ICICI Bank slapped with Rs 589-mn fine for selling bonds from HTM category
ICICI Bank was on Thursday slapped with a Rs 589-million penalty by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for selling bonds from the lender’s Held To Maturity (HTM) category. Bonds in the HTM category are kept for redemption at the end of maturity and are not for the purpose of trading. Therefore, these bonds don’t attract ‘Mark to Market’ losses (MTM), which is a practice of valuing bonds at their prevailing market rates and not at historical prices.
Policy for telecom infrastructure in defence areas notified
The government has notified the policy for establishing telecom towers and related infrastructure in areas under the Ministry of Defence (MoD). It will not only allow companies to easily set up towers, but also share infrastructure in these areas. The MoD owns more than 17.50 Lakh acre of land, of which around 1.57 Lakh acres is spread over 62 notified cantonments and around 15.96 Lakh acres is outside these cantonments. “MoD has notified the policy for telecom towers in its area. The Department of Telecom (DoT) was also consulted on this. Like in other parts, MoD-controlled areas also need towers to match up to the rising demand, especially for data. Besides, companies can also share the infrastructure in these areas, “a senior government official said.
Liquidators allowed selling companies as ‘going concern’
Liquidators of companies where an insolvency resolution process has not been successful now have the option to sell them as a going concern, rather than disposing them in parcels. Through an amendment to its liquidation process regulations, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has added the fifth method — as a going concern — of selling assets of a corporate debtor. Hitherto, there were only four modes for liquidation of a corporate debtor — disposal of its assets, namely, sale on a stand-alone basis; slump sale; sell the assets in parcels; and sell the assets collectively.
Lack of liquidity forces banks to raise rates; RBI may maintain status quo
State Bank of India’s (SBI’s) continued hikes in deposit rates, three times since January, points to an interesting fact — interest rates have risen in the economy and it would remain that way, irrespective of what the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decides about its monetary policy rate. Analysts expect the central bank to keep its policy rates unchanged on April 5 and also probably for the rest of the calendar year. Ideally, what the central bank does, the commercial banks should follow. But that is hardly the case in the Indian banking system where transmission of policy decisions is a challenge.
Fishy loans: CBI registers 3 FIRs in Rs 743 crore NPA in IDBI bank
The CBI has registered three fresh cases to look into Rs 743 crore of fishy loans issued by an IDBI bank branch in West Godavari district for pisciculture and Kisan credit cards which have become nonperforming assets, the officials said today. The agency has named three accused persons–B K Sahoo, retired DGM of the bank R Damodaran and the then DGM Battu Rama Rao–who are common in all the three Firs. There are a total of 41 others accused in these three separate FIRs, they said.
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