A veteran banker, Ashok Vaswani, assumed charge as the CEO and MD of Kotak Mahindra Bank. He replaced Dipak Gupta as interim CEO. This shift was necessitated after Uday Kotak decided to step down ahead of the end of his tenure. The RBI has already approved the appointment of Vaswani. Vaswani will be the MD and CEO for three years. Before joining Kotak, Vaswani had worked with Barclays and Pagaya Technologies, an AI-based fintech company. CS Rajan, a retired IAS, was appointed chairman.
The Unified Payment Interface (UPI) saw fresh highs in the number of transactions in December 2023, at a total of 12.02 billion transactions, clocking a turnover of Rs 18.23 trillion in value. That is about 7% higher than the November figures. For the year 2023 overall, the cumulative volume of UPI stood at 117.6 billion transactions with a turnover of Rs183 trillion in value, up 59% over the previous year. In contrast, the IMPS transactions grew 6% in volume and 7% in value in December. FASTTAG transactions in December stood at $348 million.
For December, the GST collections stood at Rs164,882 crore, up 10.3% year over year. However, GST collections were marginally lower than in November 2023. The GST collections for December pertain to the transactions done in November. In the first 9 months of FY24, the gross GST collection was 12% higher yoy at Rs 14.97 trillion. For December, the break-up of GST collections included Rs30,443 crore, state GST of Rs37,935 crore, and integrated GST of Rs84,255 crore, while the cess collected stood at Rs12,249 crore.
Passenger vehicle (PV) wholesales (dispatches from company to dealer) crossed the 4 million unit mark for the first time in 2023. This is 8.3% higher on an annual basis. This was largely driven by rising demand for sports utility vehicles (SUVs). The largest auto manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki, witnessed 7.8% growth in PV dispatches in December 2023 at 442,800 units. For Tata Motors, the real traction was in the EV and CNG units, which posted growth of 90% and 25%, respectively. Clearly, customer preference is going green.
Share buybacks in the year 2023 saw a total of 48 companies complete buybacks worth Rs47,810 crore, the highest level since 2017. Out of the Rs47,810 crore worth of buybacks, TCS is worth Rs17,000 crore, Wipro is worth Rs12,000 crore, Larsen & Toubro is worth Rs10,000 crore, Piramal Enterprises is worth Rs1,750 crore, and Hinduja Global Solutions is worth Rs1,020 crore. Buybacks are known to boost the company’s EPS by reducing the equity outstanding. However, it is often seen as a signal that the company has limited investment options.
RBI affirmed that 97.38% of Rs 2,000 in currency notes in circulation as of May 19, 2023, had come back into the banking system. That means the Rs2,000 currency notes still in circulation were worth just Rs9,330 crore, down from a peak of Rs356,000 crore in May 2023. It may be recalled that in May 2023, the RBI announced the withdrawal of Rs2,000 currency notes from circulation in a phased manner over 4 months. However, the Rs 2,000 currency notes will continue to be legal tender and can be exchanged at the RBI special counter.
HFCL Ltd. secured a Rs 1,127 crore order from BSNL to transform its optical transport network (OTN) infrastructure on its pan-India network. The idea is not just to upgrade the network but to position BSNL for the future with the seamless launch of 4G services and later 5G services. HFCL may have been in the news for the wrong reasons, but it brings to the table unparalleled expertise in integrating complex systems. HFCL has also partnered with the Nokia Network to deploy state-of-the-art optical technology in India.
For the third quarter ended December 2023, UltraTech, India’s largest cement company, reported 6% year-over-year growth in consolidated sales at 27.32 million metric tons (MT). Out of this, 26.06 MT represented sales in the domestic market, while the balance was accounted for by exports. The domestic output was dominated by grey cement output, with marginal contribution from white cement. Ultratech produced 1.38 MT of cement abroad, which is 20% higher. Ultratech has a consolidated cement capacity of 138.39 MTPA.
