Microfinance institutions face NPAs, allegations of harassment of clients

Source : Businessline :G. Naga Sridhar:Hyderabad, Oct 13

Source :http://drt-india.blogspot.com/ 

The asset portfolios of microfinance institutions (MFIs) appear to be under stress with increasing reports about the alleged harassments by the recovery agents in the recent past.

The surge in allegations of harassment by recovery agents and fellow-group members are indications of growing non-performing assets in the industry in general, say experts.

During the last one month, names of many big MFIs were linked with such incidents. In Andhra Pradesh alone, 25 persons committed suicide in the last one month due to harassment from recovery agents/group members, according to a senior official in the Deparment of Rural Development. 

When contacted, Mr Sajeev Viswanathan, Chief Executive Officer of Bhartiya Samruddhi Finance Ltd, the microfinance arm of Basix Group said: “It is true that asset portfolios in the microfinance industry in general are under little stress due to seasonal factors.”

Temporary

Adding that this could be only ‘temporary', Mr Viswanathan denied any harassment of clients by his company in the recent incidents.

According to Prof K. Venkata Narayana, Department of Economics, Kakatiya University, Warangal, the root cause of the problem is high rate of interest and the lack of proper bank credit to microfinance sector.

“Instead of directly providing credit to the self-help groups, commercial banks are lending to MFIs to be treated as priority sector.

“In my University Grants Commission – sponsored study of MFI impact in four districts of Andhra Pradesh, I came across many incidents of harassment of clients on the face of growing defaults,” he said.

The pressure of increasing friction in repayments, however, may not be uniform. “We don't see any pressure on our portfolios. The smaller, less professional MFI could be in some problem,” a senior functionary of SKS Microfinance said.

According to Mr Udai Kumar, Managing Director, Share Microfin, the interest rates are within reasonable limits.

“We are charging 24 per cent after borrowing at an average cost of 13 per cent. The operational costs are at nine per cent. So the margins are very reasonable,” he said.

He sees ‘little trouble' in the repayments because of the ‘talk on MFIs now-a-days' but not due to any problem from the client side.

There are about 2,500 MFIs in the country, out of which only 20 are large. The average interest rate in the industry still remains upward of 28 per cent while there are allegations that it goes over 36 per cent in some cases.

At Rs 245, Coal India IPO will mop up Rs 15,200 cr

Source :Business Bureau:New Delhi, Oct. 25

The Centre will mop up around Rs 15,200 crore from the Coal India IPO, with the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on Monday fixing the issue price for the mega share sale at Rs 245 a share. Coal India shares will get listed on November 4.

The issue price has been fixed at the top end of the Rs 225-245 price band. Retail investors will get a five per cent discount, that is, shares will be allotted to this category at Rs 232.75 a share.

“The issue price has been fixed at Rs 245 per share. The Government will raise over Rs 15,000 crore,” Mr Sriprakash Jaiswal, Coal Minister, told reporters here after the EGoM meeting.

Mr Jaiswal said that the IPO was subscribed 15.3 times and the issue had attracted a total of Rs 2.33 lakh crore. The Minister said the Government does not plan to retain funds in excess of Rs 15,200 crore, though the demand for the shares far exceeded the number on offer.

The Centre had in the 10 per cent stake sale offered 63.16 crore shares. There was tremendous response, with the total demand at 960.32 crore shares or nearly 15 times that on offer

U.S. Seeks Billions in India Deals

Source :SOURCE :THE WALL STREET JOURNAL : ASIA NEWS:OCTOBER 17, 2010

The U.S. is aiming to sell up to $5.8 billion of military-transport aircraft to India and secure other major deals when President Barack Obama travels to New Delhi early next month, a visit that will seek to alter the tenor of an increasingly tense commercial relationship between the world's largest democracies.

