BANKING & FINANCIAL CURRENT AFFAIRS DECEMBER 2021

BANKING & FINANCIAL CURRENT AFFAIRS DECEMBER 2021

BANKING & FINANCIAL CURRENT AFFAIRS

• Reserve Bank of India has imposed several restrictions under subsection (1) of Section 35 A of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 on Nagar Urban Co-operative Bank Ltd, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra for six months. Restriction is also on withdrawn limit up to Rs.1000.
• Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has introduced a prompt corrective action (PCA) framework for large non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) with effect from October 2022, putting restrictions on para-banks whenever vital financial metrics dip below the prescribed threshold.
• Reserve Bank of India has given scheduled bank status to Paytm Payments Bank under Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934.
• RBI made Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) mandatory for cross-border transactions for capital or current account transactions of Rs 50 crore and above, from October 1, 2022.
  The LEI is a 20-digit number used to uniquely identify parties to financial transactions worldwide to improve the quality and accuracy of financial data systems.
• Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed penalty of Rs 1.8 crores on Punjab National Bank (PNB), while ICICI Bank has been fined Rs 30 lakh for deficiencies in regulatory compliances.
• Reserve Bank of India, in consultation with the Department of Financial Services, the Ministry of Finance, has decided to make the Scheduled payments banks and scheduled small finance banks (SFBs) eligible to conduct Government agency business.
• RBI has announced the empanelment of CSB Bank, a private sector lender as an ‘Agency Bank’. Now, CSB Bank will undertake the general banking business of the central and state governments under the guidelines set by the RBI.
• Reserve Bank of India has imposed monetary penalties (Rs. 1 crore) on two payment system operators, Mobikwik Systems Private Limited and Spice Money Limited, for violation of norms.
• India1 ATM has become the second-largest white label ATM brand on semi-urban and rural areas. With the deployment of 10000 ATMs, India1 Payments has become the largest player in this segment. India1 Payments is IPO-bound and is promoted by the Banktech Group of Australia.
  It was formerly known as BTI Payments.
• State Bank of India (SBI) listed its USD 650- million green bonds simultaneously on the India International Exchange (India INX) and the Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE). This dual listing is in line with 2021’s topic of the World Investor Week (WIW), ‘sustainable finance’, declared by International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA).
  India INX has now emerged as the leading bond listing venue with over $33 billion.
• Federal Bank has launched savings scheme “Mahila Mitra Plus” bank product for women. It provides a curated set of features, designed to make financial planning and investments easy for women.
• IDFC FIRST Bank announced the launch of FIRST Private Infinite, the country’s first-ever standalone metal debit card, in partnership with Visa.
  It is a lifetime free card designed specifically for customers who are part of the Bank’s FIRST Private program, premium savings and wealth offering.
• Punjab National Bank (PNB) launched the PNB Pride-CRMD module tool, an android-based application for employees to monitor and effectively follow up with the special mention account (SMA) borrowers.
  The PrideCRMD module has built-in TalkBack software that allows the visually impaired to access the system freely and to interact with customers by tapping on their phones.
• Shivalik Small Finance Bank (SSFB) signed a partnership agreement with fintech firm, Indiagold to launch India’s first Loan against Digital Gold. Now customers can use their digital gold balance to avail instant and digital loans up to Rs. 60,000 and also seamlessly access gold loans starting at a monthly interest of just 1%.
• Federal Bank has entered into a Bancassurance partnership with Star Health and Allied Insurance Co Ltd as a corporate agent to provide health insurance products for the Bank’s 8.90 million customers across India.
• Bank of Baroda (BoB) has launched a solution for digital banking payments, named bob World Wave. This is an innovative solution, intended to perfectly deliver preventive health actions as well as easier payment transactions.
• The Life Insurance Corporation of India has launched individual savings life insurance plan called Dhan Rekha which offers special premium rates for female lives. The plan is also allowed for the third gender adding that all benefits under the plan are fully guaranteed.
• Equitas Small Finance Bank has empanelled as the banking partner of the state government of Maharashtra with an aim to offer its services to employees of the State Government.
  The Bandhan Bank, Karur Vysya Bank, and the South Indian Bank have been assigned the role of distributing salaries and allowances to the government employees.
• State Bank of India (SBI) acquired a minority stake (< 50 %) in JSW Cement Limited for an investment of INR 100 crore through Compulsory Convertible Preference Shares (CCPS).
• Bank of Baroda has announced that it has won the #1 position in overall digital transactions amongst large banks for FY20-21. The bank was felicitated by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Govt. of India at the Digital Payments Utsav.
• Axis Bank has announced the approval to reclassify Oriental Insurance Company Ltd (OICL) from promoter category to public category shareholder in the bank.
• ICICI Prudential Life Insurance became the first Indian insurance company to sign United Nations supported Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI), to demonstrate commitment towards the environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.
  The UNPRI is an investor initiative in partnership with the two bodies of the United Nations – the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative and the UN Global Compact Government of India.
• Germany Development Bank– KfW (Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau) signed a 26 million euros loan for a 40.35 km Surat Metro Rail project in Gujarat.
• Central Bank of India and U GRO Capital has signed a co-lending agreement to disburse up to Rs 1,000 crore to MSMEs over the next 12 months. The disbursement will be to U GRO Capital’s MSME segments under its programs – Pratham, Sanjeevani, Saathi, GRO MSME and machinery financing.
• Paytm Payments Bank has partnered with MoneyGram, a peer-to-peer remittance company to enable international fund transfer directly to Paytm Wallet. This is MoneyGram’s first mobile wallet partnership in India.
  MoneyGram transactions in India received digitally stands at nearly 50% all transactions received in the country.
• BOB Financial Solutions Ltd. (BFSL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of Baroda (BoB) and the Indian Navy have introduced a co-branded credit card for the personnel of the Indian Navy. The card will be equipped with contactless features and offered on the RuPay platform.
• HDFC Bank and India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) have signed an MoU to offer banking services to over 4.7 crore customers of IPPB in semi-urban and rural areas. Under the MoU, out of 4.7 crores, customers around 90% reside in rural areas.
• HDFC Life signed a bancassurance agreement with South Indian Bank to enable customers of the South Indian Bank to avail HDFC Life’s life insurance products and services to the customers of South Indian Bank.
• IndusInd Bank has partnered with the National Payments Corporation to offer real-time cross border remittances to India using UPI IDs, for its Money Transfer Operator (MTO) partners.
  It is the first Indian bank to go live on UPI for cross-border payments/NRI remittances.
• IndusInd Bank has announced the launch of ‘green fixed deposits’, the deposit will be used to finance projects and firms supporting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• Axis Bank has become the second-largest merchant-acquiring bank in the country by installing over two lakh card-swipe machines during the year. The ‘Axis One’ strategy approaches the customers by offering its entire gamut of products instead of a standalone service.

