Indian banks brace for bad loans with stronger balance sheets, says new S&P report, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Indian banks’ prior efforts to strengthen their balance sheets will help them mitigate the impact of asset quality as bad loans ticked higher in the April-to-June quarter following a deadlier wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report by S&P Global Market Intelligence research.

“Banks have been taking steps to fortify their balance sheets over the last year or so to face the asset quality impact. These have been through enhancing capital base, increasing provisioning cover and having adequate amounts of liquidity,” said Krishnan Sitaraman, senior director at CRISIL, a unit of S&P Global Inc.

The June quarter saw gross NPAs rising, mainly in retail and small and medium-sized enterprise portfolios for banks.

“That is because these segments have been impacted more by the pandemic and the lockdown measures. The pandemic’s second wave has had a much larger health impact and geographical spread as compared to the first,” Sitaraman said.

State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender by assets, reported total nonperforming loans of Rs 1.36 lakh crore for the fiscal first quarter that ended on June 30, up from Rs 1.28 lakh crore in the previous three months and Rs 1.31 lakh crore in the same period of 2020.

ICICI Bank, the second-biggest private-sector lender, said its gross nonperforming assets rose by Rs 7231 crore in the first quarter, mainly from its retail and business portfolio. State-run Bank of Baroda reported fresh slippages of Rs 5129 crore in the first quarter, versus Rs 2740 crores in the prior-year period.

During the fiscal first quarter, Indian banks saw higher-than-expected slippages of more than 200% year over year that largely arose from retail and SMEs, according to an Aug. 16 research note from Jefferies.

Slippages were higher than expected as new COVID-19 restrictions affected collections, Jefferies analysts said, adding that some banks have started to recover in July and normalcy may return in the fiscal second or third quarter.

India’s economy took a severe hit during the second wave of the coronavirus, with the number of daily cases peaking above 400,000 in May. Cases have tailed off in recent weeks as the government stepped up vaccinations.

Still, the high number of COVID-19 cases and deaths are expected to have had a bigger impact on the economy in terms of jobs lost and businesses shut. Also, most forbearance measures announced last year, including a Supreme Court order stopping banks from classifying delinquent loans as nonperforming assets had been lifted after the economy recovered from the initial wave of infections.

Banks are now seeing the full extent of borrower stress with a one-time debt restructuring facility and the Supreme Court’s standstill on NPA recognition no longer available.

“In the absence of regulatory measures such as moratorium, the gross NPA formation due to the recent wave of COVID-19 is being upfronted in the first half of the current fiscal [year] for the system, including us,” said Sandeep Bakhshi, CEO of ICICI Bank, during a July 24 earnings call. Bakhshi expects the bank’s gross NPA additions to be lower in the second quarter and “decline more meaningfully in the second half of fiscal 2022,” based on expectations of economic activity.

Stress tests by the Reserve Bank of India indicated that the bad loans of all banks may rise to 9.80% by March 2022 from 7.50% in the same month of this year under a baseline scenario. However, the bad loans ratio could rise to as high as 11.22% by March 2022 under a “severe stress” scenario for key macroeconomic indicators, the central bank said in its biannual Financial Stability Report released July 1.

“Many banks have set aside higher provisioning buffers and raised capital in the last one year or so. This should help them absorb the rising stress in their retail book,” said Nikita Anand, an analyst at S&P Global Ratings.

“On the other hand, banks with lower provisioning buffers and weaker capitalization could see a sharp impact on their profits and capital levels,” Anand said. “This could be more acute for banks with significant underlying exposure to small business owners or unsecured retail products where loss given default could be higher.”



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Secondary loan market may help banks exit stressed loans, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Ten lenders, including the State Bank of India and ICICI Bank, have set up a secondary loan market association to promote the growth of the secondary market for loans in India.

The Secondary Loan Market Association (SLMA) is a self-regulatory body that has been set up with the help of the Reserve Bank of India.

Such a body was recommended by the RBI’s task force on the development of the secondary market for corporate loans headed by Canara Bank chairman T N Manoharan.

The other members of SLMA are Canara Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Deutsche Bank, Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank.

