General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - March 2015

Mar 2015

May 25, 2021

Liberty Steel to Sell UK Plant in Restructuring Plan

Liberty Steel, the company led by British Indian businessman Sanjeev Gupta, announced very constructive and productive meetings as part of its ongoing restructuring plans, which will result in the sale of its Stocksbridge plant in south-east England to help pay back lender Credit Suisse.
Gupta and his newly-formed Restructuring and Transformation Committee held advanced discussions with Credit Suisse Asset Management (CS) in Dubai to reach a formal standstill agreement on its Liberty Primary Metals Australia business while refinancing is completed that will repay Credit Suisse out in full.
The investment bank has, meanwhile, agreed to pause court proceedings against Gupta's empire while the sale of Stocksbridge is conducted.

Version 3.0 of MCA21 Launched

The first phase of India's first mission mode e-governance project, MCA21 was launched on by Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs, Anurag Thakur. This version of MCA21 is data analytics driven.
MCA21 version 3.0 was highlighted during budget 2021-2022. This project makes use of new technologies to streamline corporate compliance and experiences of stakeholders. It will be implemented in two phases for which second and third phase will be launched in October 2021. First phase of the project consists of new email services for MCA officers, revamped website, eBook and eConsultation.
Version 3.0 of MCA 21 was launched to: Promote Ease of Doing Business, Strengthen the enforcement, Facilitate seamless integration, Exchange data among regulators and Enhance user experience.

Zeta Enters Unicorn Club

Banking technology startup Zeta is the latest entrant to the unicorn club after raising $250 million in its Series C round from SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Sodexo participated as an additional minority investor in the round.
Founded by serial entrepreneur and billionaire Bhavin Thurakia, the startup is now valued at $1.4 billion. It is the 14th company this year to cross the $1 billion valuation mark after Meesho, Cred, Pharmeasy, ShareChat, Moglix and others.
The proceeds of this funding round will be used to accelerate Zeta's growth in the United States, Europe and India, including scaling its operations, team, and platform to meet the demands of its expanding customer base.

Foreign Direct Investment Jumps in 2020-21

According to the commerce and industry ministry, foreign direct investments (FDI) into the country grew 19 per cent to USD 59.64 billion during 2020-21 on account of measures taken by the government on the fronts of policy reforms, investment facilitation and ease of doing business.
Total FDI, including equity, re-invested earnings and capital, rose 10 per cent to the "highest ever" of USD 81.72 billion during 2020-21 as against USD 74.39 billion in 2019-20.
FDI equity inflow grew by 19 per cent in 2020-21 (USD 59.64 billion), compared to 2019-20 (USD 49.98 billion).
In terms of top investor countries, Singapore is at the top with 29 per cent share. It was followed by the US (23 per cent) and Mauritius (9 per cent) during the last fiscal.

Bank of Baroda's New Cheque Payment Rule

Bank of Baroda has issued a new notification for its customers regarding the stringent rules of cheque payment that is going kick in from the beginning of next month.
The bank from June 1, the bank is going to make Positive Pay confirmation mandatory. Under this, if the payment of more than Rs. 2 lakh is made through cheque, then the customer will have to confirm again. The transaction will be completed only when this process completes. Otherwise the cheque will be cancelled.
The bank said that confirmation can be done by the bank for cheque worth more than Rs 50,000. Customers can give confirmation by net banking, mobile banking, branch phone or SMS. For this, it will be necessary to share the name of the beneficiary, the amount (in rupees), the date of the cheque when it was issued, the amount numbers, the account number and the cheque number.

Olectra Greentech Lowest Bidder for Supply of E-buses

A consortium of Electric bus manufacturer Olectra Greentech and its sister concern Evey Trans Pvt Ltd has emerged as the least quoted bidder for the supply of 100 electric buses.
Consortium of Evey Trans Pvt Ltd (EVEY) and Olectra Greentech Ltd has been declared as least quoted (L-1) bidder for another 100 electric buses (for Inter-City Operations) by one of the State Transport Corporation under the FAME-I1 scheme of Government of India.
Value of this tender is approximately Rs. 250 crore.

May 24, 2021

Leonard Blavatnik UK's Richest Person

Leonard Blavatnik has topped the latest Sunday Times Rich List, having seen his fortune swell to £23bn.
The Ukranian-born oil and media magnate, who also owns Warner Music, saw his wealth surge by £7.2bn during the year.
He took the title from Sir James Dyson, whose wealth rose by only £100m to £16.3bn, leaving him in fourth place.
There are now a record 171 billionaires in UK, with their wealth rising 21.7% during the pandemic to £597.2bn.
Mr. Blavatnik made his fortune in Russia where he owned stakes worth billions of pounds in companies selling metal and oil. He is a notoriously-private man, and holds both US and UK citizenship.
His wealth was boosted by the proceeds of a £1.37bn stake in Warner, which he received when it listed on the stock market in the US last year.

