Kolkata: The microfinance market contracted to ₹3.22 lakh crore at the end of December 2025, reflecting a 6% quarter-on-quarter and 16% year-on-year drop, despite showing improved loan recovery and signs of business normalisation by large lenders, showed quarterly data from credit bureau Equifax. This is the lowest level seen in the past three years.

The sharp decline in the third quarter of this financial year resulted from a bulk reclassification of micro loans as retail loans by one of the private sector banks with significant microfinance exposure, said three people aware of the matter.

The gross loan portfolio stood at ₹3.42 lakh crore at the end of September last year. At the end of November, it was ₹3.40 lakh crore.

Besides, the cumulative loan disbursement is yet to offset the size of loan rundown, said industry executives. The strategy of acceleration in writing off bad loans was another reason behind the yearly decline of loan portfolio at the aggregate level, even as some large non-banking financial company-micro finance institutions (NBFC-MFIs) showed higher loan disbursement and annual growth in the portfolio after the end of the third quarter.

“At the sectoral level, the book run-down, including loan write-offs is still higher than total loan disbursement, which is the reason behind the contraction in the overall microfinance market,” Sanjay Garyali, managing director at Fusion Finance, told ET.

Bandhan Bank, for instance, sold bad loans worth ₹3,212 crore to asset reconstruction companies. Of those, micro loans accounted for ₹2,800 crore.

The microfinance market peaked at ₹4.43 lakh crore in the quarter to March 2024. Thereafter, there has been a steady fall every quarter as lenders across the spectrum slowed lending to the bottom of the pyramid borrower segment which was largely overleveraged and witnessing a surge in defaults. The industry experienced a year-on-year contraction in disbursement in 2025, with volume declining 34% and value decreasing 24%, according to an Equifax report.

The number of active loans declined 9% quarter-on-quarter and 23% year-on-year to 107.4 million, the data showed.

The lenders are also shifting their focus on providing gold jewellery-backed loans instead of collateral-free loans to the same customer segment, leading to the fall in micro loan disbursement year-on-year, said Subhankar Mishra, head of strategy at Equifax India.

The December quarter, however, saw a modest increase in disbursements to Rs 61,000 crore from Rs 56,535 crore in the preceding quarter, signalling business normalisation, as per industry level data collated by Crif High Mark data. The gross loan portfolio declined to Rs 3.21 lakh crore at the end of December from Rs 3.46 lakh crore three months prior, said people aware of the matter. Crif High Mark did not respond to ET’s queries seeking details.

Small finance banks such as ESAF, Equitas, Jana and Ujjivan reported quarter-on-quarter growth in their respective micro loan asset portfolios at the end of December.

CreditAccess Grameen, India’s largest NBFC-MFI, also reported a quarter-on-quarter increase in gross loan portfolio. The signs of business normalisation led to recovery of share prices for several microfinance lenders over the past few weeks.

Bandhan Bank shares surged 17% in the past one month to Rs 168.25 apiece on BSE. Shares of Fusion Finance jumped 17.4% to Rs 194 each, while Satin Creditcare Network saw a 5% increase in share price to Rs 155.10 each during this period.

Spandana Sphoorty Financial, which cut net loss to Rs 93 crore in the December quarter from Rs 249 crore in the preceding three-month period, saw a 9% increase in share prices in a month to Rs 264.5 apiece.

At the end of 2025, NBFC-MFIs controlled 40.9% of the market, followed by private banks (25.6%), small finance banks (16.9%) and other NBFCs (14%). The balance 2.6% was with notfor-profit entities.

FIRST ON FOX — The NewsGuild of New York is irked at The New York Times leadership. 

The Times Guild Bargaining Committee sent staffers a newsletter on Tuesday detailing the latest labor negotiations. The Guild said it made a “big push to end the two-tier system The New York Times created and perpetuates by wrongly excluding jobs and workers from the Times Guild” and received a revised proposal from the company to end all hybrid work guarantees on March 1, 2027. 

“At that point, they would have the right to require us to work in the office five days a week and to eliminate our contractually guaranteed three weeks of remote work per year. As we saw this fall: If the company can reduce our guaranteed remote-work days, they will. But when asked for data on how in-office work makes our news product, advertising and business operations better, the management side of the table was silent,” the Guild wrote in the email obtained by Fox News Digital. 

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“On our side, we made a big push to end the two-tier system The New York Times created and perpetuates by wrongly excluding jobs and workers from the Times Guild. Today, we asked the company to recognize more than 50 of our colleagues’ proper place in our bargaining unit, people with whom we work side by side as members of the Times Guild,” the Times Guild Bargaining Committee continued. “Keeping union work in the union is one of our core priorities.”

The Guild believes positions including audio engineers, puzzle editors, audience and SEO editors, bureau chiefs based in cities across the country and editors on the Newsroom Development and Support team deserve “the same critical protections and benefits we have fought for under our union contract” and listed “annual raises, just cause job protections, hour-for-hour overtime or comp time and minimum salaries for each position” as key examples. 

“One of the five core priorities we all identified for this contract campaign is keeping union work in our union. These wrongly excluded jobs represent another way the company has undercut our union by arbitrarily excluding colleagues who are doing the same work as us, thus creating a two-tier system of pay and benefits,” the Guild wrote. 

