BANKING & FINANCIAL AWARENESS CURRENT AFFAIRS

        BANKING & FINANCIAL AWARENESS CURRENT AFFAIRS      

                                               RBI IN NEWS                                            

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released its much awaited 'Vision-2018' document. The ‘Payment & Settlement Systems in India: Vision-2018’ aims at building best of class payment & settlement systems for a ‘less-cash’ India & ensuring access to mobile banking services to even basic phone users.

Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan has announced the Second Bi-monthly Monetary Policy Statement for the year 2016-17 & kept the repo rate unchanged at 6.5%, reverse repo rate stays at 6.00 %, & CRR remains at 4%.

RBI formulated the Scheme for Sustainable Structuring of Stressed Assets (S4A) as an optional framework for the resolution of large stressed accounts.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will soon set up a committee to study the use of Blockchain technology. The technology will be used to reduce the use of paper currency. Reserve Bank said the aggregate ceiling for foreign investors to invest in Ujjivan Financial Services will remain at 49%. RBI has authorised 29 agency banks to accept payments of Income Tax dues. Some of the agency banks authorized by RBI to collect tax include Allahabad Bank, UCO Bank, BOI, Canara Bank, SBI & its five associate banks, CBI, Dena Bank, HDFC Bank Ltd, OBC, Axis Bank Ltd, ICICI Bank & PNB.

It has stated that entities from Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iran & Hong Kong or Macau will require its prior approval to establish branch office or project office or liaison office in India.

The Cabinet has given approval to the MoU between the Reserve Bank & the Central Bank of United Arab Emirates (UAE) on co-operation on currency swap agreement.

As per RBI it will shortly issue Rs. 1,000 denomination bank notes in the Mahatma Gandhi Series of 2005 with the insert letter of 'R' in both the number panels.

RBI released Non-Banking Financial Company -Account Aggregator Directions, 2016. This will put in place the regulatory framework to allow a new kind of Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), which could act as an account aggregator. The Net Owned Fund of such companies should not be less than 2 cr. Rs.

RBI issued revised Framework for Revival & Rehabilitation of Medium, Small & Micro Enterprises (MSMEs). The Framework has to be put in place by the banks not later than 30 June 2016.

Key Guidelines

•    It shall be applicable to MSMEs having loan limits up to 25 cr. Rs. including accounts under consortium or multiple banking arrangement (MBA).

•    It classifies three categories in Special Mention Account (SMA) to identify incipient stress in the accounts of MSMEs in case of Non-Performing Assets (NPAs):

a)   SMA-0: Principal or interest payment not overdue for more than 30 days but account showing signs of incipient stress

b)   SMA-1: Principal or interest payment overdue between 31- 60 days

c)   SMA-2: Principal or interest payment overdue between 61- 90 days

RBI signed a Special Currency Swap Agreement with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Under the arrangement, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka can draw up to 700 million US dollars.

To streamline monitoring of fraud cases in Urban Cooperative Banks, RBI said those involving Rs 1 cr. & above will have to be reported to its Central Fraud Monitoring Cell (CFMC) at Bengaluru within three weeks of detection. Fraud cases below Rs 1 cr. should be reported to respective regional offices of the Department of Cooperative Bank Supervision (DCBS) of the RBI. Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan has joined a task  force   of  the  World  Economic Forum (WEF)  to  study the future of global financial system.

The central bank has directed commercial banks to increase the provisioning by 2.5% every quarter so that by March 31, 2017, provisioning reached the 15%  level

— in line with sub-standard accounts.

RBI has extended the $2 billion currency swap arrangement to SAARC nations  till  mid-November 2017. Under the arrangement, RBI is to offer swap arrangement up to an overall amount of $2 billion both in foreign currency & Indian rupee.

RBI has signed a pact with Bank of Israel for Information Exchange & Banking supervision.

RBI has decided to share FDI-related data with the country's intelligence agencies, Intelligence Bureau (IB) & Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), to check the black money entering India.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) CEO & MD Natarajan Chandrasekaran, former Chief Secretary of Gujarat Sudhir Mankad & Bharat Narotam Doshi appointed as Non Officials Directors to the board of RBI for a tenure of 4 year.

                                               SBI IN NEWS                                            

SBI signed MoU with the Indian Institute of Technology Society for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (SINE), (IIT) Bombay’s technology business incubator, to promote innovation by startups in the financial sector.

SBI & the World Bank inked agreements for a $625 million facility to support grid-connected rooftop solar programme (GRPV) in the country.

SBI launched 3 new digital offerings on the occasion of 61st State Bank Day on 1st July.

a)    It has partnered with Flipkart to offer its consumers the facility of pre-approved EMI Facility on purchases. Under this partnership SBI will provide overdraft facility to pre-qualified set of customers for transacting on Flipkart for a minimum purchase of Rs. 5000.

b)   It also launched 'SBI Mingle' - its social media banking platform for Facebook & Twitter users.

c)    It also launched its new initiative SBI Digital Villages aimed at transforming villages into cash less eco-system by adopting them.