SC Allows Banks to Invoke Personal Guarantees of Defaulters

In a significant verdict spelling troubles for personal guarantors to corporate debtors, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the Centre's notification allowing banks to proceed against such persons for recovery of loans given to a firm under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).
A Bench comprising Justices L. Nageswara Rao and S. Ravindra Bhat held that approval of the resolution plan for revival of sick companies under the IBC does not discharge personal guarantors of their liability to pay back the banks or financial institutions (FIs) as they are bound by separate contracts.

May 23, 2021

SBI and HyperVerge Partner for AI-powered Online Account Opening

HyperVerge announced its partnership with SBI, with one of its flagship products, the Video Banking solution, which aims to achieve a 10x improvement in the number of account openings per day per agent. The new service will offer a quick and completely paperless experience to customers with minimal ID documents. Assisted by AI engines with an accuracy of 99.5%, HyperVerge's Video Banking solution enables SBI to provide convenient digital banking services to millions of Indians.
Last year, the Reserve Bank of India (equivalent to the Federal Reserve) allowed banks to adopt the Video Customer Identification Process (V-CIP). This measure has proven to be prophetic given the rising Covid-19 cases.
The technology developed by the Palo Alto headquartered company is critical at this hour since it helps financial institutions deliver uninterrupted services, and save the cost and time spent on manual processing.
For comparison, manual checks by an agent can take up to 25 minutes, while HyperVerge's solution completes the entire process within 5 minutes.
The Video Banking solution can be supported on multiple platforms.
Additionally, the solution performs pre-qualifier checks on customer details, schedules video calls with high throughput and performs AI-driven Liveness, OCR, and Facematch checks. This technology has long-term implications for an organization's efficiency.

IDBI Bank Launches Digital Loan Processing System

IDBI Bank Limited announced the launch of its fully digitised, end-to-end, Loan Processing System (LPS) for its MSME and Agri products.
This new loan processing system seamlessly integrates with data fintechs, bureau validations, document storage/retrieval, account opening/management, customer notifications, and portfolio management capabilities along with embodied policy/knock off parameters.
These features of the fully digitised and automated loan processing system are further aimed at providing a superior tech-enabled banking experience to bank's MSME & Agri.customers.
The platform is designed to incorporate knock-off criteria & credit policy parameters for superior underwriting standards.

SEBI Doubles AIFs Overseas Investment Limit

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) doubled the overseas investment limit of alternative investment funds (AIFs) to $1.5 billion. The decision was taken following consultation with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
In 2015, SEBI had created a $500-million allowance for overseas investment. However, domestic AIFs were only allowed to invest a fourth of their corpus overseas. Also, overseas investments were required to have an Indian connection. In 2018, the limit was increased from $500 million to $750 million.
Doubling of the overseas investment allowance to $1.5 billion will enable Indian AIFs to invest overseas and generate strong returns for their investors. This will allow greater Indian participation in global companies and will accelerate the growth of the Indian AIF industry overall.

Axis Bank Awaits Nod to Reclassify 3 Promoters as Public Shareholders

Private sector Axis Bank said that three promoters United India Insurance Company, National Insurance Company and New India Assurance Company will be reclassified as public category shareholders post requisite regulatory approvals.
The bank has identified the administrator of the Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India (SUUTI), Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), General Insurance Corporation, New India Assurance Company, National Insurance Company, United India Insurance Company, and Oriental Insurance Co Ltd as the promoters.
Three promoter entities United India Insurance, National Insurance and New India Assurance have made a request to reclassify them to "public" category from "promoter" category, in terms of SEBI regulations.

May 22, 2021

JSW Steel Examining Bid for Sanjeev Gupta's British Business

As per reports, India's largest steel producer, JSW Steel, is considering a bid to buy Liberty Steel in Britain as well as mills elsewhere.
JSW's interest, which extends to plants including Gupta's Adhunik steel mill in eastern India, could mark yet another chapter for Britain's steel industry, which has been privatised and sold to overseas buyers as its pre-eminence slid in lock-step with the country's manufacturing might.
A sale would also chip away at Gupta's sprawling network of businesses, comprising hundreds of privately-held companies with interests spanning steel, aluminium, mining, financial services and real estate, built up over years of acquisitions.

Essel Group Celebrates 95 Years of Completion

The Essel Group which owns news and entertainment media venture along with business in finance and infrastructure celebrated the 95th successful years on May 21.
Sharing the message on social media Essel Group chairman and Rajya Sabha member Dr. Subhash Chandra said that celebrations will take place this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The organisation will next celebrate its 100th year.

