Page 43 - Banking Finance February 2018

BUDGET

"Finance Minister provides standard deduction of INR 40,000 per year for salaried taxpayers. However, exemption for
transport allowance and reimbursement of medical expenses will be taken away. At an overall level, this is hardly a
significant benefit provided to salaried taxpayers and take-home salaries may not change much"

Ranjit Punja, CEO & Co-Founder, Creditmantri.com.
"Digitisation and formalisation seems to be the mantra, with the Finance Minister stressing on the
growing digital economy and increased allocation to aid digital transformation. The government ini-
tiating a new plan on NPAs also shows the importance of rising bad loans with India currently ranking
5th in the world. We hope that this plan would help shift focus on the importance of good credit as
a countermeasure. By setting the target of disbursing Rs.3 lakh crore through the MUDRA Yojana for
Ranjit Punja the next fiscal is a commendable step towards inclusive funding."

Mr. Rohit Lohia - CO-Founder and COO, CoinTribe Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
"Allocation of 373 cr in digital India initiative is a welcome step in the direction of reducing cost of
operations for all businesses sytemically while greatly aiding the ecosystem for FinTech enterprises.
Further, MSME corporate tax for 2018-19 has been cut to 25% up to revenue of Rs 250 cr. This is
likely to encourage larger tax compliance from MSME sector."
Mr. Rohit Lohia
Mr. Satyam Kumar - CEO and CO-Founder, Loantap
"We are happy that Finance Minister has acknowledged voice from Fintech Industry seeking soft touch
approach to regulation and making strong case for fintech participation in supporting SME/ MSME
growth. Fintech as a segment has been signalled out in this budget with a very clear objective of
credit push to the last mile. We see it as strong government backing for the way fintech industry is
shaping in India."
Mr. Satyam Kumar
Mr. Karni S Arha, Chief Financial Officer, Aviva India.

"The National Health Scheme of the government is a great initiative and will act as a catalyst in
elevating the insurance sector and in turn the health care services for the uninsured and underinsured
population. Also overall Health insurance deductions increasing to 50k and increase in exemption
limit from Rs 10K to Rs 50K for Senior Citizens is a big positive move to promote health care and
safety amongst the most deserving", said Mr. Karni S Arha, Chief Financial Officer, Aviva India.
He further added, "Provisions announced in the Budget for the MSME sector in terms of lower cor-
porate tax rate at 25% would support their growth and create job opportunities. In overview, the
Mr. Karni S Arha
budget is positive with overall theme of supporting farm sector & MSME business, which would gen-
erate growth in overall economy. Aviva's two critical business objectives are delivering best healthcare products (like
Aviva Heart Care) and providing best insurance care to the MSME sector where we partnered with CII. Thus we feel
very confident on the budget announcements and would like to partner with various parties in delivering the best in
class insurance plans."

Mr. S. Ravi, Practicing CA & Founding Partner - Ravi Rajan & Co and Chairman
- BSE
'Budget 2018 has emphasized the need for structural reforms with outlays focusing on rural economy
and rural infra development at Rs.14.34 lakh crores, benefits to farmers by proposing to fix Minimum
Support Price (MSP) at 1.5 times the market price, Rs.1 lakh crores outlay to be spent on
revitalizationof Education infrastructure and world's largest healthcare programme covering 10 crore
Mr. S. Ravi

BANKING FINANCE | FEBRUARY | 2018 | 43

Sashi Publications Pvt Ltd Call 8443808873/ 8232083010