The banking sector this week was over shadowed by the Reserve Bank of India's annual report released on Wednesday and a few banks cutting lending rates.
But the bigger news was the case between ICICI Bank and Innoventive Industries fighting battle in the Supreme Court, which ruled in favour of the bank saying that the management of a company undergoing bankruptcy proceedings cannot continue in its role and must step aside.
In another disclosure by private sector lender, Axis Bank said that the banking regulator has asked it to proceed towards bankruptcy against 12 accounts in the second list of defaulting companies to be filed at the insolvency courts.
Here are the other big news from banking sector:
Rs 200 notes
The new Rs 200 notes will soon be available at the ATMs (automated teller machines) within a period of 15-20 days, which could be before the end of September.
RBI Annual Report
The Reserve Bank released its annual report detailing that 98.96 percent of the withdrawn currency had returned into the banks in the form of deposits.
About 89 million notes of Rs 1000 rupee currency have not come back to the system out of a total of 6700 million notes that were in the system as on November 8 last year.
This also increased RBI’s total expenditure by over 100 percent while its income dropped by 24 percent, thereby leading to a lower transfer of surplus at Rs 30,659 crore to the government. A year ago, the transfer stood at Rs 65,876 crore.
Hence, was the demonetisation exercise worth the costs, efforts and inconvenience of citizens?
If there is anything that demonetisation has achieved, it has helped convert some black money into white. The onus is on the government and its agencies to prove the colour of the money deposited. Or is it too early to call it a failure?
According to R Gandhi, former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor, its success will be measured once the tax authorities nail the suspicious deposits and hold the depositors accountable.
Rate cuts
Government-owned banks such as Punjab National Bank, Dena Bank and Union Bank of India also cut their lending rates amid surplus liquidity and weak credit demand. While PNB cut its base rate and marginal cost based lending rate (MCLR), state-run lenders Union Bank of India and Dena Bank reduced only the MCLR.
On the other hand, Canara Bank cut their savings rate to to 3.5 percent on deposits of up to Rs 50 lakh
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