which stood at 31 per cent at end-March 2021 and is expected to remain at that level by end-March 2022, is worryingly higher than the target of 20 per cent to be achieved by 2022-23, as per the recommendations of the FRBM Review Committee,” it said.

In view of the pandemic induced slowdown, in its projections, the 15th Finance Commission expects the debt-GDP ratio to peak at 33.3 per cent in 2022-23 (in view of the higher deficits in 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23), and gradually decline thereafter to reach 32.5 per cent by 2025-26.

The RBI report noted that the budgeted consolidated gross fiscal deficit (GFD) of 3.7 per cent of GDP for states for the year 2021-22 – lower than the 4 per cent level as recommended by the FC-XV (15th Finance Commission)- reflect the state governments’ intent towards fiscal consolidation.

According to the report, in the medium term, improvements in the fiscal position of state governments will be contingent upon reforms in the power sector as recommended by FC-XV and specified by the Centre – creating transparent and hassle-free provision of power subsidy to farmers; preventing leakages; and improving the health of the power distribution companies (DISCOMs) by alleviating their liquidity stress in a sustainable manner.

“Timely payments of state dues to DISCOMS and, in turn, by them to Generation Companies (GENCOS) hold the key to the sector’s financial health,” it said.

The report said undertaking power sector reforms will not only facilitate additional borrowings of 0.25 per cent of GSDP (Gross State Domestic Product ) by the states but also reduce their contingent liabilities due to improvement in financial health of the DISCOMs.

It pointed out that in 2020-21, the first wave of the pandemic posed states the critical challenge of declining revenue and the need for higher spending.

To partially offset the revenue shortfall, the report said states hiked their duties on petrol, diesel and alcohol and focused on rationalising non-priority expenditures to make room for higher expenditure on healthcare and social services.

According to the report, the year 2021-22 started on a similar note, with the outbreak of the second wave.

“However, the impact of the second wave on state finances is likely to be less severe than the first wave due to less stringent and localised restrictions imposed this time as opposed to the nationwide lockdown during the first wave of COVID-19,” it observed.



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Deutsche Bank strengthens wealth management team in India, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Deutsche Bank is strengthening its wealth management in India to take advantage of the increased entrepreneurial wealth in the country.

The German lender has hired more than 15 bankers and product professionals across various segments to join the India business in 2021 and early 2022. The additional hires are being made across the areas of relationship management and investment advisory.

“The business opportunity in India has become very compelling with the material wealth creation driven by entrepreneurial activity. We are now shifting gears and expanding our long-standing and established team as we seek to support our clients and reach new ones with our full suite of products and solutions” said Amrit Singh, head of wealth management, South Asia.

Among the new hires are Rajasekar Ayyalu who will take over as director in Chennai where he will be responsible for expanding and deepening Deutsche Bank’s presence in South India. Ayyalu was executive director (investments) at Julius Baer.

Four others, Jai Bhatia, Sanyam Sharma , Anjali Vashisth and Manish Lalwani have joined the bank’s Delhi and Mumbai offices as vice-presidents managing client relationships.

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Bank officers’ union launches nationwide movement against privatisation, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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New Delhi, Bank officers’ union on Tuesday launched nationwide movement against proposed privatisation of stat-owned lenders. ‘Bank Bachao Desh Bachao Rally’ was held at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on Tuesday attended by officers and other stakeholders from various parts of the country, the All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC) said in a statement.

Addressing the rally, AIBOC General Secretary Soumya Datta appealed to the government to withdraw the Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which has been listed for introduction and passing in the winter session of Parliament.

“In case the government tables and passes the bill paving the way for the privatisation of the public sector banks, the bank officers will unite all the stakeholders of the banking sector and launch a nationwide agitation,” he said, urging the bankers to draw inspiration from the farmers movement.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting Budget 2021-22 earlier this year had announced the privatisation of public sector banks (PSBs) as part of disinvestment drive to garner Rs 1.75 lakh crore.

The Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, to be introduced during the session is expected to bring down the minimum government holding in the PSBs from 51 per cent to 26 per cent.

In the last concluded session, Parliament passed a bill to allow privatisation of state-run general insurance companies.

The General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Amendment Bill, 2021, removed the requirement of the central government to hold at least 51 per cent of the equity capital in a specified insurer.

The Act, which came into force in 1972, provided for the acquisition and transfer of shares of Indian insurance companies and undertakings of other existing insurers in order to serve better the needs of the economy by securing the development of general insurance business.

Government think-tank NITI Aayog has already suggested two banks and one insurance company to Core Group of Secretaries on Disinvestment for privatisation.

According to sources, Central Bank of India and Indian Overseas Bank are likely candidates for the privatisation.



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Shriram Group announces succession plan, creates management board of senior executives, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Financial services behemoth Shriram Group on Tuesday announced the creation of a board of management to drive the long-term vision of the conglomerate. The management board which included four senior group executives will oversee promoter interest and will be mentored by founder R Thyagarajan.

The Board of Management includes DV Ravi, MD, Shriram Capital, R. Duruvasan, Whole-time Director, Shriram Capital, Umesh Revankar, Non-Executive Director, Shriram Capital and Jasmit Singh Gujral, Non-executive Director, Shriram Capital. All the four senior members will be designated as trustees of the Shriram Ownership Trust.

