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The rupee depreciated 20 paise to 86.36 against the U.S. dollar in early trade on Monday (July 21, 2025), weighed down by the overall strength of the American currency in the overseas market and a negative trend in domestic equities.

Forex traders said the rupee extended its slide with the breach of the key 86.00 level accelerating the decline as a recovering dollar index sapped rupee sentiment.

At the interbank foreign exchange, the domestic unit opened at 86.27 against the greenback. In initial trade, it witnessed a low of 86.36, registering a fall of 20 paise over its previous close.

On Friday (July 18, 2025), the rupee settled 4 paise lower at 86.16 against the U.S. dollar.

Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, fell 0.02% to 98.46.

“As the dollar recovered, the Indian rupee has been showing downside syndromes and is expected to move between 85.90 to 86.40 with a downward bias for the rupee,” said Anil Kumar Bhansali, Head of Treasury and Executive Director, Finrex Treasury Advisors LLP.

Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, went up by 0.12% to $69.36 per barrel in futures trade.

Forex traders said all eyes are now on the outcome of India-U.S. trade talks, especially as the August 1 deadline for potential tariffs on Indian exports draws near.

If the discussions fail or get delayed, Indian exporters could face fresh pressure — adding to the rupee’s challenges. However, if a deal is reached, it could offer a much-needed breather. Until then, the uncertainty is likely to keep market participants cautious, CR Forex Advisors MD — Amit Pabari said.

Pabari further added that for now, the trend continues to favour a weaker rupee. “The pair may find support around 85.70-85.80, but having crossed 86.00, the door is open for a possible move toward 86.50-86.80,” he added.

Meanwhile, in the domestic equity market, Sensex declined 155.73 points or 0.19% to 81,602.00, while Nifty fell 63.55 points or 0.25% to 24,904.85.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) purchased equities worth ₹374.74 crore on a net basis on Friday, according to exchange data.

The number of asset management companies (AMC) have increased over the years. This makes it difficult for product differentiation in the equity space, as funds typically invest within the universe of 500 stocks comprising large-caps, mid-caps and small-caps. It is, therefore, not surprising to see AMCs creating different products to woo investors. A differentiating product in recent times has been multi-asset funds. Here, we discuss the characteristics of such funds and if they fit into your core portfolio.

Asset allocation

Asset allocation is the most important step in the investment process. It refers to the portion of savings you invest in asset classes to achieve life goals. Asset allocation can vary for each goal, even if all the goals have the same time horizon. Why? Asset allocation is a function of risk attitude- more important a goal is, less risk you want to take; that means more bonds and less equity allocation. For instance, the asset allocation for your child’s education portfolio may be more conservative compared with that of your retirement portfolio.

A multi-asset class fund could take exposure to three asset classes — equity, bonds and commodities (typically gold and silver). You must be mindful of having commodities in the core portfolio, as prices are volatile driven by global demand and supply and geopolitical issues.

That apart, such a fund decides the optimal allocation to each asset class based on investment mandate. In other words, the fund’s asset allocation cannot be tailored to your goals or risk attitude.

Conclusion

You must make tax-efficient investments. Are multi-asset funds tax efficient? A multi-asset fund that invests more than 65% in equity is considered an equity fund.

The point is that if you sell your fund units after holding them for more than 12 months, you must pay 12.5% long-term capital gains tax above ₹1.25 lakh in any year you realise the gains. But funds holding less than 65% in equity are considered as non-equity-oriented funds.

Capital gains arising from such funds will be added to your total income and taxed at your marginal tax regardless of the holding period. This has major implications on the post-tax returns on your investments, as the equity portion of the fund will also be taxed at your marginal tax rate (typically 30%). You must be mindful of these factors when you choose multi-asset funds.

(The author offers training programmes for individuals to manage their personal investments)

Personal loan is often the preferred credit option for those seeking quick credit access with minimal documentation and no collateral. However, this ease of access leads many borrowers to overlook crucial aspects, leading to higher interest costs, unexpected charges or even a debt trap. Here are five common mistakes loan applicants should avoid:

Not getting credit report early

Your credit score is one of the first filters lenders would use to evaluate creditworthiness. Those with higher credit scores usually have better chances of loan approval. Many lenders also use credit scores to set interest rates of the loan applicants, with those having higher scores being offered lower rates for the loans. Thus, always fetch your credit report before making the loan application as any error or outdated information in credit report can reduce credit score and thereby, reduce loan approval chances. If you notice any error(s), report them to the concerned credit bureau(s) and the lender for rectification. A rectified credit report can lead to higher credit score and thereby, increase your loan approval chances at lower interest rates.

