RBI to empanel ad agencies for multi-media work

NEW DELHI: The Reserve Bank plans to empanel advertising agencies for carrying out activities ranging from regular tender notices to full-fledged multimedia, multi- language advertising across print and electronic media.

The empanelled agencies would conceptualise, design and release advertisements in newspapers and commercials on television and radio, said the Request for Proposal (RFP) for Empanelment of Advertising Agencies floated by the central bank.

The scope of work of empanelled agencies for Reserve Bank would also encompass production of TV spots/radio jingles. NEW DELHI: Retirement fund body EPFO is likely to consider next month a proposal to credit subscribers' share of its ETF investments to their provident fund accounts which can be redeemed at the time of withdrawal.

"Employees Provident Fund Organisation's (EPFO) apex decision making body the Central Board of Trustee (CBT) headed by Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar will meet in November. They are likely to consider the proposal to credit ETF investments to members' accounts," a Labour Ministry official said.

The official said that the issue was listed on the agenda of the CBT meeting held earlier this year and was referred to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) .

The official said that the CAG had agreed to the proposal in principal but sought few clarifications.

As per estimates, EPFO'S investment in ETFS is expected to touch Rs 45,000 crore by the end of the current fiscal.

EPFO had started investing in Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) in August 2015, putting 5 per cent of its investible deposits in stock linked products. It was raised to 15 per cent for the current fiscal.

Once approved, the share of subscribers in the form of ETF units will be credited to their accounts.

An ETF is a security that tracks an index, a commodity or a basket of assets like an index fund, but trades like a stock on an exchange.

EPFO, which has about 5 crore subscribers, manages a corpus of over Rs 10 lakh crore.

Universal Account Number was launched for Employees covered by EPFO to enable PF number portability on October 1, 2014. NEW DELHI: Foreign investors have poured a whopping $2 billion into the Indian debt markets so far this month due to lower currency volatility coupled with "positive real interest rates".

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIS) however pulled out Rs 3,408 crore ($523 million) from equities on account of profit booking during this period.

According to the latest depository data, FPIS invested a net sum of Rs 12,135 crore ($1.86 billion) in debt markets during October 3-18.

This follows a net inflow of Rs 1.4 lakh crore in the last eight months -- February-september. Prior to that, they had withdrawn more than Rs 2,300 crore.

Bajaj Capital CEO Rahul Parikh said that overseas investors remained steadfast in their backing by lapping up debt securities mainly due to positive real interest rates and lower currency volatility.

"At an expected CPI inflation of 4.2-4.5 per cent (as per RBI estimates) in the second half of the current fiscal, real interest rates in India remain attractive at (+)2 per cent or more, which the FPIS find very attractive," he added.

Further, another major rea- son could be increase in limits in Indian bonds by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) by Rs 14,200 crore for the October-december 2017.

FPIS, which had earlier exhausted their limits in Indian government securities and corporate bonds, tapped this opportunity and rushed to buy these securities.

With regard to equity outflows, Anshul Saigal, portfolio manager at Kotak Mutual Fund said that the same can be attributed to profit booking by FPIS amid high valuations in Indian equities.

Besides, Foreign Portfolio Investors are focusing to other nations like China, where valuations are comparatively attractive.