The SLMA role

The SLMA will facilitate, promote and set up an online system for the standardisation and simplification of primary loan documentation, and standardisation of documentation for the purchase and sale/assignment documentation and other trading mechanisms for the secondary loan market and its documentation.

Banks can sell specific loans which could open up more lending opportunities, manage asset-liability mismatches, reduce concentration risk and comply with the RBI’s large exposure framework. The market can provide lenders to exit stressed loans even before a default.

The RBI task force recommendations

The task force recommended that loan documentation be standardised, plus the setting up of a Central Loan Contract Registry (CLCR), an ecosystem for enabling virtual information-sharing with various repositories, and the development of an appropriate menu of benchmark rates to be commissioned by the SRB.

It proposed that, for each corporate account, the SRB stipulate a minimum ticket size for trading as a percentage of the loan outstanding.

The task force has flagged roadblocks and these need to be speedily removed. One is the glaring absence of a systemic loan sales platform, another is the lack of an ‘effective, reliable and diligent’ price discovery mechanism, and, not least, the reality of insufficient participants.

Other issues include stamp duty during due diligence and transfer, and regulatory restrictions too.

The bottom line is that an efficient secondary market for corporate loans would have clear-cut benefits for both borrowers and lenders and lead to an active corporate bond market as well.



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ICICI, HSBC, Standard Chartered strike India’s first swaption deals, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Two years after RBI allowed them, ICICI Bank, HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank have cut the first swaption deals, giving new risk management tools to borrowers in rapidly changing interest rate scenarios.

The ‘swaption’ interest-rate derivative product helps both local borrowers and investors to rein in funding costs in a rising rate scenario and retain investment returns in a falling rate scenario. In June, 2019, the Reserve Bank of Indiaissued guidelines for ‘swaption’ deals.

What is swaption?

A swaption contract gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to enter into an interest-rate swap deal.

If a borrower raises local bonds with a ‘put’ option, investors could well surrender those papers in a rising rate scenario, forcing a borrower to issue new bonds at higher rates. This is where the utility of the instrument is evident for the borrower.

If the borrower buys a swaption contract, the instrument will protect the borrower against any losses from rate movements in the event of investors exercising their put options.

Similarly, if a borrower raises bonds with call options, and exercises them in a falling interest market, the investor has to invest at lower rates. If s/he buys a swaption contract, it will shield for any rate losses.

The transaction

ICICI Bank and the two overseas lenders transacted ‘swaptions’ on Overnight Index Swap (OIS) for a total notional sum, which formed a significant majority of the total worth of transactions reported on day one. Trading in the instrument began Tuesday on a Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL) platform, which showed six separate deals for a total notional sum of Rs 700 crore.

The demand for interest rate swaptions from domestic clients to increase in the short to medium term as the proportion of external benchmark linked lending by banks continues to rise.



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RBI partially lifts ban on HDFC Bank, allows it to sell new credit cards, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Eight months after barring the country’s largest private sector lender HDFC Bank from selling new credit cards, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has lifted the ban.

However, the ban on launching new technology initiatives remains.

In December last year, the RBI had come out with an unprecedented action implementing both the bans, after repeated instances of technological outages at the lender, which is the market leader in the credit cards segment.

Rivals ICICI Bank and SBI Cards seized the opportunity to narrow the gap with HDFC Bank.

The bank’s existing users were not impacted by the ban and it had 1.48 crore credit card customers as of June.

The impact

On July 17, the bank’s Chief Executive and Managing Director Sashidhar Jagdishan had said it has complied with 85 per cent of the RBI’s requirements on the improvements desired, and the ball is now in the regulator’s court to re-allow the bank.

Earlier, its technology and credit card vertical had said the time off the market has been utilised to re-draw processes and the teams are raring to go.

Jagdishan had said a technology audit is also over and the RBI will now be “independently” taking a view on when to lift the penal actions taken against the bank.

“We have given a milestone to the regulator in terms of what are the things we are doing on technology, complying with their advisories and directives.

The progress

“We have covered a significant portion as we speak. Almost 85 per cent of what we had to do has been covered,” Jagdsihan, who has been with the lender for over two decades and worked as the ‘change agent’ in the years leading to his elevation, said.