Not comparing loan offers

The interest rates offered to the same applicant can vary widely across lenders depending on cost of funds and credit risk assessment of the loan applicant. Some lenders also offer loans at preferential interest rates to existing customers. Thus, those planning to avail the loans should compare loan offers from as many lenders as possible.

They should begin the search by approaching banks and NBFCs with which they already have existing deposit and/or loan/credit card relationships. This should be followed by visiting online financial marketplaces to view the loan options of other lenders.

Then, an applicant should opt for the lender that charges the lowest interest rate for the desired loan amount with the optimal tenure.

Ignoring ‘optimal’ repayment

Lenders usually prefer loan applicants whose monthly EMI obligations, including that of the proposed loan, do not exceed 50-60% of the monthly income. However, even if it does not, the optimal loan EMI would be the one on which you incur the lowest interest cost without adversely impacting unavoidable expenses and monthly contributions for crucial financial goals. You should use online EMI calculators to fix the optimal loan EMI after factoring in income/other financial commitments.

Ignoring loan options

Just like personal loans, secured loan options like top-up home loans, loan against property (LAP), gold loans and loan against securities do not have any end-usage restrictions.

Being secured in nature, these loans usually have lower interest rates than personal loans. Top-up home loans and LAP also offer longer tenures than personal loans, which further increases EMI affordability and overall loan amount eligibility for the borrowers.

On the flip side, the turnaround time (TAT) for LAP disbursal can be much higher than that of personal loans, while gold loan and loan against securities have similar TATs.

Thus, existing home loan borrowers or those having adequate gold, property or investments to pledge should explore suitable secured loan alternatives and disbursal TAT before making a personal loan application.

Ignoring emergency fund

Financial emergencies or loss of income due to job loss, disability, illness, etc. lead many borrowers to default on EMIs. Such repayment failures would not only incur hefty penalties, it also reduces one’s credit score and thereby, his or her future loan/credit card eligibility. The best way to avoid such scenarios is to increase the size of your emergency fund by at least six months’ worth of your personal loan EMI.

(The writer is CEO of Paisabazaar)

The Appellate Tribunal under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act has found a “prima facie case” in the matter allegedly involving the former Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Bank Chanda Kochhar and others.

In a recent order partially confirming the Enforcement Directorate’s asset attachment, while hearing the agency’s appeal against an order of the Adjudicating Authority, the Appellate Tribunal observed: “It may be true that the issue will be determined by the trial court but we find a prima facie case against the respondents for commission of the offence of money laundering and, therefore, the provisional attachment order is justified.”

After considering the submissions of both the sides, the Tribunal said: “…we cause interference in the impugned order passed by the Adjudicating Authority other than for attachment of ₹10.50 lakhs not confirmed by the Adjudicating Authority. It is accordingly set aside other than for a sum of ₹10.5 lakhs attached by the appellant. The Provisional Attachment Order dated 10.01.2020 for the properties other than for ₹10.5 lakhs is confirmed”.

The ED had challenged the order dated November 6, 2020, passed by the Adjudicating Authority. Its case is based on a first information report registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation on January 22, 2019.

As noted in the order, the allegation against the accused was about the criminal conspiracy, cheating, illegal gratification, criminal misconduct and abuse of official position by the public servant. It was for sanction of loan to Videocon Group of Companies in contravention of the Rules and policies of the ICICI Bank.

The loan granted to the Videocon Group of Companies for a sum of ₹1,730 crores turned Non-Performing Assets (NPA) and resulted in wrongful loss to the ICICI Bank and purported wrongful gain to the borrowers and the accused persons.

The U.S., UAE, and China have emerged as the top three export destinations for India’s electronics sector during April-June quarter of 2025-26, according to the Commerce Ministry data.

The Netherlands and Germany are other major export destinations for the country’s electronic exports.

During April-June this fiscal, the exports rose by 47% to $12.41 billion, the data showed.

“This geographical spread highlights India’s growing integration into the global electronics supply chain and underscores the country’s emergence as a credible alternative manufacturing hub in Asia,” an official said.

The U.S. remains India’s largest export destination, commanding a 60.17% share, followed by the UAE (8.09%), China (3.88%), the Netherlands (2.68%), and Germany (2.09%).

The data also showed that the U.S. remains the dominant export destination for India’s ready-made garments (RMG). It accounted for 34.11% of shipments. The U.S. is followed by the U.K. (8.81%), the UAE (7.85%), Germany (5.51%), and Spain (5.29%).