ECONOMY CURRENT AFFAIRS

• Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) decreased India’s growth forecast to 9.4% for FY22 from 9.7% estimated in September 2021. OECD lowered the global growth forecast for 2021 to 5.6% from 5.7% earlier.
• The rating agency, India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) expects India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the Second Quarter of Financial Year-2022 (Q2 FY22) at 3 % and in FY22 at 9.4 %.
• The Singapore-based DBS Bank’s economic research team has revised India’s FY23 growth forecast upwards to 7% year-on-year (y-o-y) from 6% earlier.
• S&P Global Ratings has retained the GDP growth forecast of India unchanged at 9.5% for the financial year 2021- 22 (FY22) and 7.8 % for the year ending FY23.
• Wall Street brokerage, Goldman Sachs has estimated India’s GDP growth at 9.1 % in 2022.
• Fitch Ratings has slashed India’s economic growth forecast in the financial year 2021-22 (FY22) to 8.4 % and raised the growth projection to 10.3% for FY23, compared to October 2021 rating projections of 8.7 % (FY22) and 10% (FY23).
• Gross GST revenue collected in the month of November 2021 is Rs 1, 31,526 crores.
• Asian Development Bank has trimmed its 2021 growth forecast for India to 9.7 % from 10 % but left the 2022 growth forecast unchanged at 7.5 per cent.
  The inflation forecast of developing Asia was revised to 2.1 per cent for 2021 and unchanged at 7 per cent for 2022.
• Producers’ inflation based on the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) has reached an all-time high in the current series at 14.23 % in November (mainly due to the hardening of prices of mineral oils, basic metals, crude petroleum and natural gas).
• India has registered the highest ever annual Foreign Direct Investment inflow of $ 81.97 bn in 2020-21. The top five countries from where FDI Equity Inflows were received during 2014-2021 are Singapore, Mauritius, USA, Netherland & Japan.

