KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...

In each of the last three years – from 2020 through 2022 – Indian banks lent more money to retail customers purchasing homes than they did to farmers. In fiscal year (FY)2021-22 commercial banks gaveRs. 17.54 lakh crore worth of housing loans, while agriculture and allied activities got Rs. 15.16 lakh crore. That is nearly 14 percent less. In FY 2021 and FY 2020 – one of which saw a...

-The Hindu ‘Commercial banks may have to raise Deposit Rates more to meet a surge in credit demand; while banks have swiftly transmitted increases to lending rates, Deposit Rates have been laggards for most’ Under the backdrop of a highly uncertain global environment caused by globalisation of inflation, energy and food shortages, and synchronised tightening of monetary policy worldwide, the Indian economy was exhibiting signs of a gradual strengthening of the growth...

-Deccan Chronicle Mumbai: The Reserve Bank Of India is concerned about the slow deposit growth and how banks would support double-digit credit growth amidst tightening liquidity. The issue was discussed on Wednesday when RBI governor Shaktikanta Das met managing directors and chief executive officers of public sector banks and key private sector banks. A banker who attended the meeting said, "It was a routine meeting that takes place half yearly. We discussed...

-The Hindu A critical facet of the consequences of an interest rate increase is the correction of asset prices. Interest rates act as gravity to stock market prices The Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world have raised interest rates to curb inflation. The rationale behind raising interest rates is that the cost of borrowing rises whenever they are raised, and the incentive to save and invest rather than consume...