The resurgence of Covid-19 pandemic in India in the recent weeks and the consequent containment measures to check the spread of the pandemic may impact the recovery process and create new uncertainties. With the objective of alleviating the potential stress to individual borrowers and small businesses, a set of measures are being announced by RBI. These set of measures are broadly in line with the contours of the Resolution Framework – 1.0, with suitable modifications.
In an unscheduled address, the Governor said that the situation in the country has reversed from being on foothills of strong economic recovery to facing a fresh crisis.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on May 5 announced several measures to protect small and medium businesses, individual borrowers from the adverse impact of the intense second wave of COVID-19 across the country.
It has also made provisions for banks to advance loans to businesses and restructure loans for enhancing liquidity in the system to help mitigate the crisis.
The RBI announced a Resolution Framework 2.0 for COVID-related stressed assets of individuals, small businesses and MSMEs and also expressed its resolve to do everything at its command to ‘save human lives and restore livelihoods through all means possible’.
Considering that the resurgence of COVID-19 pandemic in India has made individual borrowers, small businesses and MSMEs most vulnerable, the RBI has allowed borrowers i.e. individuals and small businesses and MSMEs having aggregate exposure of up to ₹25 crore, who have not availed restructuring under any of the earlier restructuring frameworks (including under the Resolution Framework 1.0 dated August 6, 2020), and who were classified as ‘Standard’ as on March 31, 2021, eligible to be considered under Resolution Framework 2.0.
The Reserve Bank of India today released the February 2021 issue of its monthly Bulletin. The Bulletin includes Monetary Policy Statement, 2020-21: Resolution of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) February 3-5, 2021, one Speech, four Articles and Current Statistics.
The four articles are: I. State of the Economy; II. Sectoral Deployment of Bank Credit in India: Recent Developments; III. Assessing the Future Path of Monetary Policy from Overnight Indexed Swap (OIS) Rates; IV. Do Markets Know More? India’s Banking Sector through the Lens of PBR.
Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies sets out various developmental and regulatory policy measures on (i) liquidity management and support to targeted sectors; (ii) regulation and supervision (iii) deepening financial markets; (iv) upgrading payment and settlement systems and (v) consumer protection.
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) met on 3rd, 4th and 5th February, 2021 and deliberated on current and evolving macroeconomic and financial developments, both domestic and global. The MPC voted unanimously to leave the policy repo rate unchanged at 4 per cent. It also unanimously decided to continue with the accommodative stance of monetary policy as long as necessary – at least through the current financial year and into the next year – to revive growth on a durable basis and mitigate the impact of COVID-19, while ensuring that inflation remains within the target going forward. The Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) rate and the Bank rate remain unchanged at 4.25 per cent. The reverse repo rate stands unchanged at 3.35 per cent.
The Union Budget 2021-22 was presented by the Hon’ble Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on 1st February 2021 in the Parliament. The Budget speech was given by the FM from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
This year’s Budget lays focus on the seven pillars for reviving the economy – Health and Wellbeing, Physical and Financial Capital and Infrastructure, Inclusive Development for Aspirational India, Reinvigorating Human Capital, Innovation and R&D, and Minimum Government Maximum Governance. Several regulations around the securities market are proposed to be merged as a single code. Several direct taxes and indirect taxes amendments were also proposed.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled Economic Survey 2020-21 in the Parliament on January 29, 2021. The survey is generally presented a day before the Union Budget. This year, the survey is being presented earlier because the day-before-budget is a Sunday. The real growth rate for FY21 has been taken as -7.7% (MoSPI) in Economic Survey 2020-21 and real growth rate for FY22 is assumed as 11.5 % based on IMF estimates.
Following the presentation of the Economic Survey in both the houses of the Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Chief Economic Adviser KV Subramanian addressed a press conference in which he introduced the highlights of the annual survey document.
The Financial Stability Report (FSR), which reflects the collective assessment of the Sub-Committee of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) on risks to financial stability, and the resilience of the financial system in the context of contemporaneous issues relating to development and regulation of the financial sector. The release of FSR was rescheduled to incorporate the first advance estimates of national income for 2020-21 that were released by the National Statistical Office on January 7, 2021.
RBI Monetary Policy Highlights: The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank kept the repo rate unchanged at 4 percent and maintained an ‘accommodative’ stance. The RBI MPC began its three-day deliberations on Wednesday. In another major announcement, RBI Governor said that the commercial and co-op banks will not give out dividends this year and retain all the profits.
RBI had constituted an internal working group on 12 June to review extant ownership guidelines and corporate structure for Indian private sector banks.The internal working group of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) suggested that large Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFCs) can convert into banks if they fulfill certain criteria. “Well run large NBFCs, with an asset size of ₹50,000 crore and above, including those which are owned by a corporate house, may be considered for conversion into banks subject to completion of 10 years of operations and meeting due diligence criteria and compliance with additional conditions specified in this regard,” the central bank panel recommended.