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Mumbai: India’s benchmark 10-year bond yield rose to its highest in seven months on Friday after minutes of the central bank’s rate-setting committee meeting contained strong warnings on inflation, dimming hopes of a rate cut in the short term and sparking bets for a tightening move instead. The Reserve Bank of India had opted to leave the repo rate unchanged at 6.25 percent on April 6, and the minutes released on Thursday showed the six-member monetary policy committee had cited upside risks to inflation as the main reason for the decision. However, the comments were more hawkish than some traders expected. RBI Executive Director M. D. Patra had even favoured a pre-emptive 25-basis-points repo rate hike to contain inflationary pressures, although he finally joined the rest of the panel in voting 6-0 to keep rates unchanged. Also, comments by Chetan Ghate, an external member of the panel, were seen by traders as pointing to the prospects a rate hike sooner rather than later. A rate-ti

Mumbai: The Indian rupee on Tuesday weakened against the US dollar, tracking losses in the Asian currencies markets. The rupee opened at 64.65 a dollar. At 9.15am, the home currency was trading at 64.65, down 0.14% from its Monday’s close of 64.56. The government will issue Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and Consumer Price Index-based (CPI) inflation for February and March, respectively, on Wednesday after 5.30pm. According to a Bloomberg poll, CPI will be at 3.96% in March from 3.65% a month ago, while IIP will be at 1.3% for February from 2.7% a month ago. The benchmark Sensex index rose 0.17% or 51.25 points to 29,626.99. So far this year, it has risen 12%. So far this year, the rupee has gained 5.2%, while foreign institutional investors have bought $6.91 billion and $6.19 billion from local equity and debt markets, respectively. The 10-year bond yield was trading at 6.883% compared to its previous close of 6.865%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions. Asian c

After posting their best quarter in five years, rupee bond sales by Indian companies are set to retreat in the three months to June, if history is any guide. Issuance from businesses in Asia’s third largest economy is seen declining to as low as 1.13 trillion rupees ($17.4 billion) this quarter, according to IDFC Bank Ltd., down from 2.01 trillion rupees sold in the three months to March. A look at market behavior in the last five years shows sales tended to fall in the April-June period as companies draw up debt plans for the new fiscal year and refrain from big-size borrowings. “Companies have to refresh their borrowing plans and wait for internal board approvals before they start raising money again,” said Jayen Shah, Mumbai-based head of debt capital markets at IDFC Bank. “This is a seasonal phenomena, where rupee bond offerings gather momentum through the year with peak volumes in last quarter of the financial year. ” Bond issuance in the first quarter of 2017 surged as firms sou

Mumbai, March 30, 2017:  TATA AIG General Insurance Company Limited, one of India’s leading private sector General Insurance Company has been conferred the ‘iAAA’ rating (pronounced as I triple A) for their Claims Paying Ability by the rating agency ICRA. The ‘iAAA’ rating is the highest for claims paying ability for an insurance company in the industry.  The ratings indicate TATA AIG’s fundamentally strong position in the market and that the prospect of meeting policyholder obligations is best. The rating takes into account the parentage of TATA AIG as well as, the strong commitment of both the partners – the Tata Sons Ltd and AIG. The rating factors in, TATA AIG’s strong presence in niche segment like travel, liability and marine cargo insurance. Moreover, the company has also established moderate underwriting profitability indicators, reinsurance and product development and higher share of commercial business in the product mix. Commenting on this achievement, Neelesh Garg, MD &

Future Generali India Life Insurance Company Limited (FGILI) ha s announced the launch of yet another product in its portfolio of simple to understand and easy to buy products – Future Generali Big Income Multiplier Plan. It is a simple, non-linked, non-participating plan with guaranteed returns which increase over the payout period. In this product, one can start investing with a minimum premium of Rs 18,000 annually or Rs. 1,500 per month for a fixed period of 12 years. Customers would enjoy an insurance cover till the 14 th year after which the payout period commences. Payouts of 1.5x, 2x and 2.5x over 3 evenly distributed blocks of 4 years each are made to customers over a total period of 12 years . The total benfit paid to customers is two times the total premiums paid under the policy. Eligibility Premium Frequency Annual Monthly Entry Age (as on last birthday) Minimum: 4 years Maximum: 50 years Maturity Age Minimum: 18 years Maximum: 64 years Premium payable Minimum: Rs.18,0

Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), the biggest equity investor in India, is staying away from the stock markets at a time when the markets are almost hitting life-time high. The insurer, a dominant player in the market, pruned its investments 38% to Rs 39,705 crore for the nine month period ended December 31, 2016, against Rs 64,000 crore last year. It sold Rs 38,000 crore worth of equities during the period. V K Sharma, chairman and managing director, LIC said, “We have deliberately taken this decision because of the way the markets are moving, LIC is a contrarian player in the market.” He said equity usually forms 12% of the total investible assets. LIC said its equity market investments will remain subdued but may hit a level of Rs 50,000 crore by the end of the financial year. During this period the corporation also invested about Rs 1.98 lakh crore into the debt market, bulk of which — Rs1.83 lakh crore – was into the government bonds The state-owned insurer reported a 78% rise in

Mumbai: ICICI Bank Ltd has blocked transactions on payments app PhonePe in at least the second such instance of a commercial bank trying to protect its turf against non-bank mobile wallet and payment companies. PhonePe is a unified payments interface (UPI) app which works on the ecosystem created by the National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI). On Saturday, PhonePe’s co-founder and chief executive officer Sameer Nigam took to microblogging site Twitter to allege that ICICI was blocking transactions since Friday. In a series of tweets, he said that ICICI was blocking “Definitely on purpose! Over 10x txns failed. Bank is not reversing the block.” An email seeking comment was sent to ICICI Bank late on Saturday night. This story will be updated when the bank responds. “We are waiting for an actual confirmation from ICICI through either NPCI directly or through Yes Bank, but we have no official intimation from any party,” Nigam told Mint . Yes Bank is a UPI partner of PhonePe. Infosys co-f