In a bid to curb volatility in the currency market, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) prohibited banks from taking proprietary position in the currency futures and exchange-traded currency options market. This effectively restricts them to transact only on behalf of clients. Banks carry out currency trading on behalf of their clients while they have a separate desk to trade in the foreign exchange market of their own. The latter is
Tag: Reserve Bank of India
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OMCs to buy dollar from state-run banks
In order to contain volatility in rupee exchange rate, state-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) agreed to buy dollars for importing crude oil from a single public sector bank. This follows the direction by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to these companies to use a special window for buying dollars
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RBI permits ECB facility for NBFC-AFCs
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allowed Non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) categorised as Asset Finance Companies (AFCs) to avail of external commercial borrowing (ECB). But the central bank imposed certain conditions for such NBFCs to access ECB window. One of the condition is that they would avail ECB under the automatic route with minimum average maturity of five years. Further, the funds raised through the ECB route must
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RBI may take steps to arrest rupee weakness
Some market analysts expect Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to take steps to arrest further depreciation of rupee against the dollar. In order to meet the demand for dollar to import crude oil by oil marketing companies (OMCs), RBI may look at opening a special window from where these firms could buy dollars. A large part of demand for dollar comes from OMCs and if this demand is eliminated from the m
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Housing finance firms may use ECB to fund projects
National Housing Bank (NHB) expects Housing finance companies (HFCs) to raise funds through the external commercial borrowings (ECBs) as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reviewed ECB norms. HFCs may avail ECBs to fund their affordable housing projects, NHB, which is the regulator of the sector said. RV Verma, Chairman of NHB said the regulator received an application from HDFC for ECB and it expe
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RBI trains guns on speculative position in NDF mkt
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) feels that foreign units of Indian companies and foreign companies in which part of equity is held by Indian firms have a role to play in the depreciation of rupee against the dollar. The central bank feels that these entities may be taking speculative position in the non-deliverable forward (NDF) market resulting in the depreciation of rupee against the
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RBI relaxes norms for bank credit to MFIs
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) relaxed the norms for categorising priority sector lending of commercial banks to microfinance institutions (MFIs). According to the present norms, banks can categorise credit extended to MFIs as priority sector lending if
if at least 75 per cent of loans given by MFIs is for income generating activity. Now, the central bank relaxed this limit to at least 70 per cent. Thus, according to the relaxed norm, bank credi
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Liquidity improves in banking system
Liquidity in the banking system has eased as is evident from the decline in the borrowing of banks through Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) liquidity adjustment facility (LAF). Money market participants feel that the easing liquidity may be because the government has already started spending. On a recent day, banks borrowed Rs 10,880 crore through RBI's LAF and this is sharply lower than over Rs 100
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Bank credit to housing sector declines since FY08
The financial stability report of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) shows bank credit to the housing sector declined to 9.5 percent in 2012-13 from a high 13.3 percent in 2007-08. The report notes that the decline in the growth of bank credit to the sector brought down demand. However, despite this, house prices in some metropolitan cities have witnessed significant increases in the recent past, the report notes
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RBI to use all tools to reduce currency volatility
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor D Subbarao informed reporters that the central bank does not have any target for rupee level but will use all the instruments it has to reduce volatility. The Indian rupee depreciated against the dollar sharply to over Rs 60 recently