Bharti AXA Life in bancassurance pact with Shivalik Small Finance Bank

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Private life insurer Bharti AXA Life Insurance has entered into a bancassurance partnership with Shivalik Small Finance Bank for the distribution of its life insurance products through the bank’s pan-India network of branches.

Under this agreement, Bharti AXA Life Insurance will offer its suite of life insurance products, including protection, health, savings and investment plans, to customers of Shivalik Small Finance Bank across its 31 branches and digital network across the country.

This alliance will enable over 4.5 lakh customers of Shivalik Bank to access the range of products offered by the company to provide financial security.

Bharti AXA General launches Health AdvantEDGE

Expansion of distribution footprint

Commenting on the association, Parag Raja, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Bharti AXA Life Insurance, said in a statement: “The outbreak of Covid-19 has led to a notable shift in customers’ perception of life insurance, which is fundamentally about protection. With our alliance with Shivalik Bank, we shall empower the bank’s customers with protection and holistic insurance solutions and help us strengthen our commitment while reaching out to urban, tier-II and tier-III markets. We believe this partnership will enrich our distribution footprint and help us increase insurance penetration in the country.”

UP-based Shivalik SFB commences operations

Suveer Kumar Gupta, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Shivalik Small Finance Bank, said this alliance is a part of the bank’s various measures towards financial inclusion and acceleration of wealth creation for its customers.

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SBI’s Ecowrap revises FY22 GDP projection to 7.9% from 10.4%

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State Bank of India’s economic research department has revised it real GDP projection for FY22 to 7.9 per cent from 10.4 per cent earlier, with its analysis showing a disproportionately larger impact of the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic on the economy.

The Department, in its report “Ecowrap”, imparted an upward bias to this number with the fervent hope of 1 crore vaccinations per day beginning mid-July as per government projections.

“However, our analysis shows a disproportionately larger impact on economy this time and given that rural is not as resilient as urban, the pick up in pent-up demand is unlikely to make a large difference in FY22 GDP estimates, and hence it could only be a modest pick up,” said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Group Chief Economic Adviser, SBI.

For the current financial year, GDP outlook will be impacted by the trajectory of international commodity prices which have risen sharply during the year, as per Ecowrap.

Consumption impact

Further, the pass-through impact of higher commodity prices will be visible in domestic prices thus impacting consumption during the year.

Also read: Moody’s pegs India GDP growth at 9.3% in FY22

The report observed that the overall consumption trajectory will depend on the recovery in services “Trade, hotels, transport, communication & services related to broadcasting” which supports roughly 25 crore households. Corporate, in the listed space, reported better growth numbers across parameters in Q4 (January-March) FY21, but this trend may soon reverse.

The report observed that after registering nominal loss of ₹13.4-lakh crore in H1 (April-September) FY21, the gain in H2/October 2020 – March 2021 (of ₹7.3-lakh crore) resulted in overall annual loss of ₹6.1-lakh crore. Real loss on the other hand stood at ₹10.6-lakh crore in FY21.

“This is a peculiar characteristic that is being exhibited in FY21 data. Normally, the annual increase in nominal GDP is more than the annual increase in real GDP, which is quite obvious given the fact that inflation is always in positive territory in India. However, in FY21 the contraction in real GDP was more than the contraction in nominal GDP,” Ghosh said.

Third wave

Meanwhile, the report assessed that the average duration of third wave for top countries is 98 days and that of second wave is 108 days, with third wave peak as a multiple of second at 1.8 and second wave as a multiple of first at 5.2 (for India it was at 4.2).

Also read: Manufacturing PMI slides to 50.8, job shedding accelerates

International experience thus suggests that the intensity of third wave is as severe as the second wave, according to Ecowrap. However it is also observed that in third wave, if we are better prepared, the decline in serious case rate will lead to less number of deaths.

The department’s analysis shows that if serious cases decline from 20 per cent to 5 per cent (due to better health infrastructure and rigorous vaccination) in the third wave, then the number of deaths in the third wave could significantly reduce to 40,000 as compared to current deaths of more that 1.7 lakh.

“So vaccination should be the key priority, especially for the children who could be the next vulnerable group. With around 15-17 crore children in the 12-18 age bracket, India should go for an advanced procurement strategy like that adopted by developed nations to inoculate this age-group,” emphasised Ghosh.

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HDFC Bank commits ₹100 cr under Parivarthan for fighting the pandemic

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HDFC Bank and Piramal Foundation on Friday announced measures for Covid relief.

HDFC Bank, under Parivartan, announced measures to set up and enhance medical infrastructure across the country to assist the fight against the pandemic.