“In my various interactions, I have reiterated that one individual cannot manage a large group like ours, it requires a set of individuals with varied skills who can collaborate to drive the group’s vision and strategy,” said R Thyagarajan, founder, Shriram group. “In line with my conviction, a leadership team that will oversee the SOT’s interest, as the promoter of the Shriram Group, has been constituted.”

As per the succession plan, the promoters stake in the Shriram Group, will be owned by its current and future leaders. The Shriram Ownership Trust, a private discretionary body was set up in 2006 to provide opportunity for the current and future leadership of the group to be beneficiaries of the Trust.

These beneficiaries will be responsible for the management of the Shriram Group. The board of the trust will constantly evaluates the performance of its leadership team and keep inducting additional members into the Trust to ensure the perpetuity of ownership and leadership.

“The Board of Management will be responsible for defining the long-term strategy of the individual entities and the group and overseeing its execution,” Thyagarajan said.

“The board members will manage essential areas that impact the group across entities and are not necessarily aligned to one particular entity. They will collaborate amongst themselves in a manner that will derive the optimum benefit to the group.”

Shriram Ownership Trust and Shriwell Trusts together own 42.9% of the unlisted Shriram Capital which is the holding company for all the businesses. The group has assets under management of more than Rs 2 lakh crore.

Sanlam Group has a 26% stake in the holding company, the Piramal Group has 20% and TPG Capital owns 9.4%.

ET had recently reported that the group is laying down plans to restructure its various financial services businesses that includes merging its two listed companies, Shriram Transport Finance and Shriram City Union Finance. Once the merger between the two listed companies takes place, Shriram Capital is likely to get reverse merged into the new combined listed entity. The insurance business will be spun out as a separate entity.

“There is a focus on doing some restructuring in the group, the exercise is going on and it could take a concrete shape in the next few months,” Thyagarajan said.



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India’s First Game-Based Investment Start-up Fello Raises 1 Million USD, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Fello, India’s first game-based investment start-up, has raised $1 million in a seed round led by global talent investor, Entrepreneur First (EF). Other investors in the seed round included Acequia Capital, Kube VC, Upsparks, JITO Angels, Dexter Angels, and independent investors Ashneer Groover, Co-founder, BharatPe, Bala Parthasarathy, CEO & Co-founder, MoneyTap, Faiz Mayalakkara, Director of Investments of Emirates Investment Authority and Charlie Songhurst.

Fello co-founders, Manish Maryada and Shourya Lala met for the first time at EF in August 2020. In a span of just three months – by October 2020 – they had built an extraordinary fintech start-up that leverages its proprietary games to turn Gen-Z gamers into financial investors. Both the founders with their different skill-sets and background – one a finance graduate from Texas A&M University with deep domain expertise in financial operations, strategy, and product, and the other a computer science engineer and award-winning app developer – made the company’s journey exciting and seamless. Since the new product launch in the first week of November, the company has attracted 100,000+ users on the Fello app just within a short span of 2 weeks, with over 80% of the users being first-time investors.

With a vision to build better financial profiles for the youth of India, Fello plans to leverage the funding to expand its young team, scale the product, and gear up for more game-based finance products to disrupt the nascent space in India. The aim is to reach a million users investing and playing on the app in the next three quarters, by penetrating deeper into tier 1 and tier 2 markets across the country.

Commenting on the company’s funding, Esha Tiwary, Partner & Head at Entrepreneur First, India said, “Manish and Shourya are young, hungry founders who have their pulse on the needs and aspirations of India’s GenZ population. In a crowded investment market, they have found a clear niche and are able to attract and retain GenZ customers and build healthy investment habits. They are a perfect example of companies formed through the EF platform – bright minds from tech and business coming together to solve large impactful problems. We are very excited to continue to be a part of their journey.,

Manish Maryada and Shourya Lala, Co-founders, Fello, said, “Two industries, which have witnessed exponential growth over the past two years are gaming and personal finance. India boasts of over 400 million mobile gamers, yet only 2% of the total population are active investors. Fello, a product built at the intersection of gaming and finance, brings an unprecedented scope for disruption. While an overwhelming majority of our early users were first-time investors, 60% have gone on to reinvest. Moreover, 94% of the user base was acquired through simple organic referrals. These figures show strong early momentum and validation that making finance fun can motivate an entirely new generation to start building healthier financial profiles.,

Commenting on the funding, Mohamad Faraz, Founding Partner, Upsparks said, “Fello’s growth in the early stages has shown the immense capabilities and potential for growth that the startup has. The Co-founders Manish and Shourya come with extensive experience in the finance and technology sector. We have witnessed and believe in the team’s unique ability to create one of the biggest achievements – merging finance with gaming. With several users already present on the platform and the high retention rate that the startup has achieved, we take pride in being a part of their journey in reaching their future goals and growth.,

Ashneer Groover, co-founder of BharatPe and one of the sharks of Shark Tank India says, “Finance is boring. Savings is even more boring. By gamifying the experience of investing using technology – there is potential to expand the investing market significantly. Fello is trying to solve this relevant problem statement.,

Fello is also among the nine companies selected for the CIIE Fintech Inclusion Programme of 2021, which will support them in their plans of rapid expansion into tier 2 and tier 3 cities.About Fello

Founded in 2021, Fello is a game-based savings and investment application to save, play and get returns more than a traditional savings bank account. It makes savings fun and easy through fun, exciting and rewarding games. Users can start saving and investing in assets like Digital Gold and receive gaming tokens for every rupee they invest. Using these tokens, they can play fun in-house games like Cricket and Tambola and win exciting prizes every week.