He added that the ball is in the regulator’s court. “As they deem fit, as they see that we are on the right track, I am sure at some point of time, they will lift the embargo.”

Acknowledging that the bank has lost market share in the credit card segment due to the ban, Jagdsihan said tech outages are a global phenomenon but it is the time taken to recover from a setback where the bank erred, leading to the “rap on the knuckles” from the regulator.

The action against HDFC Bank has been followed with a ban on card companies Mastercard and American Express from selling any new cards because of a failure to adhere to data localisation rules.

Also read : HDFC Bank episode shows that digital banking is not easy



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ICICI Bank, StanChart, HSBC cut deals in ‘Swaption’ in a first, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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MUMBAI: Private sector lender ICICI Bank Tuesday cut India’s first set of ‘swaption’ deals with HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank, heralding a new era of risk management in the country’s interest-rate derivatives market that needs to introduce world-class solutions to draw more overseas funds into local debt assets.

The ‘swaption’ interest-rate derivative product should help both local borrowers and investors to rein in funding costs in a rising rate scenario and retain investment returns in a falling rate scenario. In June, 2019, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued guidelines for ‘swaption’ deals.

A swaption contract gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to enter into an interest-rate swap deal.

Three people familiar with the matter told ET that ICICI Bank and the two overseas lenders transacted ‘swaptions’ on Overnight Index Swap (OIS) for a total notional sum, which formed a significant majority of the total worth of transactions reported on day one. Trading in the instrument began Tuesday on a Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL) platform, which showed six separate deals for a total notional sum of Rs 700 crore.

“These transactions are a welcome step toward managing interest rate risks more effectively,” said B Prasanna, Group Head, Global Markets, Sales, Trading and Research, ICICI Bank. “Issuers who have issued bonds with Put options which get exercised in rising interest rate markets now have a tool that can protect them. These products will help make our debt markets reach global standards, and attract more international debt investors.”

If a borrower raises local bonds with a ‘put’ option, investors could well surrender those papers in a rising rate scenario, forcing a borrower to issue new bonds at higher rates. This is where the utility of the instrument is evident for the borrower.

If the borrower buys a swaption contract, the instrument will protect the borrower against any losses from rate movements in the event of investors exercising their put options.

Similarly, if a borrower raises bonds with call options, and exercises them in a falling interest market, the investor has to invest at lower rates. If s/he buys a swaption contract, it will shield for any rate losses.

“We expect the demand for interest rate swaptions from domestic clients to increase in the short to medium term as the proportion of external benchmark linked lending by banks continues to rise,” said Parul Mittal Sinha, Head – Financial Markets, India Standard Chartered Bank.

HSBC declined to comment on the matter.

The transactions took place at the lenders’ Mumbai offices, sources told ET.

To be sure, ICICI Bank and State Bank of India are the only two banks in India that are traded in the global Credit Default Swap (CDS) market, which has significantly gained traction after the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008.



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What e-commerce co-branded credit cards offer

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If Covid-19 and the ensuing lockdowns have got you habituated to purchasing your essentials only online, there are specialised credit cards that can come handy. A few banks are issuing credit cards in partnership with popular e-commerce companies to attract more consumers especially in the post pandemic contactless world. The Amazon Pay ICICI Bank Credit Card and the Flipkart Axis Bank Credit Card are two such cards. These credit cards offer rewards on your online purchases in the form of cashbacks, discounts and reward points. E-commerce websites also provide extra offers to such cardholders on their select purchases. These are over and above the existing discounts, cashbacks, and reward points.

While your affinity to a select e-commerce platform might be a key criterion in deciding the credit card to opt for, there are also other parameters to consider. Here is a lowdown on a few of them.

Enrolment, fees

A registered Amazon Pay user, despite not being an existing customer of ICICI Bank, can easily apply for an ICICI Bank co-branded credit card entirely online using the video KYC facility. They can do so either on the bank’s website or mobile application or through the Amazon.in website or mobile app.