During April-June this fiscal, exports of RMG of all textiles rose to $4.19 billion as against $3.85 billion in the same quarter last fiscal.

“These figures reflect India’s continued competitiveness in the global apparel market, backed by its skilled manufacturing base, diversified product offerings, and growing reputation for quality and compliance,” the official said.

India’s RMG sector, a key pillar of the textiles industry, recorded a 10.03% growth during FY25 at $15.99 billion compared to $14.53 billion in FY24.

Similarly, marine exports grew by 19.45% to $1.95 billion during April-June this fiscal.

In 2024-25, these exports rose marginally by 45% to $7.41 billion.

The revival in these exports during the first quarter of the current fiscal is largely attributed to robust demand from key markets such as the U.S., which remains the largest importer with a 37.63% share.

It was followed by China (17.26%), Vietnam (6.63%), Japan (4.47%), and Belgium (3.57%).

Diversification in product offerings, improved cold chain logistics, and compliance with international quality standards have been instrumental in sustaining India’s competitive edge in the global seafood market.

A closer look at India’s export performance across electronic goods, RMG, and marine products reveals a common thread — strong reliance on mature, high-value markets.

“The U.S. consistently emerges as the leading destination across all three sectors, underscoring its position as India’s most critical trade partner,” the official said.

“Goods and Services Tax (GST) officers have uncovered fake Input Tax Credit (ITC) claims of ₹15,851 crore in the April-June quarter of current fiscal, a 29% jump over the year-ago period, even though the number of fake firms detection was less year-over-year,” officials said.

The total number of fake firms detected by Central and State GST officers during the first quarter of FY-26 stood at 3,558, less than 3,840 such entities detected in the same quarter of FY25.

A panel of State Finance Ministers, chaired by Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, is currently studying tax evasion in specific sectors and looking at ways to check ITC fraud.

“On an average, about 1,200 fake firms are getting detected every month. The number of fake firm detection in the April-June period is less compared to last year, which shows that the drive against fake GST registration has worked,” an official said.

As per the data of the fake firms and ITC frauds detected by Central and State GST officers during the June quarter of FY26, ₹15,851 crore worth ITC was found to have been fraudulently passed involving 3,558 fake firms. During the period, 53 persons have been arrested by GST officers and ₹659 crore recovered.

In the Q1 of FY25, GST officers had detected ₹12,304 crore fake ITC involving 3,840 fake firms; ₹549 crore was recovered and 26 persons were arrested.

Under the GST regime, ITC refers to the taxes paid by businesses on purchases from suppliers. This tax can be claimed as a credit or deduction at the time of paying the final output tax. Dealing with fake ITC has been a major challenge for the GST administration as unscrupulous elements were creating fake firms just to claim ITC and defraud the exchequer.

During 2024-25, GST officers have detected 25,009 fake firms involved in fraudulently passing input tax credit worth ₹61,545 crore. GST officers have carried out two pan-India drive against fake registration under the GST.

In the first drive against fake registration between May 16, 2023 and July 15, 2023, a total of 21,791 entities having GST registration were discovered to be non-existent. An amount of ₹24,010 crore of suspected tax evasion was detected during the first special drive last year.

In the second drive between April 16 and October 30, 2024, GST officers have detected about 18,000 fake companies registered under GST, which have been involved in tax evasion of about ₹25,000 crore. To deal with this, the GST registration process has been made stringent with checks on risky applicants.

While non-risky businesses are to be granted GST registration within seven days, physical verification and Aadhaar authentication are mandatory for those those applicants who are flagged as risky by data analytics.

As a measure to track down the masterminds, the GST Act provides for punishment for wrongly availed ITC, suspension or cancellation of registration of taxpayers involved in fake ITC cases; blocking of ITC in electronic credit ledger; and provisional attachment of property/bank accounts, etc. for the recovery of government dues.

A report of the parliamentary committee set up to scrutinise the new Income Tax Bill, 2025, which would replace the six-decade old Income Tax Act, is scheduled to be tabled in the Lok Sabha on Monday (July 21, 2025).

Also Read | Government convenes all-party meet ahead of Monsoon session

The 31-member Select Committee, chaired by BJP leader Baijayant Panda, was appointed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to scrutinise The new Income Tax Bill, 2025, which was introduced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 13 in the Lok Sabha.

The Committee has made 285 suggestions and at its meeting on July 16 adopted the report on new Income Tax Bill, 2025, which will now be tabled in the House for further action.

The simplified Income Tax Bill, which is half the size of the 1961 Income Tax Act, seeks to achieve tax certainty by minimising the scope of litigation and fresh interpretation.