SBI & Reliance Industries signed a subscription & shareholders agreement to set up payments bank joint venture. RIL will work as the promoter & will contribute to

70 % equity & SBI will have 30 per cent equity contribution.

   Balal village in Kasargode district in the state of Kerala is one of the 21 villages selected across the country by the SBI under the SBI Digital Village initiative.

   SBI Cards & Payment Services, launched a premium  credit card 'Elite'. It is launched on the Master Card World platform which is enabled with NFC (Near Field Communication) technology.

SBI named in the Hall of Shame list of 158 banking institutions that have invested billions of dollars in companies making cluster bombs.

SBI created dedicated IT innovations & startup fund & set aside Rs 200 crore for investment in promising startups. SBI & Spain's Caixa Bank signed a pact to provide loans to Indo-Spanish joint ventures & local enterprises.

Nepal SBI Bank has launched payment gateway to facilitate online trade & non-trade transactions between the Himalayan nation 'Nepal' & India.

SBI's point of sales terminal (PoS) network is now the largest in the country.

Announced the launch of mVisa, a mobile based payment solution. Will help customers make payments through by simply scanning the unique merchant Quick Response code. Meghalaya CM Mukul M Sangma inaugurated the first Digital Branch of State Bank of India in North East.

SBI has launched a facility under 'SBI Quick: SMS & Missed Call Banking' service whereby the customer can choose to activate or deactivate their cards.

SBI launched e-Smart SME, a working capital loan offering for sellers on ecommerce platforms.

Myanmar has granted operating licenses to four Asian banks. Out if the 4, one is SBI.

SBI has launched ‘Japan Desk’, a single window for inbound Japanese investments in India & vice-versa. This is a first-of-its-kind initiative that seeks to facilitate Japanese corporate looking to invest in India with banking & advisory services.

SBI ties up with Taxi Aggregator, Uber to provide instant vehicle finance to “driver partners’ on the latter’s platform.

                                        ICICI BANK IN NEWS                                    

ICICI Bank has added five new features on its mobile banking app, 'iMobile', taking the total number of services to over 150.

Launched the country’s first contactless business credit card in association with Jet Airways.

Become the first financial institution in the country to tie up with the New Development Bank to explore opportunities.

Launched iWork@Home programme for its women employees to prevent them from dropping out of its workforce.

Announced a new mobile payment solution Touch & Pay. This is based on Near Field Communication (NFC) technology.

Sold 9% stake in its general insurance venture ICICI Lombard while 2% stake in life insurance subsidiary ICICI Prudential for about Rs 2,200 cr.

K Ramkumar, executive director & member of the board at ICICI Bank has taken retirement. He will be replaced by Vijay Chandok.

   Tied up with marquee sports car maker Ferrari to launch co-branded credit card.

   Launched a credit-linked subsidy scheme  for home   loans under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY). Under this scheme, the ICICI will provide housing loans at subsidized rates of 6.5 % annually for the loan amount of Rs. 6 lakh (maximum). The maximum loan tenure to get the subsidy is 15 years.

                                       HDFC BANK IN NEWS                                    

Launched an SME Bank which will provide full-fledged digital banking service to small & medium sector enterprises.

HDFC Ltd has been ranked among the world's ten biggest & most powerful companies in the consumer financial services sector on a Forbes list topped by global major American Express. Ranked 7th, HDFC is the only Indian company in top ten in this category.

HDFC Bank plans to open about 500 new branches this financial year as part of its steps to Expand footprint.

                                         YES BANK IN NEWS                                     

India's fifth largest Private sector lender Yes Bank has received a ‘Custodian of Securities’ licence from the markets regulator SEBI to allows the entity to offer custodial services to financial market participants, including FIIs & FPIs.

Signed a strategic MoU with India Brazil Chamber of Commerce (IBCC) to enable significant cooperation in terms of knowledge partnerships, project consultancy etc.

Partnered with Clickandpay, a mobilebased payment solutions enterprise, to facilitate cashless, secure & flexible transactions for customers.

Tied up with BankBazaar.com, to feature Yes Bank retail loan products including personal loans, home loans & car loans on its website.

Launched an all women operated bank branch 'Yes Grace' on Cunningham Road aimed at offering customised banking solutions to women.

Received the prestigious Green Bond Pioneer Award for being the Pioneers in Emerging Markets-India .

                          KOTAK MAHINDRA BANK IN NEWS                     

Became the fourth bank to open its IFSC Banking Unit (IBU) at International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) City.

Surpassed ICICI Bank to emerge as the third most valued lender in the country.

Signed an agreement with Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) for investment in stressed assets in India.

Uday Kotak, chief of KMB only Indian in Forbes’ list of 40 most powerful people in the financial world. He is on rank 33 in the Forbes list of ‘Money Masters: The Most Powerful People in The Financial World. Topped by Stephen Schwarzman.