China’s local governments are helping inject fresh capital into small lenders across the country, part of an expanding campaign to restore confidence in the world’s largest banking system, Bloomberg News reported. At least 10 small Chinese banks have raised money this year by selling shares packaged with non-performing loans, in several cases to buyers controlled by local authorities. In at least one deal, the NPLs were sold at above-market rates.

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The government is mulling a special window for resolution of stressed non-banking finance companies under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, a senior government official said, Mint reported. A special window, is certainly something which is being examined closely, the official said. The move also comes against the backdrop of financial sector players like Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd (DHFL) facing troubles. Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank is also grappling with financial woes.

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India’s financial crisis has hit ordinary people hard. School teachers and electrical engineers have seen their pension savings get stuck in bonds of defaulted institutions, a Bloomberg View reported. More than a million depositors of a cooperative bank can’t access their cash. Homeowners have spent billions of dollars on apartments that will never be finished. Yet for workers in rich nations, the blowup in India’s shadow-banking and real-estate industries is an opportunity. Will they profit from it or get burned like their Indian counterparts?

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A small Chinese lender made a rare decision to skip early redemption on its local tier-two bond, sparking fresh concern on the country’s smaller lenders as non-performing loans rise amid an economic slowdown, Bloomberg News reported. Guangdong Nanyue Bank Co, based in the coastal province in Southeast China, said it won’t exercise an early redemption on its 1.5 billion yuan ($215 million) 6% tier-two bond next month, according to a filing on Thursday on the China Bond website. It didn’t give a reason for its move.

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Sberbank and the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) have settled a dispute over funds owed to Russia’s largest bank by IBA, an Azeri and Sberbank officials said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. In 2017, state-run IBA proposed a plan to restructure $3.3 billion of its debt and said in July it had received approval from creditors holding 93.9% of the debt involved. As part of the restructuring, which was under Azeri law, IBA obtained a moratorium from a London court preventing creditors from taking action against it without court permission.

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The fear that at Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL) may spill over to other non-banking finance companies (NBFC) has pushed the government to introduce fresh rules and regulations to bring even the financial sector under the purview the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), The Economic Times reported. A government source said that Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has finalized new rules under Section 227 of IBC that would be notified soon after all the concerns of market regulator SEBI and financial sector regulator RBI are addressed.

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In a jolt to the Jaypee Group, the Supreme Court on Wednesday directed completion of the corporate insolvency resolution process for Jaypee Infratech Ltd (JIL) within 90 days and said the revised resolution plans will be invited only from the NBCC and Suraksha Realty, The Economic Times reported. The apex court said the pendency of any other application before the NCLT or NCLAT, including any interim direction, shall be no impediment for the IRP to receive and process the revised resolution plans from the two bidders.

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Online sales platform Flipkart has got a stay order on insolvency proceedings initiated against it at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), in a case involving alleged withholding of dues to a seller, Business Standard reported. CloudWalker Streaming, a Mumbai-based supplier of LED TVs, alleged Flipkart did not honour a purchase agreement and had not paid dues totalling Rs 26.95 crore. It petitioned the NCLT bench here that the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) be invoked.

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The Chinese company in pole position to save British Steel is aiming to strike a deal to take over the failed manufacturer by the middle of this month, according to people briefed on the situation, the Financial Times reported. Jingye Group has emerged as the frontrunner to buy the stricken steelmaker out of insolvency, following almost six months of uncertainty for 5,000 workers who are mostly based at the large Scunthorpe plant in Lincolnshire.

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Some vendors of BSNL and MTNL are mulling to move insolvency pleas against the state-run firms for non-payment of dues, estimated to be around Rs 20,000 crore, a senior industry body executive said on Monday, The Economic Times reported. The pending payments are against the supply of telecom gear and other goods to BSNL and MTNL as well as Rs 45,000-crore rural broadband project BharatNet, PHD Chamber of Commerce Telecom Committee chairman Sandeep Aggarwal told PTI. "The total pending payment of BSNL and MTNL vendors is around Rs 20,000 crore.

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