India
- SBI Chief has reiterated the stress in telecom sector by commenting “The telecom sector is undergoing a lot of stress and the bank is extra provisioning due to this.”
- Indian Post Payment bank, the payment banking arm of good old Indian Post, is set to transform the payments ecosystem in a ground-up shake up. They are going to equip nearly 1.5 lakh postmen with a digital equipment which can be used for making various types of payments, including utility bills, leveraging biometric authentication and will also have a small printer & card reader to facilitate the transactions
- Taking a different view on banking consolidation from earlier discussions, FM Arun Jaitely has now expressed the need to merge strong bank with another strong bank to create a stronger bank. This will dispel some of the challenges banks are speaking off that may arise by merging a weak bank to a strong bank and thus creating asset quality & capital adequacy challenges
- CEA Arvind Subrmanian gets a year extension, as was noted in yesterday’s update as well
- An article in Business-Standard talks about the pain & challenges faced by Indian handicraft sector as a result of the GST tax regimes. Primarily 3 challenges being outlined, high tax slabs making it un-competitive compared to machine weaving, multiple rates causing confusion and filing returns 3 times a month. Pls. note that this is in context of handloom weavers who are primarily poor, in rural areas and illiterate as well.
- The CII is batting for easing of the fiscal deficit target (akin to asking for stimulus package at the cost of slippage in fiscal deficit) & cuts in interest rates to revive economic growth
- IRDAI may allow PE (private equity) firms to buy stake in insurance firms. The regulator has formed a team to look into the same
Rest of World
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