The new bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha, has a word count of 2.6 lakh, lower than 5.12 lakh in the I-T Act. The number of sections is 536, as against 819 effective sections in the existing law.

The number of chapters has also been halved to 23 from 47, according to the FAQs (frequently asked questions) issued by the I-T department.

The Income Tax Bill 2025 has 57 tables, compared to 18 in the existing Act and removed 1,200 provisos and 900 explanations.

Provisions relating to exemptions and TDS/TCS have been made crispier in the Bill by putting them in a tabular format, while the chapter for not-for-profit organisations has been made comprehensive with use of plain language. As a result of this, the word count has come down by 34,547.

In a taxpayer-friendly move, the Bill replaces the term ‘previous year’ as mentioned in the Income Tax Act, 1961 with ‘tax year’. Also, the concept of assessment year has been done away with.

Currently, for income earned in the previous year (say 2023-24), tax is paid in assessment year (say 2024-25). This previous year and assessment year (AY) concept has been removed and only tax year under the simplified bill has been brought in.

While introducing the Bill in the Lok Sabha, Ms. Sitharaman had said that “substantial changes” have been made in the Bill. The number of words have been halved from 5.12 lakh, and sections reduced from 819 to 236. Following introduction, the Bill was referred to the select committee of the Lok Sabha and the committee was mandated to submit its report by the first day of next session.

The Monsoon session of Parliament is scheduled to sit from July 21 to August 21, 2025.

Over the last five years, the Union government has nearly doubled the dividends it has received from public sector companies to ₹74,000 crore, with an analysis by The Hindu showing it relies heavily on a few oil, gas, and coal companies for a large chunk of these dividends.

The analysis of company-wise dividend data from the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) for the last five years shows that five fuel-related PSUs accounted for 42% of the total dividends the government has collected since the financial year 2020-21. The analysis excluded dividends from the Reserve Bank of India and the nationalised banks.

These companies — Coal India Ltd, Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL), and Gail (India) — contributed ₹1.27 lakh crore, or 42.3% of the total ₹3 lakh crore dividends the Centre received from non-banking PSUs between 2020-21 and 2024-25.

Minimal cut in petrol prices

The data also shows that the two directly-owned public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) — IOC and BPCL — together saw a 255% increase in their dividend payouts to the government since 2022-23 and a 65% decrease in oil prices. However, they only passed on a 2% decrease in petrol prices to the public.  

The third public sector OMC, Hindustan Petroleum, is owned by ONGC, and not directly by the government. 

The total dividends from non-banking PSUs have also grown consistently since the COVID-19 pandemic. The government collected ₹39,558 crore as dividends from these companies in 2020-21, which almost doubled to ₹74,017 crore by 2024-25.

High dividends offset slow disinvestment

According to sources in the government, this is due to a “calibrated” approach to balance revenues from disinvestments and dividends. 

“The government’s disinvestment policy announced during the pandemic is still very much in place, but it is not progressing as fast as it was initially hoped,” the official told The Hindu. “At the same time, many PSUs are turning profitable and so the government is maximising the dividends it can earn from them.”

The disinvestment policy, officially called the Public Sector Enterprises Policy, stated that the government would maintain a minimum presence in strategic sectors and would exit from all non-strategic ones. It was first announced as a part of the government’s COVID-19 Atma Nirbhar Bharat package in May 2020.

However, since then, enhancing dividends has also become a part of official policy.

Mandatory minimum dividends

An office memorandum sent out by DIPAM in November 2024 to all departments of the government and the managing directors of all PSUs laid out new rules for how much dividends these companies must pay their shareholders, the largest of which is the government of India.

According to the new rules, every Central PSU must pay a minimum annual dividend of 30% of its Profit After Tax (PAT) or 4% of its net worth, whichever is higher. In fact, the government has pushed these PSUs to pay dividends much higher than this mandatory amount.

“The minimum dividend as indicated in para 5.1 above is only a minimum benchmark,” the office memorandum said. “The CPSEs are advised to strive paying higher dividend taking into account relevant factors such as profitability, capex requirements with due leveraging, cash reserves and net worth.”

High payouts

IOC and BPCL saw their combined dividend payouts to the government increase 255% between 2022-23 and 2024-25, from ₹2,435 crore to ₹8,653 crore. Dividends of OMCs are paid from their profits, which themselves rise if the selling price of their fuel is higher than the cost of their inputs. 

While the price of crude oil has fallen 65% — from $116 a barrel in June 2022 to $70 a barrel in July 2025 — the retail price of petrol has only been reduced by ₹1.95 per litre, or 2%, over this period.