General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - November 2015

Nov 2015

Jul 25, 2022

NITI Aayog Releases Report Titled 'Digital Banks'

Government think tank NITI Aayog released its report on digital banks, offering a template and roadmap for licensing and regulatory regime for India. The report focuses on avoiding any regulatory or policy arbitrage and offers a level playing field to incumbents as well as competitors.
Given the need for leveraging technology effectively to cater to the needs of banking in India, this report studied the prevailing gaps, the niches that remain underserved, and the global regulatory best practices in licensing digital banks," said NITI Aayog CEO Parameswaran Iyer while releasing the report titled 'A proposal for Digital Banks in India: Licensing and Regulatory Regime'.
A digital bank would be a bank defined in the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, and shall have its own balance sheet and legal existence. Such a bank would be different from the 75 Digital Banking Units (DBUs), which was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Union Budget 2022-23.

RBI Imposes Rs. 57.75-lakh Penalty on Suryoday Small Finance Bank

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed a penalty of Rs. 57.75 lakh on Suryoday Small Finance Bank for non-compliance with norms related to fraud classification.
This action is based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and is not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the bank with its customers.

Canara Bank Launches New Mobile Banking App

Canara Bank launched its mobile banking super app, 'Canara ai1', which is a one-stop solution having over 250 features fulfilling all the banking needs of customers. The latest app eliminates the need of having multiple mobile apps working in silos for availing different specific services.
As per Canara Bank MD & CEO L. V. Prabhakar, the lender's core vision is e-transactions for everyone, everywhere and every time and the bank is leveraging technology to enable the customers to use banking services at their fingertips.
Canara ai1 has advanced features such an intuitive UI & UX having multiple themes and customisable menus/ dashboards which can be personalised as per the user's choice.
The app, which is available in 11 languages, provides solution to all banking and lifestyle needs such as compare and shop, utility bill payments, flight/ hotel/ cab booking, payments, loan repayment, and investment services like mutual fund, insurance and demat services, among other services.

RBI Approves Open, Cashfree Payments, PayNearby and Fairexpay for Cross-Border Payments

The Reserve Bank of India gave the go-ahead to Open, Cashfree Payments, PayNearby & Fairexpay, providers of payments and API banking solutions, for its cross-border payments offering. Cross-border payments are the focus of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) announcement about the Second Cohort's release from the Regulatory Sandbox. The reserve bank chose four of the eight entities that were a part of the Test Phase. These companies include the unicorn of neobanking, Open, as well as Cashfree Payments, PayNearby, and Fairexpay. These entities have all successfully passed the second cohort's Test Phase.
Open is a neobank that provides B2B services like payment solutions, APIs, and payment gateways that enable cross-border payments. Open is one of India's 22 fintech unicorns.
The solution from Cashfree Payments aims to give Indian fintech companies the ability to let Indian investors purchase shares, exchange-traded fund (ETF) units, and other assets listed on foreign markets using UPI/Net Banking.
For outbound remittance, Fairexpay offers an aggregation platform of international payment service providers.
PayNearby enables the existing Rupee Drawing Arrangement (RDA) method to route the inward cross-border payment to the beneficiary's Aadhaar number as a virtual bank account.

Jul 24, 2022

Akshaya Moondra is CEO of Vodafone Idea

Vodafone Idea's chief financial officer Akshaya Moondra was appointed as the CEO of the company.
Moondra takes over from Ravinder Takkar, whose three-year tenure as CEO ends on August 18.
Takkar will continue as non-executive and non-independent director on the board after his term as MD & CEO ends.
The change of guard came as the joint venture company continues to scout for investors.

RBI Renews Statement of Commitment to Global Code on Best Market Practices

The Reserve Bank of India renewed its statement of commitment to the FX Global Code, which is a compilation of best market practices formulated by central banks worldwide.
RBI continues to support the principles of good practices within the Code. RBI had also facilitated the formation of India Foreign Exchange Committee (IFXC) to promote adoption and adherence of the Code among FX market participants in India.
The FX Global Code has been developed under the auspices of the Bank for International Settlements, Basel.
The FX Global Code was initially launched in May 2017.

