Moneylife News Bites

The inability to share wealth and power amicably among siblings, and within families, is a universal problem. Globally, a quick transition from family-/individual-owned businesses to professional management and fear of shareholder lawsuits, especially by activist shareholders, have usually contained the problem. But this is not the case in India. Listen to this week's episode as Sucheta Dalal expl...

Heera Gold, the ‘halal investment’ opportunity that was described as a ‘Ponzi-like’ scheme by the capital market regulator, is back at its old game of luring people with the promise of high returns. This time, the company and its founder are hawking ‘digital gold’. Listen to this week's episode as Sucheta Dalal explores further. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An extraordinary bullishness has gripped a segment of the Indian market. On September 11, the benchmark index Nifty 50 crossed 20,000, braving many negatives such as selling by foreign institutional investors, high bond yields in the US and falling global liquidity. However, the real story is the extraordinary rally in smaller companies' stock prices which are shooting up like wild weeds for the s...

After losses inflicted by fraud and mis-selling due to the Finfluencers-Trainer-Referral model have led to a furore on social media, the market regulator has stirred into action – much like the police in Hindi movies of the 1980s. Meanwhile, their victims have begun to demand a refund of training fees, sending the fake market gurus rushing to seek legal advice anticipating regulatory action. Liste...

In the past few days, thousands of angry traders have been spewing vitriol about several high-profile trainers who, it is alleged, have consistently made false claims about their trading prowess to lure gullible investors into buying their online trading courses or open brokerage accounts from which they make crores of rupees as referral fees. How serious is the issue? Listen to this week's episod...

The market regulator Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI), released two short discussion papers that aim to curb the malpractices of financial influencers or finfluencers. But will SEBI’s actions will help curb the menace of finfluencers? Listen to this week's episode as Debashis Basu takes a deeper look. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The unprecedented second interim order of the market regulator against the Brightcom Group Ltd (Brightcom) on 22nd August had no surprises for discerning investors, analysts or commentators. It is a bit like Byju’s—everybody had seen it coming for over a year. And yet, the sheer audacity of the fraud, collusion, stock price manipulation and disregard for rules that have been unearthed so far makes...

Is a social media influencer’s opinion genuine or paid for? This question has become increasingly difficult to answer, resulting in widespread suspicion about genuine posts as well. Listen to this week's episode as Sucheta Dalal takes a deeper look. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the past four months, a strong rally has gripped the Indian market, while the US stock market has been on a huge bull run throughout 2023. Investors have shrugged off macroeconomic problems such as high-interest rates, poor economic growth and very high debt levels in the developed world. And yet, having declared victory over inflation in the US, which was the main bugbear of 2022, investors a...

On 3rd August, the securities appellate tribunal (SAT) issued an interesting order which, finally, nails down what thousands of investors have suspected and complained about—that the market regulator deals with complaints to its grievance redress system like a post-office. It merely forwards cases to the regulated entity against which there is a complaint. Listen to this week's episode as Sucheta...

In March 2022, Byju’s, with a valuation of US$22bn, established by a US$800mn (million) fund-raise, was India’s most valuable start-up, despite declaring a loss of Rs4,588 crore for the year ended 31 March 2021. Things have gone downhill since then and even though the signs were always there, the Venture Capitalists invested in Byjus somehow missed it all. Listen to this week's episode as Sucheta...

Mukesh Ambani’s newly demerged entity Jio Financial Services, about which hardly anything is known, is widely expected to disrupt the $540bn (billion) Indian mutual fund (MF) business. Listen to this week's episode as Debashis Basu examines whether a disruption in the Indian MF market is imminent. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ask anyone who has registered a company or a limited liability partnership (LLP) online, and you will learn that a flood of spam calls to your registered mobile number, scores of emails and WhatsApp messages marketing bank accounts, compliance services, rubber stamp-makers, etc, will be your first intimation of formal registration. The official email will reach you a few days later. Listen to this...

Social media is filled with complaints from citizens who have received notices from the Income Tax department on IT returns filed years or sometimes decades ago. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Listen to this week's episode as Sucheta Dalal examines how difficult it has gotten for law abiding citizens to comply with the ever changing rules and regulations in India. Hosted on Acast. See acast....

This week, Debashis Basu looks at the curious case of Bank or Baroda officials onboarding and registering fake phone numbers on their mobile application to boost numbers. Listen to this week's episode to learn more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and its chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch have been the subject of several media columns in recent days. As the first private sector person and woman to head the powerful market regulator, she already comes in for extra scrutiny. There is also a consensus of sorts that she works hard, is data-driven, more outspoken than most of her predecessors and wou...

The big question this week, after almost the entire Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) joined the government in Maharashtra, is whether the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is one giant washing machine, which would cleanse politicians under the scanner of our investigation agencies of corruption charges, money-laundering and worse. Listen to this week's episode as Sucheta Dalal takes a deeper look. Host...

Last week, the Indian market hit an all-time high. The Nifty just crossed 19,200 and fell back, while the Sensex crossed 64,700. There is strong bullishness all around, with some suggesting that the momentum is so strong that the index will quickly cross 20,000 and go higher. Listen to this week's episode as Debashis Basu shares his thoughts on the market. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy fo...

Subhash Chandra, best known as the high-profile founder of the Zee group (now chairman emeritus) is a maverick entrepreneur who pioneered several new businesses in India—private television news, laminated packaging and giant theme parks. However, the road to achieving his goals of rapid growth, quick riches and diversification has always been suspect and controversial. Listen to this week's episod...

When it comes to bank loan defaults, the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) views seem to swing from one extreme to another, like a pendulum. Listen to this week's episode as Sucheta Dalal takes a deeper look. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Debashis Basu explains why banks freezing accounts for want of KYC updation is illegal. Listen to this week's episode to learn more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The customer services committee headed by former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), BP Kanungo, has come up with a crisp set of recommendations that have addressed all the important pain points faced by consumers in dealing with banks and other regulated entities (REs) of RBI. Listen to this week's episode as Sucheta Dalal talks about the suggestions made by the Kanungo committee...

While the Supreme Court (SC) bench, hearing the Adani stock price crash issue, correctly refused to give SEBI another six months to complete the investigation, the fact is that SEBI has no timelines for its probes and cases have dragged on 20 years, in some cases. Listen to this week's episode as Sucheta Dalal once again takes a look at the NSE-Colo scam and the long drawn out investigation. Hoste...

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das sent out a warning recently to banks that resort to tricks to evergreen bad loans. Listen to this week's episode as Debashis Basu explores the bad practices that many banks unfortunately continue doing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The SC committee on Adani-Hindenburg saga, pointed out that the dilution of disclosure norms by foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) was the loophole that would stymie SEBI’s investigation. Yet, the same expert committee also makes a case for less corporate disclosures by listed entities on the fallacious grounds that ‘a surfeit of disclosures’ are loading us investors “with so much data and noise t...