However, for a Flipkart Axis Bank credit card, you must have a current or saving account with Axis Bank apart from being a registered Flipkart user. That apart, the Axis Bank credit card also entails a joining fee of ₹500, while the Amazon Pay ICICI Bank Credit Card is free of cost.

The Amazon pay ICICI Bank card is a free lifetime credit card with no joining or annual fees whereas the Flipkart Axis Bank credit card charges an annual fee of ₹500 after the first year. This is, however waived if the annual spends on the card exceed ₹2 lakh.

On the amount overdue, while ICICI Bank charges an interest of 42-45.6 per cent depending on customer profile, Axis Bank charges 49.36 per cent per annum for amounts overdue on retail purchases and cash transactions. See the table for a comparison on other charges.

 

Benefits offered

The Flipkart Axis Bank credit card comes with a host of welcome benefits such as free vouchers, discounts and cashbacks on the first card transaction on Flipkart, Myntra, etc. and a free 15-month subscription to Gaana. There are no such benefits on enrolment in the case of the ICICI Bank credit card.

On the ICICI Bank card, customers earn 3 per cent reward points on card spends on Amazon (5 per cent for Amazon Prime users). Besides, one can earn 2 per cent reward points for spends on digital categories on Amazon.in such as bill payments, recharges, travel and movie bookings, and for payments to other Amazon Pay merchants such as Swiggy, Bookmyshow, and Yatra. For spends on any merchant location in the country where Visa cards are accepted, the card fetches you 1 per cent reward points.

Besides, the bank offers benefits mostly in the form of reward points. Each reward point is equal to one rupee and the reward earnings are credited directly to the Amazon pay monthly balance after the billing cycle.

The Axis bank card offers cashbacks that are directly credited in the credit card statement in the next billing cycle. The bank offers cashbacks such as 5 per cent of the spends on Flipkart, Myntra and 2GUD. On spends on other preferred merchants such as Swiggy, PVR and Uber, the bank offers 4 per cent cashback. On all other categories of merchant spends, the bank offers 1.5 per cent cashback.

While the ICICI Bank credit card offers 2 per cent reward points when you add money to your Amazon pay wallet, the Axis Bank card does not offer cashbacks for wallet loading transactions.

Fuel surcharge waiver

The banks also offer their existing customers other benefits such as discounts on dining in select restaurants. Besides, the Axis Bank credit card also gives its customers four free lounge accesses in select domestic airports every calendar year.

Both banks do not offer rewards points and cashbacks on fuel, EMI transactions (including purchases converted into EMI later) and gold purchases. However, the banks offer waivers on fuel surcharge – 1 per cent in the case of the Axis Bank credit card for transactions in the range of ₹400- 4,000 up to a maximum of ₹500 per month. In the case of the ICICI Bank credit card, only the existing bank customers get a waiver of 1 per cent on fuel surcharge payments on spends using the bank’s Amazon pay co-branded credit card.

(This is a free article from the BusinessLine premium Portfolio segment. For more such content, please subscribe to The Hindu BusinessLine online.)

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10 banks come together to set up Secondary Loan Market Association

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Ten major banks, including State Bank of India (SBI), ICICI Bank, Canara Bank and Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), have come together to set up the Secondary Loan Market Association (SLMA). It is aimed at promoting the growth of the secondary market for loans in India and also create an online platform for this purpose.

SLMA is a self-regulatory body and has been formed as per the recommendation of the Reserve Bank of India’s Task Force on the Development of secondary market for corporate loans.

Wanted: A secondary market for bank loans

The other members of SLMA are Kotak Mahindra Bank, Deutsche Bank, Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank.

As per SLMA’s memorandum of association, it will facilitate, promote and set up an online system for the standardisation and simplification of primary loan documentation, and standardisation of documentation for the purchase and sale/assignment documentation and other trading mechanisms for the secondary loan market and its documentation.

Website, logo, launched

SLMA will also develop and promote standard trading, settlement and valuation procedures and practices and rules and timelines for the members for conducting the business and to fix transaction-related charges.

The company’s website and logo were digitally launched on August 11, 2021, by Saurav Sinha, Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India.