India is set to buy 10 Boeing Co. C-17 transport aircraft in the country's largest military transaction yet with the U.S., people familiar with the matter said. The exact price is still to be determined. The total value of deals agreed to during the trip could reach $10 billion to $12 billion, including pacts for India to buy military jet engines from General Electric Co., freight locomotives and reconnaissance aircraft, these people said.

Mr. Obama's trip from Nov. 5 to 9 is meant to deepen America's ties with an Asian ally whose economic and military rise has made it a strategic counterweight to China. The U.S. also must balance relations between India and Pakistan, traditional enemies, both of which hold significant regional influence as the U.S. plans for a post-war Afghanistan.

India has been warming to American defense suppliers in the past several years. It is planning to spend tens of billions of dollars over the next several years to modernize its military and replace aging Russian-made equipment. Seeking the most advanced military technology, India is turning to American contractors and also those from France, the U.K. and elsewhere. Boeing andLockheed Martin Corp. are among the bidders for a planned $10 billion purchase of 126 multirole combat aircraft.

The visit comes as some Western companies that have made big bets in India—or plan to—are growing increasingly frustrated with restrictive regulations in sectors such as energy, technology, retail, health care and banking. The government also hasn't enacted long-planned reforms such as allowing greater foreign participation in the insurance and retail industries.

Mr. Obama is likely to raise concerns about market access—among other issues—during his visit, a White House spokesman said Sunday. He declined to provide further details.

India's stock market is sizzling, attracting billions in foreign funds. Bilateral trade with the U.S. has risen in recent years and now stands at $37.6 billion annually. Yet there is a growing perception among U.S. and other foreign businesses that India isn't living up to its hype as a destination for foreign direct investment and that India is using the attraction of its close-to-9% annual economic growth to dictate the terms of entry.

"India's pretty cocky right now," said Charles Maddox, a professor of corporate law at the Jindal Global Law School outside New Delhi, who studies foreign direct investment in India. "They're playing a brinksmanship game with the United States."

Topping the list of U.S. concerns ahead of Mr. Obama's trip is the countries' teetering civil nuclear-energy partnership, people familiar with the matter say. Though a 2008 deal ended U.S. sanctions against India imposed after its past nuclear-weapons tests, U.S. firms including GE aren't selling nuclear technology here yet. They are worried about a recently passed Indian law that exposes them to accident liability, deviating from the practice in most countries, where nuclear plant operators assume all liability. "We will not be able to support nuclear programs in countries where the nuclear liability regime is not consistent with international norms," said Michael Tetuan, a spokesman for GE.

High-level discussions within the Indian government and between the U.S. and India are continuing, people familiar with the matter say. India is hoping to assuage U.S. firms through the regulations it writes to implement the law, but U.S. officials and companies want the law revised and the liability provision stripped—a political nonstarter in New Delhi, where it would be seen as caving to U.S. pressure.

India's Commerce Department also is weighing a plan to give greater scrutiny to foreign investments in health care, a sector now open to 100% foreign ownership. The department is debating rules that would force foreign drug makers to license patents to generics makers.

"They're saying, 'Whenever we're unhappy with the price, we can issue a compulsory license and expropriate the technology,'" said Greg Kalbaugh, director and counsel at the U.S. India Business Council, which lobbies for American firms in India. "That has created vast uncertainty among investors. A lot of people are uncomfortable."

An Indian Commerce Department spokesman couldn't be reached to comment. A spokeswoman at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi declined to comment.

Some of India's recent moves in other sectors also have worried U.S. officials. Technology firms including Google Inc. and Canada's Research in Motion Ltd., maker of the BlackBerry, face new and confusing demands to comply with government surveillance and censorship requests.

GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt has complained in recent months that leaders of France, Germany and Russia lobby for their nation's corporate interests abroad, suggesting the Obama administration hasn't done as much as it could to stoke sales for American firms abroad in businesses such as nuclear equipment, energy turbines and health care.

