Whatsapp 8279470702

🍒   Canara Bank to spin off its credit card vertical into a separate subsidiary : State-owned Canara Bank is set to spin off its credit card vertical into a separate subsidiary while it has started preparing a roadmap for listing of its life insurance and fund management businesses, managing director K Satyanarayana Raju told ET. Raju also said that the bank is looking to focus on retail, agriculture and MSME lending and would slow lending to corporates to maintain net interest margin above 3%. The bank is taking steps to expand low-cost deposits, thus helping improve margins and profitability. The bank is focusing on the credit card business, which it believes can grow exponentially through cross-selling and leveraging the strength of its existing 80 million active customer base. At a market capitalization of about Rs 54,600 crore, Canara Bank is the third most-valued state-run lender after State Bank of India (SBI) and Bank of Baroda. - Economic Times

🍒   ‘Looking at listing flagship subsidiaries next fiscal’ : Public sector major Canara Bank could list its two flagship subsidiaries — Canara Robeco Asset Management and Canara HSBC Life Insurance — in the next 15-18 months. Separately, the bank has identified Canbank Computer Services for housing its credit card portfolio and will look to acquire 100% stake in the company from 67.14% as of March end, managing director & CEO K Satyanarayana Raju tells Piyush Shukla in an interaction.  - financial express

🍒   Kotak Mahindra Bank hikes FD interest rate by 50 basis points on this tenure : Kotak Mahindra Bank has increased fixed deposit interest rate by 50 basis points (bps) on one tenure. The revised interest rate will be applicable for deposits below Rs 2 crore from May 11, 2023. Kotak Mahindra Bank offers an interest rate between 2.75% to 7.20% to general citizens and 3.25% to 7.70% for senior citizens. The bank has increased interest rate by 50 bps on tenure of 180 days from 6.50% to 7% and 10 bps on tenure of 365 Days to 389 Days from 7% to 7.10% for regular citizens. - Economic Times

🍒   South Indian Bank shortlists candidates for MD post : The Nomination and Remuneration Committee (NRC) constituted by South Indian Bank to look for the new MD and CEO has received several applications and has evaluated and shortlisted a few candidates, Chairman Salim Gangadharan said. The search committee is evaluating the applications and has had a few rounds of interactions with the shortlisted candidates. Once finalised, the bank will then move to the second stage of reaching out to regulator as per the requirement of seeking regulatory approval four months prior to the appointment, he said in the Q4 earnings call. Current MD and CEO Murali Ramakrishnan, whose term will end in September, said the search committee has partnered with agency Hunt Partner, and are collectively screening and processing the candidates and applications. - Business Line

🍒   EOW registers FIR against Ashneer Grover, Madhuri Jain and family : Economics Offences Wing (EOW) has registered an FIR against BharatPe’s former MD Ashneer Grover, his wife and BharatPe’s head of controls Madhuri (Jain) Grover along with three other family members.  Others accused in the FIR are Deepak Gupta, former Head of Procurement at BharatPe and Ashneer’s brother, Madhuri’s brother Shwetank Jain and father Suresh Jain. The FIR has been registered on eight counts of serious cognizable criminal offences and if convicted, Grover and Madhuri and others can face up to anything between ten years to life imprisonment. EOW now has the power to arrest all the accused. - Business Line

🍒   ESAF Bank net profit soars 452% in FY23 : ESAF Small Finance Bank posted a 452 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 302.33 crore for the year ended March 31. It was Rs 54.73 crore during the previous year. The net profit for the quarter was Rs 101.38 crore as against Rs 37.41 crore during the trailing quarter. Total business (including advances under collection management) increased by 23.22 per cent to Rs 30,996.89 crore, compared to Rs 25,155.76 crore in the previous fiscal year. - Business Line

🍒   South Indian Bank Q4 net profit climbs 23% to ₹334 crore : South Indian Bank on Thursday reported a 22.74 per cent increase in net profit at ₹333.89 crore in the March 2023 quarter. The bank's net profit was ₹272.04 crore in the year-ago period. The operating profit increased by more than 95 per cent to ₹561.55 crore during the fourth quarter of 2022-23 from ₹287.94 crore a year ago, the bank said in a regulatory filing. "Net interest income went up from ₹825.15 crore to ₹857.18 crore, registering a growth of 3.88 per cent on Q-o-Q basis," it said. - Business Line

🍒   PFRDA extends deadline for linking PAN with Aadhaar till June 30 : Pension regulator PFRDA has extended the due date for linking Permanent Account Number (PAN) with Aadhaar till June 30 this year.  This decision was made following the announcement by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on March 28 this year, which extended the deadline for linking PAN with Aadhaar to June 30. This marks the fifth time that CBDT had extended the due date for this linkage. “All concerned are advised to adhere to the timelines prescribed by CBDT in this regard from time to time”, PFRDA said in a circular to all Points of Presence, Central Record Keeping Agencies and NPS Trust. - Business Line

🍒   Bank of England raises interest rates to highest level since 2008 : The Bank of England raised interest rates to their highest level since late 2008 as it continues to combat stubbornly high inflation in the UK. The decision on Thursday by the bank's nine-member Monetary Policy Committee to lift its main interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 4.5 per cent was widely anticipated in financial markets. The increase was its 12th in a row. Just two members of the panel voted to keep interest rates unchanged. - Business Line

