Shift from BPLR to Base Rate
Recently with release of RBI circular on Base rate implementation, there has been a lot of debate going on regarding BPLR (benchmark prime lending rate). Here is our beginner’s guide to understand the two rates.
What is BPLR?
BPLR is the reference rate for banks for pricing their loan products. It is calculated taking into account the cost of funds, operational expenses, and the minimum margin to cover regulatory requirements of provisioning and capital and profit margin. Banks are supposed to lend to their prime customers at BPLR and increase the rate with risk premium in case of sub-prime customers and tenor premium wherever applicable.
Problems with BPLR
1. Main problem with BPLR is that banks have resorted to sub-BPLR lending. On an average, 67% of the total loans and Advances of banks was sub-BPLR. For Private banks, the figure was even higher at 83%. Housing, agriculture, and corporate segments were the major beneficiaries of sub-BPLR lending. Nearly 31% of the housing loans in FY08 were disbursed at an interest rate of less than 10%, while 49% of the housing loans were disbursed at 10-12%. In the case of loans to the industry, around 32% were disbursed at an interest rate of 10-12%.

A study of BPLR and actual lending rates of the banks show that as on Sep’2009, against a BPLR in the range of 11-13.5% for public sector banks, actual lending rates where in the range of 4.2-18%. For private banks, actual lending rates were 3-29.5% against BPLR of 12.5-16.7%.
More >
Effective Interest Rate
Effective Interest Rate (EIR) is a new concept to the existing Indian GAAP.
TheEffective Interest Rate (EIR) method is a method of calculating the amortized cost of a financial asset or a financial liability and of allocating the interest income or interest expense over the relevant period.
TheEffective Interest Rate (EIR)use in the allocation process is the rate that exactly discounts estimated future cash flows (receipts or payments) to the net carrying amount of the financial instrument through the expected life of this instrument.
EIR calculation is not the same as for Yield to Maturity (YTM). YTM is nothing but the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of the bond. But Effective Interest Rate (EIR) may also include some non-interest components such as loan origination charges, processing fees as part of the effective rate.
Under IFRS income from Loans and receivables has to be recognized through application of effective interest rate.
An illustration given below gives better clarity for calculation of Effective Interest Rate (EIR).
Given Data:
| Nominal value (payable in 5 years’ time) |
INR 1,250 |
| Loan origination fee (inflow) |
INR 40 |
| Transaction costs (directly related to loan origination, outflow) |
INR (90) |
| Net transaction costs (40-90) |
INR (50) |
| Fair value (net of transaction costs and fees) (1250+50) |
INR 1,300 |
| Coupon Rate |
4.70% |
Calculation of INTERNAL RATE OF RETURN based on above data:
| Year 0 |
-1300 |
| Year 1 (1250*4.7%) |
59 |
| Year 2 (1250*4.7%) |
59 |
| Year 3 (1250*4.7%) |
59 |
| Year 4 (1250*4.7%) |
59 |
| Year 5 1250 + (1250*4.7%) |
1309 |
Thus IRR will work out to 3.83%
Thus companies has to maintain Coupon rate as well as EIR which will practically for each transaction will be a major task and will add significantly load on IT systems.
Author: CA Shalini Tibe, IFRS Consultant
Last week I heard a very interesting story which eventually gave me the idea of investing in BGR Energy Systems Ltd. Thought of sharing with you.
Years back when the South African Government opened their country for outsiders to come and do mining for diamonds, entrepreneurs form all over the world rushed to South Africa in the hope of finding diamonds and changing their fortunes. Of them only very few were able to do so and become rich. But there was one African business man who instead of joining this rat race to discover diamond started the business of selling/renting hammers and other mining material whoever was coming to discover diamond. He eventually became a millionaire and one of the most successful entrepreneurs of this Diamond run.
I hope some of you must have realized the point I am trying to put here. In India currently most of the companies are running to set up the power plant to generate power and other half are running to build the great power generating turbines or boilers. But very few are there in the business of building the Balance of Plants (BOP) which accounts for more than 35% of the total money spent in building up a power plant.
More >
Markets seem to come out of the consolidation mode and increase in risk appetite saw the US Dollar being sold across the board. Almost all markets closed in the green and all currencies except the JPY saw strength against the greenback. The Dollar index closed below a key support level at 80 before closing 79.83. Sustained move below these levels would initiate further downside for the dollar. The Euro saw movement of 250 pips with 1.3800 being tested on Friday in the European market. The INR strength continues buoyed by strong fundamental coming on the back of a strong IIP numbers for a second month in a row. Movements on both side were very erratic with 45.38 levels bringing in importers and state bids while 45.63 level bringing further shorts into play. We would maintain an intraday range of 45.38-45.63 with bias tilted towards buying the dips. Technically 45.28 is yet to be tested and exporters are “not yet” panicking. Once exporters start panic booking with a simultaneous drop below the 45.28, it is likely to bring further downside.


