VisVoice

  Karnataka Bank: Safe and Resilient The Challenge is to carry on “transformation”   1. The Bank is safe and sound: Karnataka Bank Ltd. (the bank), with a history of 101 years and having an existing customer base of 13.7 million, is safe and sound, if one look at its continuous profit record from the beginning and the latest financials. The key financial parameters for the financial year ended 31 st 2025 were as under:                                                                                                                                             ...

  The woes of an Indian Urban Senior Citizen (Below created characters and conversations are purely imaginary; might or might not reflect reality; Intention is not to hurt anyone, but to generate a debate. If it hurts anyone, my sincere apologies to him/her) After the imaginary interview with me on RBI Policy* in April 2025, the late Mr. Art Buchwald (AB) was restless in the heaven.  He  called me over phone (in my dream) yesterday, to convey that he would like to interview an Indian consumer to confirm the 'rosy' picture of the Indian Economy, as certified by the government, RBI, economic experts,  through their statements and opinions. I agreed to his request. Unfortunately, he bumped into an Indian urban senior citizen(USC), known for his (arm chair) expert views on the stock market, mutual funds and economy, but placed his savings, only with the scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) and post office savings schemes.  Excerpts of the (imaginary) interview are as u...

  Repo Rate Review June 25 - m y expectations: The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will be meeting in Mumbai tomorrow (04.06.25), to review the policy (repo) rate and the monetary policy stance for the next two months. RBI Governor is expected on announce the decisions of MPC on 6th June 2025. My Predictions are: 1. Repo rate may be reduced by another 50 bps. (6.0% to 5.5%)   My reasoning is based out of: a. CPI Inflation is below 4% for the last three months and the level reported for April 25 (3.16%) is 84 bps less than the target rate.  b. Normal monsoon is predicted for the current year and the rainfall across the country so far, augurs well for the farming community. c. The average Crude Oil price (at below USD65 level) is the lowest recorded in the last three years. d. US dollar continues to be weak. The Indian Rupee has recovered substantially against the USD and is in the range bound of Rs.84.5-Rs.85.5, since end of April 2025. e. Fo...

Are branch staff of banks' pressurised…. into sanction of Gold Loans? The above picture depicts the promise of a bank that a gold loan up to Rs.50 lacs will be sanctioned within 5 minutes. It also says that loans will be sanctioned to non customers as well and the loans will be both for personal and business purposes. I captured this in my mobile, to present the position prevailing  in the branches of all the banks, especially in the Southern States. But whether a gold loan can be sanctioned within 5 minutes?   Let us examine. T he draft guidelines of RBI, most of which are already in practice in the commercial banks, stipulates the following:  1.  Whether the gold loan applications are sourced directly or through third parties like BCs (business correspondents), etc. the gold should be accepted in the branches of the lender only; apprising, and valuation should also be done by the staff of the lender only.  2. Where the original receipts of the gold orname...

  If the banks were to be strong and resilient... the governance "practices" have to be sound and robust  The influence, the Chief Executive Officers (CEO) (who quite often appear to forget their responsibilities to the Board as a Managing Director) and the respective managements had on the boards of a few scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) came to the fore, when the hidden gross NPAs, and the unprovided provisions thereon, were brought out in the Asset Quality Review (AQR) conducted by RBI in 2016. The regulator brought out a "discussion paper on governance in commercial banks in India" in 2020. Even after that, non-compliance and flouting of corporate governance guidelines continue to hog the limelight, as evidenced in the episodes of LVB, Yes Bank, PMC Bank, RBL Bank, Paytm Payment Bank, NICB, etc. resulting in take over, change of ownership/ board/ management control and even shut down of operations in one case. The irregularities in VIDEOCON loan sanction/renewa...