About Entrepreneur First

Founded in 2011, Entrepreneur First is the world’s leading technology talent investor, bringing together extraordinary people to build startups from scratch in London, Singapore, Berlin, Paris, Toronto, and Bangalore. Through their $200m fund, the company invests in individuals to find a world-class co-founder, develop an idea and fund the deep technology businesses they create.

Entrepreneur First has created 300 companies, which include Magic Pony Technology (acquired by Twitter), Represent (acquired by CustomInk), Bloomsbury AI (acquired by Facebook), Tractable, Cleo, OpenCosmos, CloudNC, Transcelestial, and many more. The global investor is backed by Reid Hoffman, Greylock Partners, Founders Fund, Mosaic Ventures, and Lakestar.



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Finance Minister, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday informed Parliament that the Centre has issued no specific directions to banks asking them not to give loans to “sensitive customers” like police personnel.

Sitharaman, during Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha, said there is no “official stated policy” directing banks not to give loans to certain categories of customers. “Banks make assessments based on KYC and other ratings like civil ratings. I don”t think any specific instructions are given to banks — please be careful not to lend to these people,” she said in the Upper House while responding to a supplementary queries.

However, banks do exercise a certain level of discretion based on their available KYC (know your customer), she added. Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad said banks do have “problems” in lending to police and politicians. Banks see track record before lending to these customers, he added.

Responding to another question on banks not lending to politically exposed persons (PEPs), the Union Finance Minister said, “…this is more from the point of view of large sums of money are transferred from one account to another complying with the global requirement where the financial action on terror funding happens.” So according to them, the minister said every account will have to be kept on a tab where huge money is transferred to a sensitive bank account, she added.



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FM, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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As much as Rs 26,697 crore was lying in dormant accounts of banks, including cooperative banks, as on December 31, 2020, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. This money is lying in nearly 9 crore accounts which have not been operated for 10 years.

As per information received from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as on December 31, 2020, the total number of such accounts in Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) was 8,13,34,849 and the amount of deposits in such accounts was Rs 24,356 crore, Sitharaman said in a reply.

Similarly, she said, the number of accounts not operated for more than 10 years and the amount in such accounts with Urban Co-operative Banks (UCBs) was 77,03,819 and Rs 2,341 crore, respectively, as on December 31, 2020.

“The number of deposit accounts (i.e. public deposits matured but remaining unclaimed for 7 years including the year in which they have matured) and the amount in such accounts with Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) was 64 and Rs 0.71 crore, respectively as on March 31, 2021,” she said.

As per the instructions issued by the RBI to banks vide their Master Circular on “Customer Service in Banks”, banks are required to make an annual review of accounts in which there are no operations for more than one year, and may approach the customers and inform them in writing that there has been no operation in their accounts and ascertain the reasons for the same.

“Banks have also been advised to consider launching a special drive for finding the whereabouts of the customers/legal heirs in respect of accounts which have become inoperative, i.e., where there are no transactions in the account over a period of two years,” she said.

Further, she said, banks are required to display the list of unclaimed deposits/ inoperative accounts which are inactive / inoperative for ten years or more on their respective websites, with the list containing the names and addresses of the account holder(s) in respect of unclaimed deposits/ inoperative accounts.

As regards action taken on deposits in such accounts, she said, pursuant to the amendment to the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 and insertion of Section 26A in the said Act, the RBI has framed the Depositor Education and Awareness Fund (DEAF) Scheme, 2014.

In terms of the Scheme, banks calculate the cumulative balances in all accounts which are not operated upon for a period of 10 years or more (or any amount remaining unclaimed for 10 years or more) along with interest accrued and transfer such amounts to the DEAF.

“The DEAF is utilised for promotion of depositors’ interests and for such other purposes which may be necessary for promotion of depositors’ interest as may be specified by the RBI. In case of demand from a customer whose deposit had been transferred to the DEAF, banks are required to repay the customer, along with interest if any, and lodge a claim for refund from the DEAF,” she said.

Replying to another question, she said, the RBI as per its master circular has authorised the board of each housing finance companies (HFCs) would adopt an interest rate model taking into account relevant factors such as cost of funds, margin and risk premium and determine the rate of interest to be charged for loans and advances.

The rates of interest and the approach for gradation of risks, and penal interest has to be disclosed to the borrowers in the application form, and in the sanction letter besides making available on their website or published in the newspapers.

Further, HFCs have been advised to put in place an internal mechanism to monitor the process and the operations so as to ensure adequate transparency in communications with the borrowers.



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