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The Guild told members it proposed that the Times should give the Guild 30 days notice when it creates a new job “whether such job falls within the jurisdiction of the Guild or the position is excluded,” and that any disputes over newly created jobs should be “referred to the expedited arbitration provisions utilizing the parties’ Jurisdiction panel of arbitrators on a rotational basis.”

The Guild wants the Times to supply it with a description of the duties, responsibilities, proposed classification and effective date of a new job. The Guild is also asking it to be clearly noted that open jobs are Guild-represented positions when posted internally or externally, and for 30-days’ notice when individuals currently represented by the Guild are transferred to Guild-excluded positions.

“We received the company’s responses to our requests for information related to several of our core issues in these negotiations: badge-swipe surveillance being used to enforce in-office expectations; the company’s existing and planned uses of artificial intelligence; and the creation of a two-tier system by excluding The Athletic from our union,” the Times Guild Bargaining Committee wrote.

“Unfortunately, management declined to respond — nearly across the board — in detail to our requests, instead dismissing our questions as ‘overly broad,’ ‘speculative,’ ‘unduly burdensome,’ and ‘not relevant,’” they added. 

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The Guild also told members that the Times “updated its proposal for financing our health fund,” but dismissed the notion it would “bankrupt the fund.” 

“We understand that. It still goes back to [cost] sharing and responsibility,” Times Executive Director for Labor Relations Chris Biegner told the Guild, according to the newsletter distributed to members. 

“In their counter to our performance evaluation proposal, management rejected several of our proposed changes, including exemptions from the rating system for employees who take a certain amount of leave, transparency about who (such as desk heads, masthead editors and H.R.) contributed to an employee’s evaluation, and shifting the review period so that it covers a full year of work,” the Guild wrote. 

The next bargaining session is scheduled for Feb. 18. The current contract expires at the end of the month. 

When reached for comment, The New York Times provided Fox News Digital with a series of internal notes that managing editors Marc Lacey and Carolyn Ryan have sent to Times Guild unit members. 

In January, Lacey and Ryan said conversations have been “productive,” but feel too much focus is being spent worrying about staffers who are not members of the Guild. The Athletic, a separate entity with its own leadership team that is owned by the Times, has been a sticking point. 

“In the room, the Guild indicated that they would not accept any contract terms that don’t cover The Athletic joining The New York Times newsroom bargaining unit. We fear that setting this condition undermines the path to getting to a good deal any time soon,” Lacey and Ryan wrote last month after the first negotiating session. 

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“The company has said many times that we would recognize unionization for Athletic employees as a separate unit if they choose to pursue it,” they continued. “We also want to state up front that we don’t think we should hold up a new contract and higher salaries for some 1,500 Times Guild employees because of a demand to incorporate employees from an entirely separate newsroom.”

Lacey and Ryan have insisted they would like to reach a deal.

The Athletic publisher David Perpich previously stated that he believes “the best approach is to have The Athletic’s journalists form a separate bargaining unit within the NewsGuild, not to have them absorbed into the Times unit.”

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul launched the Thailand Chinese New Year Festival 2026, marking 51 years of Thai-Chinese relations. Celebrations include events in Bangkok and other provinces, promoting tourism nationwide.

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Key Points

• Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul launched the Thailand Chinese New Year Festival 2026 at Government House, celebrating 51 years of Thailand-China diplomatic relations. The event marked the beginning of nationwide festivities, featuring notable attendees like the Chinese ambassador and tourism officials.
• A lion dance performance highlighted the occasion, alongside the presentation of an auspicious ceremonial horse to the prime minister. The Tourism Authority of Thailand, in partnership with various agencies, will organize the festival across key locations.
• Festive lighting in Bangkok, themed “Ride the Fortune, Share the Future,” will adorn Yaowarat Road from February 7 to March 1, with major activities at Siam Paragon from February 14 to 18. Additional celebrations are planned in Hat Yai and provinces like Nakhon Sawan and Suphan Buri, aiming to boost holiday travel.

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has presided over a publicity event for the Thailand Chinese New Year Festival 2026 at Government House to commemorate the 51st anniversary of diplomatic relations between Thailand and China. The event, held at Command Building 1, signaled the start of nationwide celebrations.

The event was attended by the Chinese ambassador to Thailand, the minister of tourism and sports, the governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, and senior officials from relevant agencies. A lion dance performance was presented to promote the upcoming festival, and an auspicious ceremonial horse was offered to the prime minister as part of the occasion.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand, in coordination with partner agencies, will stage Thailand Chinese New Year Festival 2026 events at major locations. In Bangkok, festive lighting under the theme Ride the Fortune, Share the Future will illuminate Yaowarat Road from February 7 to March 1, while main festival activities are scheduled at Siam Paragon from February 14 to 18. Additional celebrations will take place in Hat Yai, Songkhla Province, from February 17 to 20.

Chinese New Year events are also being supported in provinces known for long-established traditions, including Nakhon Sawan and Suphan Buri, as well as other activities organized nationwide by government and private partners. Officials said the celebrations are expected to encourage travel during the holiday period, with more information available through the national tourism hotline and official festival platforms.

Source : PM Launches Thailand Chinese New Year Festival 2026

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