Jul 23, 2022

Govt. Launches 3 Schemes to Strengthen MSMEs in Pharmaceutical Sector

The government launched three schemes to strengthen Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the pharmaceutical sector.
Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya noted that the schemes envisage technology upgradation, setting up of common research centres and effluent treatment plants in clusters for the pharma MSMEs.
As per Mandaviya, small companies should be able to upgrade their facilities to global manufacturing standards.
The chemicals and fertilisers ministry rolled out the schemes under the banner of 'Strengthening Pharmaceuticals Industry' (SPI).
The Pharmaceutical Technology Upgradation Assistance Scheme (PTUAS) would facilitate pharmaceutical MSMEs with proven track record to upgrade their technology.
Pharma Industries for Common Facilities Scheme (API-CF) would strengthen the existing pharmaceutical clusters' capacity for sustained growth. It provides for an assistance of up to 70 per cent of the approved project cost or Rs 20 crore, whichever is less.
Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Promotion and Development Scheme (PMPDS) would involve preparation of study reports on topics of importance for the Indian pharma and medical device industry.

Reliance Brands Signs Distribution Agreement with Maison Valentino

Reliance Brands Ltd (RBL) inked a long-term distribution agreement with Maison Valentino to launch the famous Italian Maison de Couture in India.
RBL will open the first Valentino boutique in Delhi, followed by a flagship store in Mumbai.
The first store is due to open in 2022 by the end of the summer, with the flagship store in Mumbai to follow in the coming months. The stores will stock a complete range across womenswear, menswear, footwear, and accessories of the brand.

TATA Projects Appoints Vinayak Pai as MD

TATA Projects appointed Vinayak Pai as its Managing Director.
Pai took over the reins from Vinayak Deshpande who was at the helm of affairs for over 11 years.
Pai has over three decades of experience with leading engineering and EPC companies where he held key positions across various teams working towards engineering design, technology licensing, project management, business development, and operations.

Jul 22, 2022

Govt. Declares 'Zero Coupon Zero Principal Instruments' as Securities

In the run up to setting up a social stock exchange, the government declared "zero coupon zero principal instruments" as securities. Zero coupon zero principal instrument means an instrument issued by a Not for Profit Organisation (NPO) which will be registered with the social stock exchange segment of a recognised stock exchange.
These instruments will be governed by rules made by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
The Social Stock Exchange (SSE) is a novel concept in India and such a bourse is meant to serve private and non-profit sector providers by channelling greater capital to them. The idea was floated by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget Speech 2019-20.
SSE will be a separate segment of the existing stock exchanges.

Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Partners with DBS Bank India

Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, one of India's leading private life insurers, and DBS Bank India, the wholly owned subsidiary of DBS Bank Ltd, Singapore, announced a strategic partnership to offer a wide array of life insurance solutions to the bank's 3M customers.
Through this partnership, Bajaj Allianz Life and DBS Bank aim to empower the customers to Live More and Bank Less by investing in life insurance products that best meet their life needs in a planned manner. New and existing customers across the 550+ branches of DBS Bank can now choose from Bajaj Allianz Life's retail products including term, savings, retirement, and investment products.

Jul 21, 2022

SBI Launches WhatsApp Banking Service

In a move to make banking easier for its customers, India's largest public sector lender, State Bank of India or SBI launched its WhatsApp Banking services. SBI customers can avail certain banking services from the lender using WhatsApp, which may come in handy for many as they do not have to download the app or go to the ATM anymore. This came days after SBI Chairman Dinesh Khara had revealed plans of the bank going the WhatsApp way.

Rajarshi Gupta Takes over as Managing Director of ONGC Videsh

Rajarshi Gupta took over as Managing Director of ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas investment arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).
He replaced Alok Gupta who superannuated in June 2022.
Rajarshi Gupta has more than 33 years of wide-ranging experience in supervisory, managerial and strategic planning capacities in domestic and international operations of ONGC and ONGC Videsh.
Prior to this, he was Executive Director - Chief of Corporate Strategy & Planning in ONGC.

Gautam Adani World's 4th Richest on Forbes List

India's richest person Gautam Adani became the world's fourth richest person, toppling Microsoft founder Bill Gates, as per the Forbes world's richest list. Gautam Adani's position got upped by one rank as Gates said that he would be donating $20 billion of his wealth to his non-profit organisation — Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Following this, Gautam Adani and Family took over Gates' spot with their wealth of $115 billion, as per Forbes.

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Becomes First 100% Landlord Major Port of India

Jawaharlal Nehru Port became the first 100 per cent Landlord Major Port of India having all berths being operated on PPP model.
Expressing his views on the achievement, Ports, Shipping and Waterways Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said that this project would improve the utilisation in crane and berth productivity of the terminal. He also said that the total handling of JNPT would increase to 1.8 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) from the present handling capacity of 1.5 million TEUs in 2020-21.
The terminal would also be handling Ro-Ro vessels which would not only lower the logistics cost and reduce transit time but will also contribute in reducing congestion on roads and promoting towards clean environment.

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