The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today clarified that a certificate from a single bank would suffice on the quality of assets of a non-convertible debenture (NCD) issuer, even if the issuer was maintaining multi-banking facilities. The NCD issuer would have to give an undertaking that its accounts at the other banks and financial institutions were classified as standard assets.
“However, where the issuer obtains a separate/fresh rating for an issuance, such issuance must be backed by an auditor’s certificate, confirming the issuer’s compliance with the eligibility criteria for issuance,” the central bank said.
On December 6, while amending a notification on NCD issuance, RBI had said, “the borrowal account of the corporate is classified as a Standard Asset by the financing bank/s or institution/s”.
A corporate entity is eligible to issue NCDs if the entity has a minimum net worth of Rs 4 crore and the company has been sanctioned a working capital limit or term loan by a bank.
To buy Rs 12,000 crore of government securities
The central bank today said it would purchase government securities on Thursday for up to Rs 12,000 crore. This is part of its decision to inject Rs 48,000 crore into the system, facing a cash crunch due to advance tax payments and the busy credit season. RBI will conduct the auction on Wednesday and pay the successful bidders the next day.
The central bank had announced in its mid-quarterly review of credit policy earlier this month that it would conduct Open Market Operations to purchase bonds of Rs 12,000 crore every week for four weeks. In the process, RBI will purchase five kinds of government paper, scheduled to mature in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2022 and 2027.
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For this purpose, it will continue to conduct a special Liquidity Adjustment Facility. RBI lends and borrows money from banks against government securities under this facility.
To ease liquidity pressure on the system, RBI earlier this month also cut the Statutory Liquidity Ratio — which specifies the minimum portion of a bank’s deposits in government securities, cash and gold — by one percentage point, to 24 per cent from the present 25 per cent. However, RBI had cautioned that its moves should not be seen as a change in the policy stance, since “inflation continues to remain a major concern.”