News digest: IDFC Bank-Capital First merger, SC crisis, World Bank and more

From IDFC Bank and Capital First merger to rising corporate bond yields, BS brings you up to date with the latest news

IDFC Bank to merge with Capital First, Vaidyanathan to succeed Lall

India’s newest scheduled commercial lender IDFC Bank and Warburg Pincus-backed Capital First on Saturday agreed to merge in an all-share deal. V Vaidyanathan, chairman of the non-banking finance company, would become the MD and CEO of the merged entity, succeeding Rajiv Lall. (Full report)

Managing the SC crisis: Bar Council forms team; Congress takes on Modi

The Bar Council of India has set up a seven-member team in an attempt to resolve the differences between the four dissenting Supreme Court judges and Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra. The team is expected to start its deliberations with all judges, except the top five, immediately. The Supreme Court Bar Association also passed a resolution on Saturday that the rift should be considered by a full bench of the apex court. It also said that the CJI or senior judges should look at all public interest litigations. (More details)

Rising corporate bond yields may send India Inc to banks for loans

With bond yields rising, it seems companies may find it more profitable to go back to banks for loans, rather than coming to the bond market. This will partially break the emerging trend of ‘disintermediation’, or companies diversifying away from bank credit to other sources of funds, which started about two years back as banks refused to lower their lending rates, while the fixed income market incorporated every cut done by the central bank. (Read more)

How World Bank unfairly influenced its own competitiveness rankings

The World Bank repeatedly changed the methodology of one of its flagship economic reports over several years in ways it now says were unfair and misleading. The World Bank’s chief economist, Paul Romer, told The Wall Street Journal on Friday he would correct and recalculate national rankings of business competitiveness in the report called “Doing Business” going back at least four years. (Click here to read full article)