One of the things that high commodity prices has done is distort the relationship between nominal and real variables. External sector is a good example of ...
FX reserves declined by a massive ~US$10bn in the week of 11th March. In the last 2 decades, on only three other occasions have FX reserves decli...
The pandemic has taken a heavy toll on people in the last two years – both economically and psychologically. But one of the things it has done is dri...
It has been just over two years since the start of the pandemic. In this short piece, we look at the impact of the pandemic on various countries through th...
The findings from the latest round of the RBI’s Consumer Confidence Survey conducted in January-2022 were very interesting. It had an interesting div...
Growing financialisation of household savings, and increased allocation to risk assets within the mix, has been a key trend in the last few years. ...
The telecom story in India is all about data. Since the launch of Jio and largely because of the disruption caused by Jio (and the introduction of 4G), dat...
Automobile sales (retail) were generally disappointing in December, declining sharply on a YoY basis. On a YoY basis, sales have generally been declining i...
Since the start of the pandemic, money markets in India have been flush with liquidity. Average surplus liquidity had averaged around ₹2.8tn from mid-Febru...
Private sector banks have gradually taken away market share from Public sector banks over the last several years. It is one of those trends that started si...
Despite the pandemic, last year saw a record amount of FDI into India. On a gross basis (without repatriation), India received US$82bn of FDI inflows last ...
India’s Exports have been on a tear this year. YTD (April – November), Merchandise exports have grown 50% YoY. While the decline in exports las...
The rise of UPI has been the biggest disruption in the payment’s ecosystem ever. From zero five years ago, UPI now accounts for 18% of retail digital...
India’s trade with China (Merchandise, Imports + Exports) reached an all-time high of almost US$10bn in September this year. This is 25% growth over ...
Going into the pandemic, monetary policy in India was already accommodative. The RBI had reduced the policy repo rate by 135bps in the calendar year 2019. ...
India currently has an installed base of 240,000 ATMs. Most of these, are owned by Banks while a small number of them (~11%) are white label. And the numbe...
Bank credit growth in India has remained anaemic for the past few years. Indeed, credit growth has been slower than nominal GDP growth in five out of the p...
The Indian Mutual Fund Industry has grown manifold in the last few years. The total assets managed by the industry has more than doubled in the last 5 year...
If consensus expectation (based on RBI’s latest Professional Forecaster’s Survey, released last week) is to be believed, India is heading for G...
Transportation is amongst the sectors of the economy that has suffered the worst due to Covid, last year as well as this year due to the second wave.&nbs...
IT Services is the largest component of India’s exports. As per the RBI’s latest survey, India’s IT Exports were US$130bn in FY21. And ...
The manufacturing sector has seen a sharp increase in the number of new formal firms being set up in the last few years. In the last 5 years, the number ...
On an aggregate basis, NPAs have not risen much. In the March quarter of last year, just before the pandemic started, aggregate NPAs of Scheduled Commerc...
UPI has been the single biggest contributor to the Payments revolution in the country. From being non-existent 5 years back, UPI now accounts for 15% of Re...
Another interesting take away from the RBI’s Industrial Outlook (for the June-2021 quarter) survey is the broad-based expectation of pricing power. F...
Almost 60% of the businesses surveyed in the RBI’s quarterly Industrial Outlook Survey in June expect the business situation to improve in the next q...
Almost 60% of the businesses surveyed in the RBI’s quarterly Industrial Outlook Survey in June expect the business situation to improve in the next q...
We have published our monthly Payments Tracker. This is one of the four ‘Data Reports’ we publish. The report has over 40 charts co...
Foodgrain stocks with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) reached a record high of 91 million tonnes as of 1st July. Of the 91 million tonnes of stocks, a ...
The UK is in the midst of the third wave of Covid19 pandemic. Daily new cases are at 50% of the second wave. But fatalities have not risen in s...
Once upon a time Fixed Term Plans were very popular. They combined the best of both worlds - almost guaranteed returns and tax arbitrage. But then thin...
The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) was enacted to provide a structured legal framework for resolving corporate bankruptcies in the country. The cod...
House prices grew on average by just 3% YoY in the first quarter of this year in the 10 major cities of India. They declined in 4 out of the 8 ...
FY21 was a bad year for the Indian economy due to the ongoing Covid pandemic. Overall GDP is estimated to have fallen by 7.3% YoY, the worst outcome, sin...
Work from Home during the pandemic & rise of streaming services has meant that after years of consistent decline, Fixed line telephone services saw n...
Banks in India put more of their deposits in Investments (SLR Investments which are mostly Government securities) than they gave out in Loans in the last y...
India’s Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) rose to a 6-month high of 6.3% in May-2021. For the first time since November-2020 inflation is above the uppe...
Outward remittances from India had increased over 15x (yes, more than 15 times) since FY14 reaching almost US$19bn in FY20. But they dropped by a third i...
Data for several high-frequency indicators is now available for April and May of this year. And compared to the year-ago period, most of them are suggestin...
Most large countries saw FDI decline sharply in 2020. India and China were the key exceptions. FDI in India (excl repatriation) grew over 25%, the fastes...
Guess who has been busy mopping up Government securities? Last year saw a big increase in the Government's deficit as the Covid pandemic depressed revenue...
The Covid19 pandemic has had a severe impact on Govt finances. On one hand revenues have shrunk & on the other there is pressure to maintai...
The demonetisation of 2016 introduced the ₹2000 currency note. And ever since there has been talk of a second demonetisation that takes away this high deno...
India's Kerosene consumption has fallen 80% in the past decade. The fall has been especially sharp in the last 5-6 years when the Government started to gra...
With the Covid19 pandemic impacting the economy, the RBI doubled down on easing monetary policy to support growth. It cut the repo rate by 115bps and the r...
The number of people demanding work under NREGA doubled YoY in April-2021, the sharpest growth since Feb-2016. However work provided under NREGA has not ke...
Just ~20% of Personal Loans given by Banks to Individuals are to Women. But at the margin that is changing. In the last 5 years, Personal Loans to Women ha...
Economic activity has been badly impacted in FY21 due to the Covid19 Pandemic through a combination of lockdowns, issues with labour availability and budge...
Economic activity has recovered sharply from the pandemic lows - GDP growth which had fallen 25% in the June quarter grew modestly in the December quarte...
Indian Railways are inefficient. But why is it inefficient - is it the lack of investment in infrastructure like wagons and locomotives OR is it the lack o...
It is often insinuated that abnormally low nominal interest rates distort asset prices. This inturn drives mis pricing of assets and undue risk taking. And...
Is the Indian economy recovering? Is the impact of Covid on the economy likely to be lower than earlier anticipated? Well, the answer to a large extent, de...
Once upon a time, India's ports were inefficient and had no capacity left. The last decade or so has seen a dramatic change - capacity has increased more t...