The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has sought granular data from select non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) on their loan book growth. The details sought are on the outstanding product-wise portfolio and the annualised interest charged on them. The annualised interest slabs mentioned are as follows: less than 10 per cent, 10-20 per cent, 20-30 per cent, 30-40 per cent, 40-50 per cent, and above 50 per cent.

'Banks may find small ticket size lending economically unviable due to the cost of branch operations.'

'One of the aspects for transparency and fair governance is to give the industry being represented the chance of lobbying with the regulator.'

In FY24, loans given out by such firms had topped a whopping Rs 146,517 crore, up by 49 per cent year-on-year and spread over 10.19 million accounts (up 35 per cent).

Payouts to key management personnel in non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) are under the banking regulator's scrutiny. Top industry officials said this is a follow-through on the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) circular of April 29, 2022, which asked NBFCs in the "middle" and "upper" layer of its four-tiered scale-based regulatory (SBR) framework to put in place a board-approved compensation policy.

In mid-March this year, the finance ministry asked state-run banks to review their gold loan portfolio for the two-year period between January 1, 2022, and January 31, 2024. This business had grown at a fast clip. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data has it that it grew 15 per cent to Rs 1 trillion in FY24. Now, in recent times, any kind of exuberance in financial services has seen the authorities swoop down - be it pushing the lines on governance or unsecured credit.

The interchange fee -- paid by the card-issuing bank when a customer swipes at another bank's ATM, including at white-label ATMs -- may be raised to Rs 20 to Rs 23.

RBI's exercise will take into account standards of governance, the viability of the payment bank (PB) business model, and changes, if any, if needed.

The banking regulator was uncomfortable with the runaway pace at which consumer credit was growing.

At a time when the role of corporate boards is once again under the scanner, independent directors on the Paytm Payments Bank board have indicated that red flags were raised over regulatory issues but they may have been late in doing so. "As independent directors, we asked questions and monitored responses to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Many changes were made on compliances. "Obviously, in retrospect, it was not found to be enough," said one of the independent directors on the condition of anonymity.

Senior bankers point out that while they will eventually attract qualified professionals, onboarding them takes time.

'We need to be far more careful given the fact that while this is group lending, it's essentially unsecured.'

'After a long time, we have a governor who is approachable. The RBI's interactions with us are now much better.'

"We will raise Rs 300 crore via bonds of two-, three- and five-year tenures. This will be our maiden bond issuance and is part of our effort to widen funding sources," says Vimal Bhandari, executive vice-chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), Arka Fincap. The firm, a subsidiary of Kirloskar Oil, is only five years old and small (assets of around Rs 5,000 crore with an "AA" rating), but the response to this float will be closely watched: It would be the first by a non-banking finance company (NBFC) after Mint Road upped the risk weights on bank exposures to them by 25 percentage points. The move by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has caught NBFCs off guard even though the issue had been flagged by Governor Shaktikanta Das with their corner-room occupants (and that of banks) in July and August 2023 - on consumer credit and the dependency on bank borrowings.

India's inclusion in JP Morgan's bond index can channel billions of dollars into India. How will the government securities market handle it?

'The last year's growth is a foretaste of things to come in the retail credit market.'

'This segment has performed very well for us and this is reflected in our bounce rate which is about three to four per cent.'

'We are working with a few housing finance companies to drive affordable lending because that's where we believe our sweet spot is.'

The target was for banks to sell Rs 2 trillion worth of non-performing assets to NARCL, the so-called 'bad bank, by 2021-2022. Only 10 per cent of this has been executed.

'ESG is actually a concept which cannot be applied effectively in the very short run.'