Making tax-free acquisitions in India also will be tougher after the government's fight with the U.K.'s Vodafone Group PLC over its $11.2 billion acquisition of India's second-largest cellphone company in 2007. India says Vodafone owes as much as $2.6 billion in taxes that it should have withheld as part of that deal. Vodafone says the transaction was between two overseas legal entities that aren't subject to India's jurisdiction.

"It would be a very bad signal for all multinationals if you start using whatever method you can to get money out of people who actually have invested in the country," Vodafone Chief Executive Vittorio Colao said in a recent interview.

Foreign companies that want to invest in Indian roads and other infrastructure complain the government's bidding rules are too complex and that land acquisition takes too much time. Financial-services companies like Citigroup Inc. and HSBC Holdings PLC are limited by regulators to opening no more than a few new bank branches each year. Citigroup's Citibank unit attempted to get around the restriction by entering the less regulated consumer-finance business, but found more Indians than it had expected defaulted on credit-card payments and consumer loans.

Foreign direct investment into India has expanded significantly in recent years, though growth has decelerated from 146% in 2006 to 6% in the year ended March 31, when inflows were $37.2 billion.

U.S. officials acknowledge they would like to see market-opening changes faster. Still, they note, measured over the long term, commercial relations have improved dramatically.

"In any relationship where you have growing commercial activity, you're going to have challenges and disagreements," said Francisco Sanchez, U.S. undersecretary of commerce for international trade, in a recent interview in New Delhi. "But the advancement over the last 20 years has been significant. We need to keep plugging away."

—Eric Bellman, Paul Sonne, Paul Glader and Michael Phillips contributed to this article.

Write to Amol Sharma at amol.sharma@wsj.com

New Pension Scheme: Choose plan to suit risk profile

Source:24 OCT, 2010, 06.26AM IST, ASHISH GUPTA,ET BUREAU 

Under the New Pension Scheme (NPS), investors save money which is put into the capital market. The sum which you will get after retirement will be dependent on the performance of the capital market. You can make monthly or weekly contributions to the NPS. But for every contribution, your transaction cost will increase. 

Prior to NPS, there was the Defined Benefit Plan -one would get certain pension fixed for life. The postretirement proceeds were fixed and if there is a shortfall in this corpus, the government would make good. 

NPS is a Defined Contribution Plan where the returns will not be fixed. 

You will only get what you have contributed and returns that the fund manager generates on it. All new entrants to the central government services (other than armed forces) after January 1, 2004, will compulsorily join this scheme. 

All citizens, including NRIs, aged 18 to 60 can voluntary join the scheme. The exit age is 60 years. 

A minimum contribution of Rs 6,000 is compulsory per year. The minimum amount per contribution is Rs 500 and a minimum of four contributions in a year for each subscriber account is required. 

Under the NPS, each subscriber is allotted a unique 16-digit Permanent Retirement Account Number (PRAN). This number is portable. The records of transactions are maintained by the Central Record Keeping Agency (CRKA). The subscriber has the option to invest with seven pension fund managers (PFMs). He also has the option to choose any one or more PFMs to manage his contribution. These PFMs will have three kind of funds categorised as 'E' for equity funds, 'G' for funds investing in government securities and 'C' for fixed income securities other than government securities. 

There are two types of accounts: 

Tier I account where you cannot withdraw 

The Tier I account is the basic NPS account that is non-withdrawable till retirement or death of the subscriber. In this account, the total corpus at retirement age is split, where a minimum of 40 percent of the final corpus has to be compulsorily used to buy an annuity while the subscriber is free to withdraw the remaining 60 percent as a lump sum or in instalments. 

Tier II account where you can withdraw 

The Tier II account is available to only to those who are existing subscribers of the Tier I account. The money contributed into this account can be freely withdrawn as and when the subscriber wishes to except for a minimum balance that needs to be maintained at the end of each financial year. 

