At a time when the Indian rupee is facing sustained external pressure, the Reserve Bank of India has moved beyond its conventional toolkit of defending the currency through aggressive dollar sales. Instead, it has opted for a more structural intervention, one that seeks to place a durable floor under the rupee by reshaping the behaviour…
The architecture of global banking is undergoing a structural transformation, one that is increasingly shaped not by market fundamentals alone but by the shifting contours of geopolitics. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), in its working paper “Global Banking and Geopolitics Through Time,” presents a data-driven examination of how political alignments and strategic rivalries are…
India’s banking system is not in distress. Balance sheets are stronger, bad loans have declined, and credit demand remains robust. Yet, beneath this stability, something is quietly out of sync. For the first time in over two decades, banks are lending faster than deposits are growing. By December 2025, the credit-deposit ratio had risen to…
India is witnessing a rapid expansion in data centre capacity, driven by hyperscale demand, digital consumption growth and policy support for data localisation. Global technology firms, cloud providers and domestic conglomerates are committing billions of dollars to build large-scale server infrastructure across cities such as Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Noida. This surge is often framed…
India’s microfinance sector is entering a structurally important transition phase, one that reflects a shift from acute asset quality deterioration (credit risk) to a more complex challenge of credit flow compression (liquidity impact). The latest Microfinance Pulse Report (March 2026) provides clear evidence that while the worst of the credit stress may be moderating, its…
When tensions escalate in the Red Sea or around the Strait of Hormuz, attention predictably turns to oil cargoes, naval patrols and maritime insurance premiums. War risk surcharges rise, container vessels reroute and energy markets react within minutes. Yet beneath these waters lies infrastructure arguably more consequential to the modern economy than crude shipments: dense…
By 2026, supply chains are no longer in recovery mode. They are operating within a new normal defined by persistent disruption. What initially appeared as temporary shocks during the pandemic years has evolved into a long-term structural condition influenced by trade policy shifts, geopolitical realignments, resource constraints and systemic vulnerabilities. For both global and Indian…
Financial crime has always adapted to technology. What is different today is the speed and asymmetry with which criminals can now manufacture trust. Deepfakes, voice cloning and generative AI have moved fraud from the margins of deception to its industrialisation. The result is a new wave of financial crime that targets not systems first, but…
Regulation is rarely celebrated. In boardrooms and operating teams alike, compliance is often viewed as a necessary cost, an obligation to be managed, minimised and, where possible, delegated. Yet across global markets, a quiet shift is underway. Regulatory complexity is no longer merely a constraint on growth; it is becoming a strategic lever. Companies that…
India’s economic engagement with China over the past five years tells a sobering story. While bilateral trade volumes have expanded, the balance has moved steadily against India. Exports to China have declined from around $22 billion in FY21 to roughly $14 billion in FY25. Imports, meanwhile, have surged from $65 billion to over $113 billion…