BUSSINESS CURRENT AFFAIRS

• The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $500 million loan to the Government of India in order to improve the quality of school education and mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 on students’ learning. The loan supports the Integrated Scheme for School Education “Samagra Shiksha”
• RBI has given its approval to Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) to raise its stake in private lender Kotak Mahindra Bank to 9.99 %. Currently, LIC holds 4.96% stake in the private lender.
• RBI superseded the Board of Directors of Reliance Capital Ltd (RCL), a NonBanking Financial Company, by exercising its power conferred under Section 45-IE (1) of the RBI Act, 1934.
  In this regard, the apex bank has appointed Nageswar Rao Y (Ex-Executive Director, Bank of Maharashtra) as the Administrator of the company under Section 45-IE (2) of the RBI Act.
  RCL is promoted by Anil Dhirubhai Ambani’s Reliance Group.
• Paytm has partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to offer Paytm Startup Toolkit with exclusive payment services to early-stage Indian startups. Paytm will help entrepreneurs to grow businesses with payment, distribution, and growth solutions who are operating in India in the AWS Activate.
• Bharti Airtel and Invest India, National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency jointly launched ‘Airtel India Startup Innovation Challenge’ for Startups to develop solutions in 5G, Internet of Things.
• LIC has received approval from the Reserve Bank of India to increase its stake to 9.99 % in IndusInd Bank of the total issued and paid-up capital of the private sector lender.
  The approval will be valid for 1 year.
• Bajaj Allianz General Insurance has started its “Care4Hockey” Campaign to support the development of Hockey in India. The company has partnered with Padma Shri (2020) Rani Rampal, Indian Women’s Hockey Team Captain, who will be the face of the campaign.
• Paytm, which got listed in bourses last month, has announced the launch of Paytm Wealth Academy, a tech-powered educational platform. It will initially be available to select users, followed by a complete rollout.
• Adda247 has acquired UPSC focused ed-tech platform StudyIQ Education for 150 crores in a cash and stock deal. Anil Nagar is founder and CEO of Adda247. StudyIQ Education has over 11 million subscribers on Youtube and the platform receives close to 100 million views a month.
• WhatsApp has announced the Digital Payments Utsav for 500 villages in India. Utsav is a pilot program that promotes digital payments to empower individuals and businesses. It aims to empower villagers with access to digital payments via the ‘payments on WhatsApp’.
• Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved Rs 2653.05 crore policy-based loans to improve urban services in India. This loan supports the policies formulated by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) to benefit the urban poor, economically weaker sections, and low-income groups.
• The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has approved the acquisition of a shareholding in Air India by Talace Private Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Sons.
• Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) has announced that it has acquired a 4.93 % equity share in Indian Gas Exchange Limited (the country’s first automated national level gas exchange).
• Mastercard and Google announced a tokenization method that enables Google Pay users to safely transact using their Mastercard credit cards and debit cards. Now, Google Pay Android users can scan and pay across all Bharat QR-enabled merchants, tap-and-pay, and make inapp transactions through their Mastercard debit and credit card.
• Wipro has signed an agreement to acquire Edgile, a transformational cyber security consulting provider, for $230 million.
• State Bank of India will acquire up to 9.95 % stake in India International Clearing Corporation (IFSC) Ltd subject to a maximum investment of Rs 34.03 crore. The Clearing Corporation is a GIFT City (Gandhinagar, Gujarat) based Market Infrastructure Institution.

See also…
BANKING & FINANCIAL CURRENT AFFAIRS NOVEMBER 2021