Photo of Sucheta Bhattacharya

Senior Associate in the Banking and Finance practice at the Mumbai office of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. Sucheta advises clients in areas such as structured finance, real estate financing, securitization transactions, general banking and finance. She can be reached at sucheta.bhattacharya@cyrilshroff.com.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued guidelines on February 01, 2006, in relation to securitisation of standard assets by banks, All India Term-Lending and Refinancing Institutions and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs). Securitisation was defined as the process by which assets are sold to bankruptcy remote special purpose vehicle (SPV) in return for immediate cash flow, wherein the cash flows from the underlying pool of assets are used to service the securities issued by the SPV[1]. The criteria for ‘true sale’ as well as the policy on provision of credit enhancement facilities, liquidity facilities and accounting treatment of such transactions was also set out. The guidelines did not separately deal with direct assignment of assets.Continue Reading A new regime for Securitisation

Banning of Unregulated Schemes Ordinance, 2019

In the aftermath of the Saradha scam, the Standing Committee of Finance (Committee) in its 21st report dated September 21, 2015 suggested the introduction of a comprehensive regulatory framework governing all entities engaged in activities involving acceptance of deposits from the public. While making this recommendation, the Committee observed that certain entities were engaged in financial as well as non-financial activities and therefore, it was difficult to identify the appropriate regulator for such entities. Such entities fall under the jurisdiction of various regulatory bodies and in spite of overlapping regulations, several such entities were not regulated by any regulator.

In view of the suggestions of the Committee, a high level Inter-Ministerial Group (Group) was formulated for identifying gaps in the existing regulatory framework. The Group suggested the enactment of a comprehensive central act to criminalise the solicitation, promotion, acceptance and/or operation of ‘unregulated deposit schemes’. In line with the recommendations of the Committee and the Group, the Banning of Unregulated Schemes Ordinance, 2019 (Ordinance) was promulgated on February 21, 2019.
Continue Reading The Banning of Unregulated Schemes Ordinance, 2019