“The measures comprise setting up permanent medical infrastructure such as oxygen plants, medical equipment, and ICU facilities, in addition to providing medical supplies to hospitals across India,” it said in a statement.

The bank has committed an initial ₹100 crore under Parivartan in 2021-22 for Covid-19 relief initiatives. In 2020-21, it had contributed ₹120 crore towards Covid-19 relief.

Piramal Foundation’s initiative

Meanwhile, in a separate announcement, Piramal Foundation, which is the philanthropic arm of Piramal Enterprises Limited (PEL), said it will invest ₹100 crore towards Covid Relief in aspirational districts in partnership with Niti Aayog.

“To address the current emergency due to the second wave of Covid-19, the Foundation, will set up 100 Covid Care Centres in rural and tribal blocks across 25 of the worst affected Aspirational districts, and Home Care Support to the tribal and rural population with poor access to health services in 112 aspirational districts across India in partnership with Niti Aayog,” it said in a statement.

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Amit Saxena, SBI, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Q. How is SBI using digital transformation as a means to address many challenges that is emanating during the pandemic. If you could share some light on digital architecture and things you are doing from last one year?

Amit Saxena: The last one year has been quite challenging. We thought this year we will be able to do things differently than last year. Given the pandemic situation we are into, having said that it has not stopped SBI moving from one stage of transformation to another transformation. We have done a lot of transformation with respect to digital banking platform YONO itself. We have introduced Video KYC, we are trying to launch end to end loan processing through a digital platform where we should be able to give it to all our customers so that they do not have to visit our branches.

We are going to start it with smaller amounts of loans, but we are planning to expand to all loans. We already have most of the loans. Like for example I you have a loan from another bank. What we call as the existing to the bank customer you can transfer that loan YONO platform. That is very good journey, it is still not end to end, very good journey it’s still not end to end but it would help you because we will generate there is some of the loan processing thing which still needs to be done through the system itself right so would we would generate you a sequence number and using that sequence number you cans peak to somebody will call you, you do not need to go anywhere and then you have to upload some of your documents and then it will be done because that’s the integration with the CRM system. Having said that that is only one part of the journey where we are trying to give customer convenience itself but at the same time what we are looking at we are looking at how our architecture is a revamp itself, so we have worked on most of our bigger systems architecture.

We are really looking at doing some of the architecture transformation now. Architecture transformation is not something which is easily said than done itself so you would see that a lot of things which we are trying to do so, one thing which we are very focused about which is the standardization and rationalization. So, what happens into our system, IT system just for the sake of our viewers that you would see that lot of there are lot of different system which are trying to integrate with each other and usually large banks like us we have to get some of those things into a manner that most of the system should be able to interact through a single interface and we should avoid a multiple interface system itself. So that kind of standardization we have done last year wherein now most of the system are interacting through an enterprise service bus and they are interacting in a manner in a seamless manner. So that helps bank with respect to that now the number of KPIs which we are having that is reduced.

The number of security related things gets centralized and most of the system is now able to know that which APIs they should be using. That is a kind of architectural event we have done. But that is the first step because once we are trying to do an architecture event, the second thing comes in how you are going to handle the scalability and just to let you know the last year the volumes have increased almost double itself. What you are having right that’s not going to stop they are going to double by this year also so what we have to see is that how we are going to scale our system. So, we have an approach with respect to when we are building such system and because we run some of the largest transaction processing system in the country itself. We do a scalability with the free hand than of waiting upon so, we are planning now the scalability by Q4 of this year then of trying to do so.



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Covid-19: UK-based banks announce financial and medical support for employees in India

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Barclays and Standard Chartered Bank have announced a slew of measures, including salary advance, enhanced insurance limits and doctors on call, for their employees in India to help them deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Barclays has introduced a new set of measures, including facilitating vaccinations, enhanced insurance limits, uncapped paid leave, financial aid and support channels, for its over 20,000 employees in India to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Some of the aforementioned measures will also be available to the families of the London-headquartered Barclays, whose India operations include banking, securities, technology and shared services.

Also read: India inc attract customers with ‘pandemic’ focussed products

The Bank, in a statement, said hospitalisation insurance limits have been raised and certain costs not covered by insurance, such as PPE equipment charges, will be covered.

“All employees can take uncapped paid leave to give sufficient time to recuperate from Covid-19, get vaccinated, and for taking care of a family member.

“Junior colleagues will receive one month’s salary in advance to help manage unforeseen expenses,” it added.

Also read: Several businesses suspend operations in India, help staff as coronavirus ravages

The Bank said employees have access to a 24/7 Covid care helpline, online doctor consultations, a peer-to-peer support network, and a 24/7 confidential helpline that provides free counselling services.