Bonding together

Sinha said an active secondary market for loans in India will offer benefits to various stakeholders by way of capital optimisation, liquidity management, risk management, exposure re-balancing and efficient price discovery mechanism.

He observed that since smaller banks are generally constrained for various reasons from participating in large and creditworthy lending exposures at the time of origination, the secondary market can enable them to participate in such exposures at a later stage and the constraints faced under the Large Exposure Framework will be a thing of the past.

Sinha also laid stress on the essential pre-requisites for a vibrant secondary market — an ecosystem of market intermediaries like facility agents, security trustee, arrangers, valuation agencies, etc.

Expanding the spectrum of investors

Ashwini Bhatia, Managing Director, SBI, noted that the conceptualisation and operationalisation of SLMA in a time-bound manner is an appropriate response to the long-felt need for wider participation in the loan market aided by appropriate risk mitigation. It will provide the banks and other participants a window for managing their loan assets portfolio, he added.

Bhatia underscored that presently, the primary and secondary markets are restricted to banks and non-banking finance companies and domestic and foreign investors participate only in distressed debt through Asset Reconstruction Companies.

“As such, there is a felt need to expand the spectrum of investors in the secondary market and Alternative Investment Funds/Mutual funds to invest in the secondary loan market,”he said.

Sanjay Srivastava, Chairman, SLMA, said the secondary market for loans in India will evolve on the strength of a systematic digital loan trading platform, standardisation of documents, active participation by stakeholders and effective price discovery mechanism.

Sunil Mehta, Chief Executive, Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), said currently the IBA is actively working on development of syndicated loan market in India and one of the key success factors for such market will be the parallel development of secondary market for sale of loan.

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As loan growth slows, other income comes to banks’ rescue, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Other income has come to the rescue for banks even as they grapple with weak loan growth, in the first quarter of the fiscal year, bank results show.

All banks have seen a year on year growth in other income led by fees and recovery in large written off accounts like the defunct Kingfisher Airlines as a result of which the contribution of other income to total income has increased.

The trend is the same for both large and small banks. For example, State Bank of India (SBI) reported a 24% rise other income to Rs 11,803 crore led by a 21% rise in fees and a Rs 1,692 crore recovery from the written off Kingfisher Airlines’ account which has increased the proportion of other income to 15% of total income from 11% last year.

The story is similar in the large private sector bank’s as well which traditional have a larger proportion of fee income. HDFC Bank‘s other income grew 54% led by fees and commission and income from foreign exchange and derivative transactions, increasing the share of other income to total revenues to 17% from 12% a year earlier. HDFC’s peer ICICI Bank also reported a 53% rise in other income led by fees despite a fall in treasury income.

Analysts say higher proportion of other income though legitimate is driven mostly by lumpy income streams which are not sustainable. However, they expect banking core incomes to rise as loan growth picks up later this year.

“Other income has increased through two main heads namely income from treasury and income from written off accounts. Both of these are very volatile and depend on market conditions and can be called one offs. Banks are sitting on excess SLR and have booked profits this quarter which is reflected in treasury gains. Having said that they are both legitimate income streams and there need not be a concern though for the quality of earnings to be sustainable revival of credit growth is important,” said Asutosh Mishra, head of research at Ashika Stock Broking.

Other income has risen for even smaller lenders as banks dug deep for new income streams faced with twin challenges of depressed loans demand and slow recovery of loans in light of the second wave of the pandemic.

RBL Bank’s other income doubled to Rs 695 crore led by a 137% growth in retail fee income even as total advances fell marginally to Rs 56,527 crore from Rs 56,683 crore a year earlier. Even public sector Bank of India reported a 39% rise in other income due to recovery from a written off aviation account and foreign exchange income even as loan book fell 0.18%.

“This quarter there also has been a increase in forex trading income as forward premiums came down during the quarter, allowing banks to book profits.
Along with the repricing the bond investments this has helped other income,” said Anil Gupta, vice president financial ratings at ICRA.

Gupta expects credit growth to revive later this fiscal as corporate working capital requirements will increase due to higher commodity prices. “We expect credit growth of 8% next fiscal which will bring higher core income and also fees so there is no reason to worry on the outlook,” he said.