Tata Steel to Re-enter Sensex

Tata Steel will replace state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) in the benchmark Sensex, the BSE announced. The change will become effective from June 21. Analysts said that the move will result in inflows of $119 million in Tata Steel and selling of $58 million from ONGC by passive funds benchmarked to the Sensex index. In December 2020, Dr. Reddy's had replaced Tata Steel in the 30-share index.

RBI to Transfer Rs. 99,122 cr as Dividend to Govt. Changes Accounting Year

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will transfer Rs. 99,122 crore as surplus to the central government for the nine months ended March 31 (July 2020-March 2021).
This is much higher than what most had estimated and what the government itself had budgeted for. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had earmarked a transfer of Rs. 53,511 crore.
The transfer was approved in the meeting of the regulator's central board, during which the RBI's annual report was also approved.
The central bank has changed its accounting period, aligning it with the fiscal calendar (April-March) from this year, instead of the earlier July-June calendar.

May 21, 2021

Reserve Bank Imposes Penalty on City Union Bank, 3 other Lenders

The RBI has imposed monetary penalty on City Union Bank, Tamilnad Mercantile Bank and two other lenders for contravention of certain directions issued by the central bank.
A penalty of Rs. 1 crore has been imposed on City Union Bank Limited for contravention of/non-compliance with certain provisions contained in the RBI (Lending to Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) Sector) Directions, 2017 and the circulars on Educational Loan Scheme and Credit Flow to Agriculture Agricultural Loans Waiver of Margin/Security Requirements.
the RBI imposed penalty of Rs. 1 crore on Tamilnad Mercantile Bank for non-compliance with certain provisions of directions issued by it on Cyber Security Framework in Banks.
The Reserve Bank of India also imposed a penalty of Rs. 90 lakh on Nutan Nagarik Sahakari Bank, Ahmedabad for non-compliance with directions Interest Rate on Deposits, Know Your Customer (KYC) and Circular on Frauds Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism.

Andhra Finance Minister Presents Annual Budget

Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy presented the state's annual budget for the year 2021-22 with an outlay of Rs. 2,29,779 crore and a focus on welfare, health, agriculture and education.
Andhra Pradesh currently ranks 3rd at the national level across 17 strategic development goals. It shall be our endeavour to be at the forefront of the achievement of the SDGs at the national level. To invest in the future of our citizens and empower them to realise their true potential shall continue to be the constant endeavour of our government.
The presentation of the budget, which is generally done in March, was delayed by two months, as the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy deferred the budget session on account of elections to urban local bodies and by-elections to Tirupati parliamentary constituency.

Kotak Mahindra Bank Issues India's First FPI Licence to GIFT AIF

Kotak Mahindra Bank has issued the first-ever foreign portfolio investor (FPI) licence to the GIFT IFSC alternative investment fund (AIF) of True Beacon Global.
This is the first FPI licence issued to an AIF incorporated in GIFT IFSC by any custodian bank or designated depository participant (DDP) in the country.

India is the 2nd Largest Insurance-technology Market in Asia-Pacific

According to S&P Global Market Intelligence data, India is the second largest insurance technology market in the Asia Pacific, accouting for 35% of the $3.66 billion of the venture capital coming into the sector in the region.
At least 335 private insurtech firms are operating in the Asia-Pacific, with about 122 of them disclosing $3.66 billion in aggregate capital raised via private placement deals.
"China and India are collectively home to nearly half of private insurtech companies in the APAC region and attracted about 78% of the investments," a report by S&P Global Market Intelligence said. The two markets will continue to corner the lion's share of investor interest on account of their large and fast-growing insurance markets.

Indian Oil Corporation will buy Iranian Oil if US Sanctions are Lifted

India will resume buying crude oil from Iran once the US sanctions are eased, an Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) executive said, adding Iranian crude was beneficial for Indian refineries.
India stopped importing oil from Iran in mid-2019 following sanctions on the Persian Gulf nation by the Trump administration.
US President Joe Biden's administration and Iran have been involved in talks to revive the nuclear deal in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
Indian refiners have begun preparatory work and can swiftly enter into contracts once the sanctions are lifted.

Mindtree to Acquire NxT Digital Business of L&T Group

Mid-cap IT services player Mindtree signed an agreement to acquire the NxT Digital Business, the cloud based IoT and AI platform for Industry 4.0 of L&T Group for a consideration of Rs. 198 crore.
The NxT Digital Business was founded as a startup in FY19 with broad digital capabilities within L&T. The revenue of NxT Digital Business was Rs. 37.59 crore for FY21, a drop of almost 25 per cent when compared to revenues of FY20 at Rs. 49.73 crore.

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