SEBI raises limit for retail investors to Rs 2 lakh for public issues

Source :MUMBAI:ET:25 OCT, 2010, 05.33PM IST,AGENCIES 

Retail investors will get to double their bets on initial public offerings as the market regulator raised the limit to Rs 2 lakh, the first revision in five years, as it attempts to keep pace with the eroding value of the rupee. 

This will cut the numerous applications investors sometimes make in the name of relatives to get more shares. 

Some say the hike will enrich the wealthy more than the middle class if it is done without an increase in the overall allocation for the retail segment, which is capped at 35%. 

Unlike most developed markets where investment bankers have the discretion to allot shares to their favoured clients in an IPO, the Indian regulator has mandated specified portions that go to funds, wealthy individuals and retail investors. 

Nearly 75% of the retail applications in recent public offerings were for value between Rs 80,000-1,00,000, said a SEBI study. In the non-institutional category, the number of applications below Rs 5 lakh was negligible. 

The portions reserved for wealthy individuals and corporate treasuries have been consistently oversubscribed by 20-25 times as they borrow heavily to benefit from pop-up listing, while in the retail category that depends on savings, it was 3-5 times. 

"SEBI has also deferred a decision on overhauling the country's corporate takeover norms as it needs more time to study the proposals of a panel. SEBI may discuss the proposals in the next board meeting," SEBI chief C B Bhave said. 

In July, A SEBI panel had proposed changes to takeover rules that are likely to offer better terms to minority shareholders , but could cut down the number of deals in the near term.

ANZ to open branch in Mumbai; will focus on trade finance

Source:MELBOURNE:25 OCT, 2010, 01.12PM IST,PTI 



Australia's leading bank ANZ has been granted approval by the Reserve Bank of India , RBI, to open a branch in Mumbai during the first half of 2011, a media report said. 

To begin with, ANZ services will include trade finance, debt capital markets, cash and payments, and funding and hedging solutions, it added. 

The approval for a foreign banking licence was granted after ANZ confirmed the location of the branch in Worli-Prabhadevi, AAP said on Monday. 

The bank was given in-principle RBI approval in March. ANZ chief executive for the Asia Pacific, Europe and Americas regions, Alex Thursby, said the banking licence will help ANZ to grow in India and towards the dream of becoming a super regional bank in the Asia Pacific. 

"India is Australia's fourth-largest export market, driven by demand for natural resources, with exports totalling more than $11.7 billion in 2009, while trade between India and other parts of Asia represents $139.6 billion in flows annually," Thursby said. 

He added, "To support these growing business and economic ties, our business in India will provide corporate and institutional banking services, connecting customers through ANZ's regional network across the Asia Pacific region, including Australia and New Zealand as well as the Middle East, Europe and America." 

Thursby said the ANZ business in India will initially look at corporate and institutional banking, but will broaden to include individuals over time.

SBI to start merchant acquiring business soon

Source :ET:NEW DELHI: 25 OCT, 2010, 03.55PM IST,PTI 


State Bank of India (SBI) has said it will soon start business of facilitating payment through debit or credit card at retail outlets and is finalising shareholding pattern with foreign partners. 

"We would be finalising the equity ratio with the joint venture partner soon post which the merchant acquiring business would become operational," SBI chairman OP Bhatt said. 

Merchant acquiring business is facilitation of payment through debit or credit card at the retail outlets. 

SBI is planning to place about 1.50 lakh point of sale POS terminals for debit and credit card payments across the country. 

It plans to deploy six lakh POS terminals in the first five years of its operations. 

RBI has already approved the setting up of a wholly owned subsidiary for conducting merchant acquiring business by the bank in the name of SBI Payment Services. 

US-based Elavon Incorporation and Visa International are joint venture partner of SBI for merchant acquiring business. 

The business penetration of the new line of operation is envisaged on a pan-India scale, with metro, urban, semi-urban and rural centres. 

Last year, the bank had floated Request For Proposal (RFP) for selection of joint venture (JV) partner for merchant acquiring business. 

