As the clock struck midnight on July 01 last year, a packed Indian parliament ushered in the country biggest ever tax reform with a gong: the unified goods and services tax (GST), in the making for over 17 years, subsumed a bevy of multiple taxes and levies.
In India, it’s women who are betting big on cryptocurrencies.
It’s a new low for the Indian rupee.
It has been a wretched year for Indian banks with a string of high-profile frauds.
Singapore’s DBS Bank is all set to become one of the first foreign lenders to kick-start full-fledged operations in India. From October this year, the lender will begin functioning like any other Indian one—with no restrictions on opening branches or expanding its business.
It’s been a rough few months for India’s private banks. Besides mounting bad loans, they’ve also had to battle corporate governance issues and a leadership vacuum.
Strange things are happening in India’s banking system and nobody seems to know why.
Another big gun is leaving Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s economic team.
For nearly a decade, a handful of powerful Indian women had occupied the corner offices in an industry that had till then been another male bastion. That dream, however, seems to be souring now.
One of India’s most celebrated bankers, Chanda Kochhar, has been in the eye of the storm in the last few months.
In the Indian ethos of jugaad, wherever there is a rule, there is always a way around.
After months of signalling its uneasiness with digital currencies, India dealt the ecosystem a body blow in April. The country’s central bank directed lenders to close down bank accounts of cryptocurrency exchanges and its users within three months. Since then, these bourses have been inching towards the end of the road.
Two of India’s most celebrated woman bankers have been in hot water for the last three months.
Billionaire fraudsters, besides those accused of economic offences, terrorism, and other crimes in India, seem to prefer the United Kingdom as a destination to seek refuge.
If a dithering government, a vacationing court, and an unfriendly central bank weren’t bad enough, India’s embattled cryptocurrency ecosystem is now staring at another problem—a spate of crimes.
Only a few players rule India’s retail payments system.
India’s cryptocurrency exchanges are willing to open themselves up to more regulatory scrutiny, allow greater transparency, and take more measures to safeguard customers—all in exchange for a little love from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Narendra Modi came to power with a thumping victory in May 2014, riding on the promise of acche din (good days). Almost four years later, the Indian economy has come full circle with growth slipping back to nearly the same pace as the year before Modi took over the reins.
The Narendra Modi government’s aim of making India a less-cash economy has been a non-starter so far. The country’s central bank has now blamed much of this on the lack of awareness among consumers and even bank employees.
A million Indian bank employees have declared a two-day strike on May 30 and May 31, bringing the country’s financial nervous system to a grinding halt.
Around three years since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) began the toxic loan clean-up, Indian banks’ financial health has gone from bad to worse. Problems like the growing pile of non-performing assets (NPAs), recurring frauds, and cash mismanagement have crippled the sector.
The Narendra Modi government is going to try out a new strategy to get India’s state-run banks back in shape: name and shame.
Owning a home is a lifetime’s dream for most Indian households, but the cumbersome process of buying one has often left them harrowed. There could soon be help at hand now.
Fourteen of India’s 21 state-run banks have declared their results for the January to March 2018 quarter so far. Only two managed to stay in the black. The remaining 12 have accumulated over $6 billion (Rs42,043 crore) in losses.
