Finance

MUMBAI: Life Insurance Corp. of India (LIC) may lend as much as Rs 1,200 crore to cash-strapped Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) to help tide over its liquidity crisis as the company’s board meets Saturday to discuss strategy and various other measures to sell assets and raise funds. The non-banking finance company is looking to raise funds through a rights issue to shore up capital, reduce debt and recapitalise group companies. “IL&FS has approached LIC for a Rs 1,000-1,200-crore loan,” said a person close to the development. “LIC, which has over 25% stake in the company, is considering lending this amount and a decision will soon be taken by the investment committee. The terms will be decided after discussing the matter on the board and by the investment

HDFC Bank has sent nearly 250 summons through e-mail and WhatsApp to customers who evade compliance and hopes to settle cases faster by adopting the newer methods of communication. "HDFC Bank is pursuing with various courts in the country to take up digital means of communication which include issuing notices, summons, through e-mails and WhatsApp which will help in faster disposal of the cases," a bank official said. The official said over 60 lakh cheque bounce cases are pending in the country and HDFC Bank has taken a lead by requesting the courts to use digital means to issue summons. "We have been sending summons through e-mail, on WhatsApp. In many cases, we have seen that customers deny having received any summon at all if sent through post. "It also happens that people change ...

By Andy Mukherjee India is marking the 10th anniversary of the 2008 global financial crisis with its own mini-Lehman moment. True to script, ratings companies have belatedly realized that the IL&FS Group — Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd. and its associates — is woefully short of liquidity, with about $500 million in repayments coming due in the second half of its fiscal year through March and only about $27 million available. The group, which missed a payment in the commercial-paper market last month, is now late in servicing an inter-corporate deposit. Shocks are starting to reverberate amid an avalanche of ratings downgrades. That’s only to be expected: On the hook for the group’s $12.5 billion debt are banks and mutual funds. (IL&FS itself is a motley col

NEW DELHI: Punjab National Bank has put nearly two dozen non-performing accounts (NPAs) on sale to recover over Rs 1,320 crore. The bank's Stressed Assets Targeted Resolution Action (SASTRA) Division, which is handling the sale of stressed assets to recover dues, has put on sale a total of 21 accounts which cumulatively owe PNB Rs 1,320.19 crore. "We intend to place these accounts for sale to ARCs/NBFCs/other banks/FIs etc, on terms and conditions stipulated in the bank's policy, in line with the regulatory guidelines," PNB said in a notification. The accounts include Moser Baer Solar, which has an outstanding of Rs 233.06 crore, Divine Alloys & Power Co Ltd Rs 200.87 crore, Divine Vidyut Rs 132.66 crore, Chincholi Sugar & Bio Industries Rs 114.42 crore, Arshiya Northern FTWZ Lt...

KOLKATA: Private sector lender Bandhan Bank has backed out of the race to acquire PNB Housing Finance, making it one of the major drop-outs, according to sources close to the matter. Bandhan with about 90% weightage on microfinance in terms of loan outstanding was initially keen to acquire the Punjab National Bank promoted housing finance company as it would have allowed the three-year old lender to diversify its portfolio. But it backed out in the last minute and did not submit the non-binding offer, the source said. The acquisition would also have helped Bandhan to pare promoter’s stake to 40%. Bandhan Financial Holdings, which is the promoter, currently owns 82.28% in the bank. Bandhan Bank Managing Director Chandra Shekhar Ghosh did not respond to calls or text messages till the pre

No Indian institution was affected as badly as ICICI Bank by the global financial crisis. So deep were the concerns over ICICI Bank at that time that Infosys, whose founder NR Narayana Murthy was once on ICICI Bank board, withdrew Rs 1,000 crore of its fixed deposits with the bank and moved them to State Bank of India. Smaller depositors were queuing up at ATMs to withdraw their funds. The bank had to move truckloads of cash to meet the withdrawal demand. In an unprecedented move, banking regulator the Reserve Bank of India said that ICICI Bank had enough liquidity and the central bank had arranged to provide cash to the bank. The main trigger for this panic was that ICICI Bank’s global ambitions had resulted in the private lender being the only institution to be directly hit by the Leh

NEW DELHI: Looking to achieve the target of housing for all by 2022, the National Housing Bank (NHB) Tuesday held a meeting with top housing finance companies to give a fillip to rural housing, according to a source. Representatives of top 15 housing finance companies (HFC), which capture about 90 per cent of the market, today met with Additional Secretary, Finance, Dakshita Das, who is also the interim Managing Director and Chief Executive of NHB to understand the "challenges in rural housing and how demand can be boosted in this segment of the market", the source said. NHB which governs the housing finance companies in the country is owned by the Reserve Bank. NHB asked the players to have a focused approach in boosting demand for rural masses so that the government's Housing for All ...

NEW DELHI: The government expects at least half of the 32 crore Jan Dhan accounts to avail the overdraft facility for Rs 2,000 with no conditions attached, a finance ministry official said, that would translate to a Rs 32,000 crore booster shot for the economy. “We expect that mostly vegetable sellers or similar small shop owners will use this facility for their daily businesses. This is expected to help them get more into the formal banking system, as they will be making repayments in order to stand eligible for large value loans,” the official said. As per the latest data, only 32 lakh of PMJDY account holders had availed Rs 354 crore as overdraft till December 2017. “This was mostly because the facility was available after six months of the satisfactory conduct of the account. Now, w

MUMBAI: Amitabh Chaudhry, the incoming Chief Executive Officer at Axis Bank, may well be taking over at a time when the worst is over for the lender after thousands of crores of provisioning and losses have been written off. The bank may be at a sweet spot after three years of struggle with mounting bad loans which it had lent to the infrastructure sector. Steel, power and road companies hobbled along in this period because of policy flip-flops and a slowing economy. Chaudhary, who will take over as MD & CEO for 3 years from January 1, 2019, said, “I would like to thank the RBI and the Axis Bank board for the privilege and honour given to me to lead this great institution. Axis Bank is amongst the leading private sector banks in the country. Together with the support of the board

Capital markets regulator Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) may soon summon ICICI Bank's on-leave CEO Chanda Kochhar and her husband with regard to a probe into alleged regulatory lapses with regard to his business dealings, officials said Sunday. Besides, some other top officials of the bank, as also from Videocon, which allegedly benefitted due to its association with Kochhar's husband, are also likely to be called for their personal hearings regarding charges against them that may lead to the bank and its embattled chief being slapped with several crores of rupees in fines and other penal actions including ban from markets and directorships. According to top officials, the multi-agency probe into ICICI Bank and business dealings of the Kochhar family will also be discus...