The business would include acquiring bank identification numbers (BINs) from the schemes, as well as managing services for PoS terminals among others. 

The managed services would include deployment of POS terminals at customer locations, their replacement, merchant training and maintenance, to name a few. 

The State Bank Group presently has over 21,000 ATMs across the country and has issued over 60 million debit cards.

Michelle Obama's dress designer hit by financial crunch

Source :ET :NEW YORK: 25 OCT, 2010, 05.01PM IST,AGENCIES 


Popular designer Tracy Feith , whose clothes had reportedly been worn by celebrities including the First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama , is said to be facing financial woes. 

According to the New York Daily News, Feith and longtime partner Susan Winget have been virtually invisible as of late. 


Reason: He and his company owe around 200,000 dollars to landlords in Manhattan and in Montauk. 

Feith got the most coveted fashion seal of approval in January 2009 - outfitting the First Lady - when US President Barack Obama stepped out in his floral frock during inauguration festivities. 

But by May of that year, he was evicted from the Madison Ave, where he operated his boutique. By December, a judgment was issued in the Manhattan Supreme Court ordering Feith's firm to pay 77,060.38 dollars in rent he owed to his landlord, KPLJ LLC. 

Another judgment issued by the Supreme Court last August determined that Feith himself was on the hook for an additional 152,745.27 dollars because he had personally guaranteed the lease. 

"It is shameful that a popular and successful designer has shunned his most basic business obligation by failing to pay rent for his retail store," said KPLJ's lawyer Edward Shapiro. 

But Feith's troubles don't end there. 


Feith and Winget owe B J Wilson, the property manager of Montauk Lakefront Cottages, approximately 7,000 dollars for three cottages they rented last year for themselves and employees. 

"They paid half of what was due, skipping out on the remainder," Wilson said. "They won't return phone calls. They've disappeared," he added. 

According to one East End insider, "Tracy and Susan didn't show their faces in Montauk this summer," where they once were social fixtures.

Corporate India against rate hikes, conveys same to RBI

RBI, Chennai


Source :

MUMBAI:

:ET:25 OCT, 2010, 04.49PM IST,PTI 

 Corporate India today urged the Reserve Bank not to further tighten its key rates during its monetary policy review next month, on the ground that interest rates are already very high. 

"Liquidity is tight...I think it would be desirable to pause for a little while before we take any further steps and I think the current situation warrants a pause," Larsen and Toubro's Chief Financial Officer, Y M Deosthalee, told PTI after meeting RBI top brass. 

RBI has hiked its key lending rates -- the repo at which it lends to banks and the reverse repo at which it borrows from them -- five times this year after the dust caused by global slowdown settled down and headline inflation numbers kept on increasing. 

The apex bank says the calibrated hikes are a part of its efforts to tame inflation and necessary as the economic climate normalises. It is widely speculated that the RBI will hike its key rates by 0.25 per cent each in this policy. 

Rate hikes have a direct impact on interest rates and the industry wants to borrow at lower rates to fund its projects. 

The RBI will be coming out with its quarterly monetary policy review on November 2 and senior officials today elicited views from trade bodies, corporates and rating agencies for the same.

Cities hold key to healthier GDP

By Emily Kaiser: Reuters :WASHINGTON | Sun Oct 24, 2010 3:05pm EDT

 The only question about the rate of U.S. economic growth right now is which adjective fits best: sluggish or slumping.

The answer may lie in city halls and governors' mansions across the country, where budget constraints are forcing cuts that could be putting a bigger drag on national growth than many economists currently believe.

The first look at third-quarter gross domestic product data on Friday is likely to show the economy expanded at a 2.0 percent annualized pace, according to the consensus view of economists polled by Reuters, slightly faster than in the second quarter but still not robust enough to put a dent in high unemployment.

"The U.S. economy remains stuck in a sub-potential growth rut," said Michael Gregory, an economist with BMO Capital Markets in Toronto.

