Even though the government has intervened and installed a new board, the IL&FS saga continues with no resolution in immediate sight. Daily reports of defaults of IL&FS group companies are heightening concerns in the financial market. This is happening in the back drop of the rupee in free fall, stock market...
Hemindra Hazari
Axis Bank is one of the favoured stars among the new private sector banks in India, with an enviable reputation. The Banker gave it the Bank of the Year award in 2014; Brand Equity termed it the “Most Trusted Private Sector Bank” two years in a row (2013, 2014); Asiamoney called it the “Best...
Hemindra Hazari
In the ongoing demonetisation saga, the credibility of India’s central bank keeps plunging to new depths.
Repeated contradictory notifications, restrictions on cash withdrawal of deposits, inadequacy of new notes to replace the withdrawn high denomination notes, and a complete lack of transparency are just a handful of examples....
Hemindra Hazari
9 July 2019
On 26 June 2019, confronted with a contempt petition filed in the Supreme Court of India by Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI) activist, Girish Mittal, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) finally disclosed the hitherto confidential annual inspection reports, called risk assessment reports (RARs),...
Hemindra Hazari
The year is not even three weeks old but has already been unkind to financial markets. The stock market is back to pre-Modi levels; the rupee is back to pre-Raghuram Rajan levels.
While global markets absorbed the US Federal hike in late December 2015, the stock market meltdown in...
Hemindra Hazari
Risk management is the control and nerve centre of a bank. The independence of control and vigilance functions like risk management and audit has to be fiercely protected by the board of directors and the banking regulator. So when a major bank starts downgrading its chief risk officer...
Hemindra Hazari
There are high hopes that Urjit Patel, the new RBI governor will act to revive bank lending and thereby do his bit for the economy. But that would require him to make the right diagnosis in the first place. The recently released RBI Annual Report at least shows no sign...
The legal battle concerns the RBI’s instructions to Kotak Mahindra Bank to reduce the promoter holding, and the bank's sharp practices while appearing to comply.
By Hemindra Hazari
MUMBAI, Maharashtra—A royal legal battle has been going on between Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMB) and the banking regulator, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in...
By Hemindra Hazari
On January 11, 2019, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a press release informing the public that “by an order dated January 4, 2019 imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 30 million on Citibank N.A. India (the bank) for deficiencies in compliance with the RBI instructions on ‘Fit...
Hemindra Hazari
In the run-up to the upcoming Budget, shares on the stock market have rallied, raising hopes of the long delayed revival in private sector capital expenditure and corporate earnings. But against the backdrop of an already slowing economy followed by the ill-conceived, disastrously executed demonetisation, might this be...
