BANKING & FINANCIAL CURRENT AFFAIRS SEPTEMBER 2021
- RBI has announced the theme for the Third Cohort under the Regulatory Sandbox (RS) as ‘MSME Lending’. The application for the Third Cohort will be kept open from October 01, 2021 to November 14, 2021. Regulatory Sandbox (RS) refers to live testing of new products/services in a controlled/test regulatory environment for which regulators may (or may not) permit certain regulatory relaxations for the limited purpose of the testing.
- RBI has increased the limit of fund transfer under the Indo-Nepal Remittance Facility Scheme from Rs.50, 000 to Rs.2.00 lakhs per transaction. The ceiling limit of 12 transactions in a year has also been removed. However, for cash-based transfers under the Indo-Nepal Remittance Facility, the per transaction limit of Rs.50, 000 with a ceiling limit of 12 transaction is still continued.
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed a monetary penalty of Rs.25 lakh on Axis Bank for violating certain provisions of knows your customer (KYC) norms, on September 01, 2021.
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed a penalty of Rs.2 crore on RBL Bank for noncompliance with provisions of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949.
- RBI imposed a monetary penalty of Rs.1 lakh on Jila Sahakari Kendriya Bank Maryadit of Madhya Pradesh for violation of directions issued by the central bank on Know Your Customer (KYC).
- The Reserve Bank has imposed a penalty of Rs. 2.44 lakh on Spice Money Limited for contravention of certain norms. Spice Money is one of the largest Rural Fintech Companies in India. The RBI also imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on The Kuppam Cooperative Town Bank, Kuppam, Chittoor district (Andhra Pradesh) for deficiencies in regulatory compliance.
- Recently, State Bank of India has opened a floating ATM on a Houseboat at Dal Lake in Jammu and Kashmir’s Srinagar. SBI had initiated this first in Kerala in 2004.
- HDFC Life has announced to acquire a 100% stake in Exide Life Insurance Company in a stock and cash deal, for Rs 6,887 crore.
- DBS Bank has launched real-time online tracking for cross-border payments for its corporate clients, in partnership with SWIFT Global Payments Innovation (GPI). The service is available at online banking platform ‘DBS IDEAL’. DBS is the first bank in India and AsiaPacific to offer this service to corporate clients, at no additional cost.
- Paytm Payments Bank Ltd (PPBL) has launched India’s first FASTag-based metro parking facility, at the Kashmere Gate metro station in partnership with Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).
- Bank of Baroda has announced the launch of its digital banking platform named ‘Bob World’. This platform will provide all banking services under one roof.
- PhonePe has launched a platform named PhonePe Pulse. Pulse is India’s first interactive platform with data insights and trends on digital payments.
- Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of India have signed a USD 112 million loan to develop water supply infrastructure and strengthen capacities of urban local bodies (ULBs) for improved service delivery in four towns in the state of Jharkhand. This is the first project of ADB in the state of Jharkhand.
- National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in partnership with Fiserv Inc. to launch the plug-andplay RuPay credit card stack, ‘nFiNi’. It is a ready stack of services required for fintechs and banks to issue RuPay credit cards and will enable fintech to co-create bank-sponsored credit cards. It is a BaaS (banking-as-a-service) programme.
- RBI has allowed lenders/banks to transfer of loans that have been classified as fraud by these lenders to Asset Reconstruction Companies (ARCs). Stressed loans including fraud loans or classified as NPA are permitted to be transferred to ARCs.
- The Reserve Bank of India has issued guidelines regarding the Securitisation of Standard Assets. As per the guidelines, the minimum ticket size for the issuance of securitization notes will be Rs.1 crore.
- Yes Bank has partnered with Visa to offer credit cards to its customers, following the regulatory ban on Mastercard by RBI.
- Federal Bank has announced a tie-up with OneCard for a mobile-first credit card. Federal Bank aims to cash in on consumer credit demand, which is expected to peak around the festive season.