Standard Chartered said its comprehensive benefit programme for its over 25,000 employees in India will include financial reimbursement of expenses incurred towards Covid-19 related medical treatment for parents and parent-in laws up to ₹2.50 lakh per patient with ICU admission and up to ₹1.25 lakh per patient with any other hospitalisation for Covid-19 treatment.

Also: As staff call in sick, India Inc turns a care-giver with well-being interventions

The London-headquartered Bank said it will provide interest free salary advance of up to six months gross pay to meet the expenses incurred on account of Covid-19 related medical emergencies. The repayment will commence following a six-month moratorium period.

In the unfortunate case of an employee passing away, their family will receive financial protection in the form of four times of the annual gross compensation, Standard Chartered said in statement. This increased insurance cover is applicable to all employees, it added.

On medical support, the Bank has constituted a team to assist employees in the hospitalisation process.

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South Indian Bank posts net profit of nearly ₹7 crore in Q4

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South Indian Bank has registered a net profit of ₹6.79 crore in the fourth quarter of FY21 against a loss of ₹143.69 crore during the corresponding period of the previous year. The net profit for the entire FY21 is ₹61.91 crore as against ₹104.59 crore of the previous financial year.

Murali Ramakrishnan, Managing Director & CEO said the lower quarterly profit was mainly on account of credit cost on the fresh slippages during the fourth quarter, as a result of additional stress in the economy due to Covid-19 pandemic. “Bank has strengthened the review and monitoring system of the advance portfolio to improve the credit quality and thereby bringing drastic reduction in the slippages and improve upgrades/ recovery,” Ramakrishnan said.

Vision 2024

The bank has come up with a 3-year Medium Term Strategy (Vision 2024) wherein the focus will continue in the areas of MSME and Retail Loans with improved underwriting standards. The technology initiatives will be leveraged to improve the CASA and the technology income in the coming quarters.

The prevailing Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the growth in the business and personal loan segment. “As part of the business strategy to reduce the exposure in the corporate advances, the bank has brought down the share of corporate advances from 28 per cent as on March 31, 2020 to 25 per cent as on March 31,” he said.

The bank has also been able to meet the targeted levels of recovery/ upgrades which has helped in containing the GNPA level despite higher slippages numbers during the year on account of the pandemic. The provision coverage ratio has improved to 58.73 per cent from 54.22 per cent.

The Capital Adequacy Ratio stands comfortable at 15.42 per cent as on March 31. The bank has raised the equity capital during the quarter for an amount of ₹240 crore which strengthened the Common Equity. “The bank plans to raise further capital during FY21-22 to strengthen the capital base,” he added.

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RBI board approves transfer of higher surplus to government

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The Reserve Bank of India’s Central Board on Friday approved the transfer of ₹99,122 crore as surplus to the Central Government for the accounting period of nine months ended March 31, 2021 (July 2020-March 2021). This is 73.50 per cent higher vis-a-vis the ₹57,128 crore transfer approved in the accounting year 2019-20.

This transfer of higher surplus in the nine months ended March 31, 2021 comes in the backdrop of the government stepping up spending for healthcare and social sector schemes in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Also read: Released liquidity may help banks to subscribe to G-Secs

The Board, at its 589th meeting on Friday, decided to maintain the Contingency Risk Buffer at 5.50 per cent.

The Board reviewed the current economic situation, global and domestic challenges and recent policy measures taken by the RBI to mitigate the adverse impact of the second wave of Covid-19 on the economy, RBI said in a statement.

With the change in the RBI’s accounting year to April-March (earlier July-June), the Board discussed the working of the RBI during the transition period of nine months (July 2020-March 2021) and approved the Annual Report and accounts of the Reserve Bank for the transition period.

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More Covid-hit companies may need recast of loans, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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MUMBAI: Banks have told the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that the extended restrictions due to the resurgence of the Covid pandemic have caused significant stress on businesses and a restructuring window may be required for more loans.

Although the RBI did allow lenders to restructure loans for borrowers earlier this month, the facility was restricted to loans of up to Rs 25 crore. Since the measures were announced, the second wave of Covid emerged across the country, resulting in most parts of the country observing some form of a lockdown.

On Wednesday, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das met with the CEOs of public sector banks (PSBs) through a video conference. Acknowledging the role played by PSBs in extending various banking services including credit facilities to individuals and businesses during the pandemic, the governor asked them to quickly implement the Covid relief measures already announced. He also reiterated the need for banks to raise capital to increase the resilience of their balance sheet should further shocks arise out of the pandemic.