The range of forecasts, however, is wide, stretching from 1.0 percent to 3.6 percent. State and local government spending is one big wild card, said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo in Charlotte, North Carolina.

(For a graphic on state and local government spending and jobs, see r.reuters.com/cex79p)

State and local governments normally account for a little more than 12 percent of GDP, outpacing the federal government, which has been clocking in just above 8.0 percent since last year (and had been closer to 7.0 percent before the recession).

Most states and municipalities have balanced budget rules, which means when revenues fall, something has to go. In September, it was jobs.

State and local governments shed 83,000 workers last month, a huge surprise that made the overall employment picture look considerably darker than economists had expected.

This suggests a significant spending pullback that could reduce third-quarter GDP. In the second quarter, state and local government added a tiny fraction to growth, but it had subtracted from GDP in five of the previous six quarters.

Figuring out precisely how it might affect GDP in the latest quarter is tricky. Economists have plenty of data on major economic categories such as consumer spending and exports, but there is little detailed information available on monthly or quarterly municipal budgets.

DIFFERENT STORIES, SAME ENDING

British GDP figures are also due this week and are likely to tell a very different story, with third-quarter growth slowing dramatically to just 0.4 percent after a surprisingly strong second-quarter jump of 1.2 percent.

(Unlike the United States, Britain does not report its GDP data as an annualized rate. Multiplying by four gives a close approximation to the U.S. method.)

Government spending is becoming an increasingly important growth factor in Britain, too. It plans to cut 500,000 public sector jobs and slash public spending as part of a push to get government finances back in order.

"A key issue is how consumer and business confidence respond to the (budget cutting) plans, the question being whether fears of austerity provoke a rise in precautionary saving or whether a sense that the deficit problem is being addressed provides a boost to confidence," Barclays Capital economist Simon Hayes said.

With government spending slowing in both regions, central banks are under increasing pressure to pick up the slack.

This week's GDP report will be the last major piece of economic data that the U.S. Federal Reserve weighs before its next policy-setting meeting on November 2-3.

Wall Street is convinced the Fed will announce another round of money printing to try to reinvigorate the recovery at the conclusion of that meeting.

As for the Bank of England, the next policy move is less clear because its members remain deeply divided on the path of economic growth and inflation.

Barclays' Hayes said the GDP report on Tuesday "could be instrumental, with a very weak outturn potentially galvanizing those in the middle of the... pack into action."

Bharti to launch 3G before the end of 2010

Source :New Delhi :livemint:Mon, Oct 25 2010. 3:16 PM IST

 One of the top mobile operators of the country Bharti Airtel said on Monday it would launch 3G wireless data services before the end of this year.

 Bharti, which won rights in an auction this year to offer 3G services in 13 out of 22 telecoms zones, is the third private operator in the country after Tata Teleservices and Vodafone to unveil plans for offering mobile broadband.

Tata Teleservices has announced plans to launch 3G services by Diwali, while Vodafone has said it will launch the services by early 2011.

“Bharti Airtel will launch its 3G services before the end of 2010, to usher in broadband data revolution in the country,” Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

3G mobile services will allow high-speed content download and broadband services.

Airtel had paid the highest Rs12,295.46 crore (Rs122.95 billion) for bagging 3G spectrum (radio waves) in 13 telecom circles.

They include Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad, which account for 21% of data traffic and are expected to have the strongest uptake of 3G services, the company said.

Bharti Airtel, which operates in 19 countries, already offers 3G services in Seychelles. It is also running 3G broadband services in Sri Lanka, Jersey and Guernsey.

Airtel is also in advanced discussions with other operators across the country for offering 3G services to its customers. This will not only ensure seamless roaming, but also offer 3G broadband to its entire customer base in India, Bharti Airtel CEO Sanjay Kapoor said.

Already, public sector telcos BSNL and MTNL are offering the 3G, or third generation, services.