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Banks, NBFCs see home loan delinquencies rise as pandemic hits borrowers, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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It’s not just retail, non-collateralised loans that are seeing delinquencies. Home loans that are mortgage-backed are seeing stress due to the pandemic.

Home loans of many banks have seen signs of stress with data from IMGC, a leading guarantor of such advances pointing to

an increase of nearly three times in the mortgage delinquency pool over the past 15 months.

IMGC guarantees home loans for about 20 lenders, including the State Bank of India, Housing Development Finance Corp, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank.

The number of claims paid by IMGC has gone up three times in June since March 2020, but it feels that the worst is over for the segment and the situation will stabilise in the next six months.

LIC Housing Finance

LIC Housing Finance has said there has been an increase in delinquencies, mostly due to economic activities being impacted in Q1. With improvement in economic activities and our increased and focused efforts in recovery, it was confident of controlling the same.

For LIC Housing Finance, on the asset quality, the stage-3 exposure at default worsened to 5.93%, from 4.12% a quarter ago and 2.83% a year ago.

There was a sharp deterioration in asset quality across product segments. Developer/Project GNPA deteriorated to 24.4% (down 640 bps quarter on quarter). According to brokerage estimates, in addition GS3, its Developer/Project book has at least 25% of restructured advances and ~16% in Stage 2.

Total restructured advances of LIC Housing Finance stood at Rs 5,350 crore (of which an estimated 88% were loans to corporate/developers). Against this, LICHF has made additional provisions of Rs 5,000 crore. Around Rs 1,500 crore of Covid-related provisions were booked in the First quarter

Housing finance companies

Non-bank lenders have restructured loans worth 1.6% of their overall book. Out of this while housing finance companies restructured about 1.0% of their AUM, other NBFCs restructured about 2.2%.

According to the rating agency Icra, the restructured book for non-bank lenders is expected to move up to 4.1-4.3% by March 2022 while the same for housing finance companies is estimated to go up to 2.0-2.2%.

The second wave of the Covid pandemic significantly impacted the collection efforts of non-bank lenders especially those in the business segments of vehicle finance, business loans and micro finance, who witnessed their collection efforts decline by about 20-25% in May 2021 versus March 2021. The efficiency improved by 3-5% in June 2021.

TThe loans due beyond 90 days, in March 2021 increased by only 30-40 bps over March 2020 levels, as the collections had improved steadily. Several institutions resorted to high quantum of loan write-offs in the fiscal year gone by which was estimated to be about 1.6% of the total assets under management, which is higher by about 60 basis points over the last fiscal.



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RBI’s new rules on interchange fee, 24/7 bulk clearing facility functional, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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The Reserve Bank of India‘s new directions on raising interchange fee and making available the facility of bulk clearing round the clock have become effective from Sunday onwards.

The RBI in June raised the interchange fee for financial transactions from Rs 15 to Rs 17, while for non-financial transactions the increase was done from Rs 5 to Rs 6. These new rates have become applicable from August 1, 2021, as per the RBI’s direction.

An interchange fee is a fee charged by banks to the merchant who processes a credit card or debit card payment.

Besides, the National Automated Clearing House (NACH) has been made available on all days of the week, effective August 1, 2021.

NACH, a bulk payment system operated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) facilitates one-to-many credit transfers such as payment of dividend, interest, salary and pension.

It also facilitates the collection of payments pertaining to electricity, gas, telephone, water, periodic instalments towards loans, investments in mutual funds and insurance premiums.

During the bi-monthly monetary policy review in June, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das had announced that in order to further enhance the convenience of customers, the NACH will be available on all days of the week.

The facility was available only when banks were open, usually between Monday to Friday. Auto-debit instructions given by the bank account holder were not processed on days the bank were closed like Sundays, bank holidays and even gazetted holidays. Further, since most companies use NACH for salary credits these also did not happen on bank holidays.

Meanwhile, ICICI Bank has revised charges for cash withdrawals from ATMs, cheque books and other financial transactions from August 1. The revised charges will be applicable for domestic savings account holders including salary accounts.



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