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The need to wait
ICICI Securities and Finance Company (I-Sec) has, in its recent debt markets update, said that the RBI may defer a CRR cut or a bank rate reduction till April in order to ensure the successful completion of at least a part of next year's government borrowing programme. The alternative scenario sketched out in the report is a reduction in CRR by 0.5 per cent over the next few weeks.
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Why personal risk plans haven't taken off
The story of Indian non-life insurance is one of skewed growth. Big business at the cost of personal insurances. Not that services rendered to the first are any innovative. Fuelled by monopoly and inflation it has been a reasonably easy advance without many servicing demands.
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Still largely bullish
The focus now is entirely on foreign brokerage houses shutting shop in India. There has been a rash of such closures lately, with big names such as BZW, Natwest Markets and ING Barings hitting the dust. What has been lost sight of in all the hype is that this is scarcely a reflection on the Indian markets.
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The Index
There was an element of smugness at the Ficci conference on the SE Asian meltdown. The finance secretary pointed out that the country's short-term debt was within limits, Indian corporates have not borrowed extensively abroad, Indian banks have not lent for the creation of unproductive assets.
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