Market Developments
Global Outlook
- The US Dollar fell against all majors except the Japanese Yen, breaking out of its tight range against the Euro and testing its recent lows. A limited week of economic event risk initially left the heavily-traded currency relatively motionless, but the latter half of the week saw the Greenback considerably lower through Friday’s trade. The declines were perhaps surprising given a significantly stronger-than-expected US Retail sales report on Friday morning; robust spending gave modest hope that the US consumer may prove more resilient than previously predicted. CFTC data is mixed with Dollar’s net long positions fell from $5.58 billion to $3.99 billion, however Euro shorts rose to another record of 74551 contracts suggesting that 1.3800 would be hard to break. After the break of 80 levels in the dollar index we feel that 78.56 would a decisive level to watch. A busy week of economic event risk likewise promises considerable volatility in the days ahead.
- EUR/USD was encouraged by better equity market and stronger than expected EU Industrial Production to hunt for stops through 1.3750, despite initially hampered by Russian selling. Prices made a run close to 1.3800, but lost momentum. Equity markets were majorly buoyant for the major part of last week with S&P 500 breaking January’s high of 1150. Nikkei managed to rise 382 pts to close at 10751. Markets are cautiously looking at the upside after the consolidation which has lasted for almost two months. However only a weekly close above the 1.3800 levels should show more upside. Market is still short ahead of FOMC next week and that’s going to limit dips within a range of 1.3600-1.3800.
- The British Pound rose to 1.5200 levels and may continue to rise if the Bank of England is able to convince the markets about its current stance The British Pound may benefit if the BOE succeeds in branding themselves as standing truly at the center of the policy spectrum. Rating agency Fitch said the UK’s AAA credit rating may be jeopardized if it doesn’t do more about its fiscal shortfall reminding us that political risk could be a major factor in the United Kingdom.
- Commodity currencies continue to be bullish on the backdrop of strong economic data from Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Australia is the first country to raise rates to 4%. RBNZ left rates unchanged at 2.5% and reiterated the already stated stance of removing stimulus in the middle of 2010. The key risk for commodity currency comes from the tightening policies to cool down China.
- Key Data for the coming week are Euro-Zone Employment and US industrial production on Monday. Tuesday would be crucial with Euro-Zone CPI, ZEW survey, US Housing data and the most important FOMC rate decision (rate may not be hiked but the wordings need to be watched). On Wednesday we would see the UK Jobless and other unemployment figures for the UK with Thursday bringing focus back to the weekly jobless claims. Friday would see housing, retail sales coming out of various regions.
More >
Treatment of Property, Plant And Equipment (PPE) under IFRS
First time adoption of IFRS for PPE
An entity can use fair value as deemed cost on First time adoption of IFRS
OR
It has to apply Retrospective application which means recalculate carrying amount of each PPE item according to IFRS since its purchase date including transaction cost, useful life and residual value.
Suggestion
However fair value as deemed cost is more appropriate since there would be practical difficulties for companies to do retrospective application from the date when the asset has been purchased.
Fair value for PPE
Fair value for Land and Buildings is usually determined from market based evidence by appraisal normally undertaken by professionally qualified valuation officers and for other items of PPE their market value is determined by appraisal.
If there is no market-based evidence of fair value because of special nature of asset then it has to be determined on basis of either Income Approach or Depreciated replacement cost approach.
More >
Readers, as promised, we have posted the market review for February without delay this time. Month of February witnessed the most important calendar event for Indian economy, the Budget 2010. Our reports on the same would have kept you updated. Hopefully this will update you about its affect on various markets.
Equity

After correcting for most part of January and early February, Sensex touched a monthly low of 15725 on Feb 5 and thereafter gained strength from positive news on the budget front. It touched a monthly high of 16669 on the day of budget and closed the month at 16429, about 2 % above the last month’s close and 4.5% above the monthly low.
More >
Infosys declared its third quarter result today. The results came better than than the street expectations. The sales were around 3% above the Bloomberg consensus estimate, whereas the net profit was around 12% below, which was boosted on account of higher other income.
BSE : INFOSYS
NSE : INFOSYSTCH
Bloomberg : INFO IS Equity
CMP : Rs. 2,587.45
Sector : IT Services
View : Neutral with positive bias
RESULT HIGHLIGHTS:
- The consolidated net sales for the quarter ended December 09 contracted by 1% to Rs. 5,741 cr, this was mainly on account of recovery by the North American Financial Services Sector
- More >
To what extent fair value accounting holds good for valuation in IFRS
Significant percentage of the balance sheet would be at Fair Value compared to current practice of carrying at historical cost under IFRS.
Use of Fair value:
At present Fair Value is limited to impairment of assets, measurement of retirement benefits and mark to market accounting of derivatives where as under IFRS it extend to Held for Trading portfolio, Available for Sale, assets/liabilities designated as fair value through More >
There is a feeling that IFRS – rather than business strategy – might actually be driving changes to corporate behavior. In some cases, it may help companies do things better – such as revisit their derivatives strategies – in other cases, it could be changing the way companies work just to get the desired accounting outcome.
IFRS is a principle based model as compared to rule based I GAAP. IFRS requires extensive use of fair valuations for measurement of assets and liabilities. The objective of IFRS is to set the Balance Sheet right, and hence a significant volatility may come in Profit & Loss statement.
There are three principles laid down in IFRS More >