- The government has set up an asset management company (AMC) named India Debt Resolution Company Ltd (IDRCL) with a paid-up capital of Rs. 80.5 lakh on an authorized capital of Rs 50 crore. IDRCL will work with the National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL) to clean up bad loans.
- The Reserve bank of India has set the limit for Ways and Means Advances (WMA) for the second half of the financial year 2021-22 i.e. October 2021 to March 2022 at Rs. 50,000 crore.
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has fined the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) State Co-operative Bank, Srinagar with an Rs.11 lakh penalty for inadequacy in regulatory adherence. The J&K State Co-operative Bank had opened branches without getting a prior nod from RBI.
Economy current affairs
- The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has increased the entry age for the National Pension System (NPS) from 65 years to 70 years. Now it has been revised to 18-70 years from 18-65 years.
- India’s economy grew by 20.1% during the April-June quarter of this financial year, as against a 24.4% contraction seen during the same period last year.
- Union Finance minister, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman has chaired the 24th meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC). FSDC is the apex level forum set up by the GOI for strengthening and institutionalizing the mechanism for maintaining financial stability, enhancing inter-regulatory coordination and promoting financial sector development.
- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has revised downwards India’s economic growth forecast for the current fiscal, 2021-22 (FY22) to 10%. Earlier this was projected at 11%. The Manila-based multilateral funding agency ADB has predicted the GDP growth for fiscal 2022-23 (FY23) to 7.5%.
- PAN-Aadhaar linking deadline has yet again been extended by the Central Government. The deadline to link PAN with Aadhaar has been extended by six months to March 31, 2022 from the current deadline of Sept 30, 2021.There are 2 ways in which you can link your PAN with your Aadhaar card. One way is to do it via SMS & the other is to do it through the Income-Tax dept. portal.
- The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has once again extended the tenure of the Company Law Committee by one year until September 16, 2022. Corporate affairs secretary Rajesh Verma is the present chairperson of the committee. The committee was constituted in 2019 and has a total of 11 members.
Business current affairs
- Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has launched a new mobile app ‘PRAGATI’ for the exclusive use of its Development Officers. PRAGATI stands for “Performance Review Application, Growth & Trend Indicator”.
- The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has launched the mobile application of its digital paperless solution, “ANANDA” for LIC agents. ANANDA stands for Atma Nirbhar Agents New Business Digital Application. LIC Chairperson is MR Kumar.
- Flipkart-owned digital payments platform PhonePe has received an insurance broking license from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI). Now, PhonePe can now distribute insurance products from all insurance companies in India, on its platform.
- RuPay has launched a strategic campaign titled “FollowPaymentDistancing” to promote and encourage contactless payments among customers.
- Netherlands-based Prosus NV has announced to acquire the Indian digital payments provider BillDesk and merge it with its own fintech service business PayU. This acquisition will make the combined entity of PayU and BillDesk as the leading online payment providers globally and in India by total payment volume (TPV).
- Flipkart, India’s leading e-commerce platform, has unveiled the introduction of ‘Flipkart Boost,’ an integrated initiative designed to help new era digital-first consumer companies to expand their growth to the next level.
- The government of India has appointed 10 merchant bankers for managing the Initial Public Offering of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC). The IPO of LIC is likely to be launched in the January-March quarter of 2022. The name of these merchant bankers are- Goldman Sachs (India) Securities, Citigroup Global Markets India, Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities India, SBI Capital Market, JM Financial, Axis Capital, BofA Securities, JP Morgan India, ICICI Securities, and Kotak Mahindra Capital Co Ltd.
- According to Asiamoney 2021 Poll, HDFC Bank has received the most votes among listed companies in India, leading to the bank being awarded the ‘Overall Most Outstanding Company in India. This is in addition to the bank being voted ‘Most Outstanding Company in India – Banking Sector,’ for the 4th consecutive year, since the inception of the poll in 2018.
See also…
Banking & Financial Current Affairs August 2021
100 IMPORTANT QUESTIONS FOR BANK EXAMS
Banking Awareness Important Topics