The High Powered Expert Committee, chaired by Dr. Isher Ahluwalia submitted its Report on Indian Urban Infrastructure and Service Delivery.

The Reserve Bank of India yesterday released a fresh set of draft guidelines governing securitisation and assignment transactions. While the draft was released by the Department of Banking Operations and addressed to banks, it is expected that a similar draft will be issued for NBFCs as well.

After executing its largest Multi-Originator transaction involving 7 microfinance institutions, IFMR Capital recently closed one of its largest Single Originator transactions this financial year, with one of the leading MFIs in the country, Ujjivan Financial Services.

IFMR Capital recently structured and arranged two Microloan Securitisation transactions – Aether IFMR Capital 2011 involving a single originator Grameen Financial Services Private Limited (Grameen Koota) and MOSEC 7, a multi-originator securitisation transaction involving seven Non-Banking Finance Companies.

The Andhra Pradesh government while promulgating the MFI Ordinance also stated that it has a mandate to disburse INR 100,000 crores bank loans to SHG women members by 2014 to bring 10 million families out of poverty indicating government’s strong belief in serving the needs of the poor through Self Help Group (SHG) model.

NBFCs play a critical role in furthering the goal of financial inclusion. It is our view that in order to make access to financial services universal, while ensuring systemic stability, we need to build on the separate natural strengths of banks and NBFCs.

Following the sessions by Dr. Isher Ahluwalia and Mr. Vikram Kapur, (covered in this post) the workshop participants discussed critical topics such as decentralisation and governance, political economy and institutional fragmentation, revenue generation and infrastructure financing, water and sanitation, capacity building, and land and city growth.

Mr N Vaghul, chairman emeritus of ICICI Bank, recently delivered the Talwar Memorial Lecture on the topic “The Future of Finance in India”.

As a welcome step, SEBI released a circular for AMCs requesting them to regulate distributors. This is the first time distributors of mutual funds in India will function in a regulated environment within a structured framework.