🍒   Record disbursements buoy Sundaram Home’s profit in FY23 : Sundaram Home Finance, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sundaram Finance Ltd, has reported a 29 per cent increase in its net profit at ₹215.81 crore for the year ended March 31, 2023, when compared with ₹167.70 crore registered in FY22 on the back of strong growth in disbursements during the year. Disbursements in FY23 recorded a significant growth of 70 per cent at ₹3978.41 crore (₹2336.49 crore) . Assets under management stood at ₹11,005 crore as on March 31, 2023(₹9281 crore), according to a statement. “We achieved record disbursements of over ₹500 crore in March this year. The year was also marked by our asset portfolio crossing a significant milestone of ₹11,000 crore. We also hired over 450 people in FY23. Overall, it has been a strong growth year for us driven by demand in tier 2 and 3 towns in the southern market,” said Lakshminarayanan Duraiswamy, MD, Sundaram Home Finance. - Business Line

🍒   Ujjivan SFB’s Q4 PAT up over two-fold on strong NII growth, recoveries : Ujjivan Small Finance Bank posted a net profit of ₹310 crore for Q4, 2.4 times higher than ₹127 crore in the year-ago period. For FY23, the profit after tax was ₹1,100 crore. Gross loan book of the bank was up 33 per cent y-o-y and 10 per cent q-o-q at ₹24,085 crore on March 31. The bank disbursed loans of ₹20,037 crore during the year, of which ₹6,001 crore was in Q4. There was all-round growth, with the housing and Financial Institutions Group (FIG) crossing quarterly disbursements of ₹400 crore and ₹300 crore, respectively, the bank said in a release. - Business Line

🍒   Go First's bank loans to be classified as "bad", but has strong collaterals : Lenders to Go Airlines (India) Ltd will classify their loans to the company as "non performing" in the current quarter, but are hopeful that the collateral backing the credit would reduce the amount of haircut they have to take, two banking sources said on Thursday. The low-cost carrier was granted bankruptcy protection by a company court on Wednesday, which also halted repossession of planes by lessors. "As per norms, the account will have to be declared a non-performing asset in the current quarter, and that will be done," one of the bankers said. "The account will also have to be provided for." - economic times

🍒   Digital transactions on the rise, but banks 'branch out' to drive growth : Banks have brought the focus back on physical network expansion as they aggressively open branches belying expectations that growing digital transactions could reduce the dependence on physical branches. HDFC Bank is set to open 600 branches in the semi urban and rural areas over the course of fiscal year 2024, with more additions also planned in urban locales. ICICI Bank which opened 484 branches in the fiscal year gone by, is expected to open branches with a higher run rate in FY24. Kotak Mahindra Bank will open 150 branches in the new fiscal year. "In this year, the pace of branch addition has picked up significantly," said Anindya Banerjee, Group CFO, ICICI Bank, during the post earnings investor call. "We have added 480 branches in the year and out of that 180 has come in the fourth quarter. So, I think that's kind of a starting run rate and we should see significantly higher branch additions next year than what we have seen this year." - Business Line

🍒   Banks disbursed home loans worth ₹9 trillion in 2022: Domestic banks, housing finance companies, among others, disbursed 34 lakh home loans worth ₹9 trillion ($121.6 billion) in calendar year 2022, according to a study on retail loans by Equifax and Andromeda. Loans for less-than ₹25 lakh ($33,825) accounted for the maximum number of disbursals, making up 67% of total loans. Meanwhile, the ₹75 lakh- ₹1 crore ticket size category saw a 36% year-on-year (YoY) increase in disbursals in 2022. Overall portfolio outstanding of home loans grew 16% from December 2021 to December 2022, the study titled ‘Indian Retail Loans Overview-April 2023’ showed. Personal loans saw an impressive growth of 57% during 2022, with the market size of the retail industry reaching ₹100 lakh crore by December last year. - Live Mint

🍒   Citigroup plans new credit card for use with multiple retailers : Citigroup Inc. plans to debut a new credit card with multiple retailers that consumers will be able use for larger purchases. The new card, known as Citi Pay Credit, comes from the lender’s retail-services unit and will be digital only, according to a statement Wednesday. Citigroup is lining up retail partners for the card and plans to add an installment-loan product for merchants in the program as well. “It puts customers in control of how they want to finance purchases," Kartik Mani, chief executive officer of the bank’s retail-services division, said in an interview. “We are very excited about this next phase of the journey."  - Live Mint

🍒   Sensex, Nifty edge lower as dull earnings offset upbeat US CPI data : The Nifty 50 was closed 0.10 per cent lower at 18,297, while the S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.06 per cent to 61,904.52. Eleven of the 13 major sectoral indexes advanced, with high weightage financials gaining 0.33 per cent. While the markets closed lower on Thursday, the benchmark Nifty 50 has added over 1 per cent so far this week, gaining 5.5 per cent since March 31, 2023. - Business Line

🍒   Rupee falls 15 paise to close at 82.09 against US dollar : The rupee depreciated by 15 paise to close at 82.09 (provisional) against the US dollar on Thursday, tracking a strong American currency and rising crude oil prices in overseas markets. - Business Line