World Consumer Rights Day, observed annually on March 15, is a global event. In 1985, the United Nations adopted the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection, reinforcing global efforts to prioritize consumer welfare. India followed suit with the Consumer Protection Act in 1986. This legislation enshri...
Banks use various benchmark rates to determine loan pricing. Initially, they had complete discretion over interest rates, leading to the adoption of the Prime Lending Rate (PLR). This internally determined rate was applied to the bank’s most creditworthy customers, with additional risk premiums ch...
The growth of digital payments in India has been significant, especially since the demonetization drive in November 2016. According to the Payment and Settlement Act of 2007, a digital payment refers to any “electronic fund transfer” initiated by a person through authorization or instructions to...
In any macroeconomic framework, the household sector plays a critical role as a driver of consumption, savings, and overall economic activity. Household consumption is primarily influenced by income and wealth. In India, the household sector has traditionally favored fixed deposits (FDs) in banks an...
The November 16 diktat from RBI on regulatory measures towards consumer credit and bank credit to NBFCs is expected rein in the credit binge that is currently observed in the unsecured personal loan space. This will not only up the cost of consumer loans in the country as the risk weightage, a multi...
15 years apart the history is seen to have repeated in the month of March this year!The US financial crisis that ripped through the banking and financial system in 2008 and had a cascading effect on the world economy, has again raised its head and shook the system. Of course, this time it’s not th...
In the last decade, the banks and non-banks in the country’s lending space have been gradually graduating into digital mode for various lending activities. It started with the FinTech companies launching various personal loan products on their dedicated portals. With the advent of greater bandwidt...
The American recession seems to have a ten-year cyclic return. With the 2007 – 09 meltdown and the 2019-20 pandemic induced heart break, the impact was severe. In comparison, the recession, as being forecasted to crawl in between 2022 and 2024, “certainly be milder and more pedestrian”, ...
In my article “Headwinds on Digital Currency”, published in “Business Economics” back in October 2021, I wrote about the RBI’s thought process on the creation of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), India’s own “E Rupee” (having the symbol “e`”). Almost a year after, the RBI...
The Reserve Bank of India has come out with two pronouncements recently on digital lending guidelines and outsourcing of recovery agents by regulated entities (read financial lenders) to ensure orderly growth and protect borrowers in this space. The digital loan product is a creation of mobile and w...