The governor in the meeting sought feedback from banks on the state of the financial sector and credit flows to different sectors, including small borrowers and micro, small and medium enterprises. The governor also sought information on whether rate reductions by banks were in line with the RBI’s action to bring down the cost of funds.

Bankers said that, while the first quarter is traditionally a sluggish period for credit growth, this year loan pick-up was even lower because of the lockdown. They said that the extended lockdown, while necessary to contain the pandemic, is hurting a large segment of the economy. There is a clear indication of collection efficiency being hit. While earlier the banks were more concerned about the survival of small businesses, they are now worried that larger companies may also start facing liquidity related issues as economic activities in non-essentials have been significantly hit.

Non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) have already asked the RBI for a moratorium for their borrowers and their borrowings from banks. Bankers say that in 2020, NBFCs shrunk their books and reduced debt and obtained cheap finance because of targeted long-term repo operations announced by the RBI, which helped them tide last year’s lockdown. This year, no such package has been announced so far.



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Bounce rates of auto debit transactions rise in April

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In a worrying repetition of last year’s Covid-19 led economic distress, bounce rates for recurring transactions were elevated in April.

Data captured by the National Payments Corporation of India from its National Automated Clearing House (NACH) platform, too reveal that the number of unsuccessful auto debit requests in the month of April had once again begun to climb up after remaining low in March.

According to NPCI’s data, of the total of 8.54 crore auto debit transactions on the NACH platform in April, 5.63 crore were successful while 2.9 crore were returned. This reflects a return or bounce rate of 34.05 per cent in April compared to 32.76 per cent in March.

The rate of unsuccessful transactions in April is however, still lower than previous months like February and January when it was at a little over 36 per cent and the peak of 45.4 per cent in June 2020.

Banks watchful

The issue was also flagged by HDFC Bank in its fourth quarter analyst call when the management noted that bounce rates had begun to rise in April, which could be an indication of rising systemic stress.

Other banks too are remaining watchful about repayments and the Reserve Bank of India’s Restructuring 2.0 framework is expected to help small borrowers tide over the current uncertainty.

“Collection efficiency in April has been lower and the impact has been felt in SME and MSME segment and not so much in the salaried segment. Chances are the month of May would see a similar trend. However, this time around, there have not been any salary cuts or job losses so far in the organised sector,” noted Gaurav Gupta, CEO, MyLoanCare.in.

Analysts are hopeful that with limited lockdowns, the economic distress will not be as much as last year

“We estimate that the severely affected States account for about 48 per cent of retail credit and about 56 per cent of overall credit. Again, self-employed categories will bear the biggest brunt of localised lockdowns,” said a report by Emkay Global Financial Services.

Self-employed category

It expects that within retail assets, which constitutes about 31 per cent of overall credit, the self-employed category accounts for nearly a third – though the impact will largely be restricted to business loan, loan against property and MFI portfolio.

A recent SBI Ecowrap report also noted that NPCI-NACH debit return per cent reached a peak in June 2020 and has been on a declining trend since then. The per cent return (value terms) has declined to 27.5 per cent in March 2021 from the peak of 38.1 per cent in June 2020. Even the volume percentage declined to 32.8 per cent from 45.4 per cent during the same period.

“With various restrictions at State and district level imposed during April, it is yet to be seen whether it affects the recurring payments going forward,” it however said.

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Credit Suisse offers ₹7.5-cr additional aid to Concern India Foundation, GiveIndia

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Credit Suisse has committed an additional ₹7.5 crore in aid to Concern India Foundation and GiveIndia, to provide financial assistance to hospitals in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Bangalore, to help India in its fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

The financial aid would be utilised to procure critical medical supplies, oxygen and ICU equipment for the hospitals treating Covid-19 patients, it said in a statement.

Credit Suisse is also raising funds from its staff for GiveIndia’s India Covid Response Fund, which will then be matched by the bank through a separate donation. The campaign has already raised more than ₹2.8 crore of additional support so far.

Mickey Doshi, CEO India, Credit Suisse, said, “We are deeply concerned and anguished by the impact of the second wave of Covid-19 in India. Our thoughts are with our impacted colleagues and their loved ones, and with our clients and local communities. Credit Suisse stands in solidarity with everyone in the country during these extremely difficult times. The aid to Concern India and GiveIndia should help in procuring critical medical supplies and equipment for hospitals. This support is our small effort, alongside the notable endeavours of the rest of India Inc. as well as the Indian government, towards ensuring that our healthcare ecosystem gets all the help it possibly can during this unprecedented crisis”.

These initiatives follow the bank’s earlier ₹4.5-crore grant to Concern India Foundation and United Way Mumbai in April 2020, for the procurement of essential equipment at seven hospitals in Mumbai and Pune.

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