General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - December 2015

Dec 2015

Feb 14, 2020

Induslnd Bank Records Highest Growth in Brand Value among Top 500 Banking Brands 2020

As per the The Banker's 'Top 500 Banking Brands 2020' report, India's IndusInd Bank topped the list of 'highest increase in brand value' among global banks.
Its brand value saw an increase of 122% over the past 12 months. The bank reported total assets of Rs. 3.1 lakh crore at the end of Q3 FY20.
As a part of the report, the list "Top 50 By Total Brand Value by Country" was topped by China, followed by the United States (US) at 2nd position while Canada and the United Kingdom (UK) ranked at 3rd and 4th spots. Japan moved up to 5th spot.
India ranked 8th in this list in comparison to 10th place in 2019. India's brand value is 26,516 $m in 2020 showing an increase of 13% in comparison to 23,409 $m in 2019.

SEBI Develops System to Detect Misuse of Client Securities

SEBI developed an online system to timely detect misuse of clients' securities by stock brokers and alert exchanges in case of diversion of investors funds.
This comes after SEBI observed that some brokers have misused clients' securities received as collateral to meet their own settlement obligation or obligations of other clients.
In fact, the regulator noticed that some brokers have also misused clients' securities by pledging them with the banks and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) to raise funds for their own use.
Consequently, the regulator developed an in-house online system by which it would be able to prepare client level securities holding register of the brokers.
Under the system, SEBI collects the details of the clients' securities submitted in weekly report filed by brokers with the exchanges and updates the same with trades conducted in the accounts of the clients using the data available in its data warehouse & business intelligence system as well as data provided by bourses, clearing corporations and depositories pertaining to auction trades, corporate actions and off market trades among others.

RBI Appoints Five Executive Directors

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) elevated five officials to the executive directors' post.
The officials will be taking charge during the year.
Those elevated are Indrani Banerjee, Regional Director, Nagpur, Saurav Sinha, chief general manager-in-charge, Vivek Deep, CGM in-charge, J. K. Dash, CGM in-charge, and P. Vijayakumar, the senior most RBI ombudsman.
At present, RBI has 12 executive directors, and five of them are due to retire in 2020.
In January, Michael Patra was elevated to the post of Deputy Governor. Janak Raj replaced Mr. Patra as the executive director in-charge of monetary policy.

USTR Takes India off Developing Country List

The U.S. government changed an administrative rule making it easier for it to impose countervailing duties (CVDs) on goods from India and certain other countries.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) published a notice, amending lists of developing and least-developed countries that are eligible for preferential treatment with respect to CVD investigations.
To harmonise U.S. law with the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM) Agreement, the USTR had, in 1998, come up with lists of countries classified as per their level of development. These lists were used to determine whether they were potentially subject to U.S. countervailing duties. The 1998 rule is now "obsolete" as per the USTR notice.
Countries not given special consideration have lower levels of protection against a CVD investigation.

Feb 13, 2020

Three Public Sector General Insurance Companies Get in Principle Approval for Capital Infusion

The Union Cabinet gave its in principle approval for capital infusion for three Public Sector General Insurance Companies, namely, Oriental Insurance Company Limited (OICL), National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) and United India Insurance Company Limited (UIICL).
The Cabinet allowed immediate release of Rs. 2500 crore in the light of the critical financial position and breach of regulatory solvency requirements of 3 PSGICs viz. OICL, NICL and UIICL.

Titan Bets Big on Building in-house Tech; Acqui-hires HUG Innovations

Watches to jewellery maker Titan has acqui-hired a Hyderabad-based start-up HUG Innovations with an aim to build all its technology expertise in-house. This is the first ever acqui-hire by the Bengaluru-headquartered firm which aims to position itself as the leading smart wearable player in the country.
As part of the deal, the 23-member team of HUG Innovations including its founder Raj Neravati will be part of Titan's Hyderabad development centre. They will be working closely with Titan's wearable and PAD (personal adornment devices) team based out of its headquarters in Bengaluru, focusing on smart wearable technologies.
Untill now, Titan used to collaborate with global technology companies and start-ups to acquire technological know-how such as software and cloud storage for its smartwatches. It had earlier partnered with HP and Intel to build technology platforms for its smartwatches 'Juxt' and 'Juxt Pro'.

SEBI Notice to NSE on CAMS Stake Sale

The National Stock Exchange of India Ltd's received two notices from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
One of the communications has asked the exchange to divest its entire 37% stake in Computer Age Management Services Limited (CAMS) and the second is a show cause notice on the appointment of key managerial personnel - Anand Subramanian.
While announcing its December quarter earnings, the stock exchange had disclosed that SEBI, on 4 February, asked it to divest its entire stake in CAMS within a year. NSE has already started the process of offloading its stake.
SEBI, in its 4 February letter, alleged that NSE's acquisition of stake in CAMS in 2013-14 was done without its approval.

FASTag to be Available Free of Charge Till Feb. 29

To further enhance electronic toll collection, the National Highways Authority of India has decided to waive FASTag fee till February 29.
The government has rolled out the FASTag-based toll collection system across more than 527 national highways in the country.
"In order to further increase digital collection of user fee via FASTag at NH fee plazas, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has decided to waive off the FASTag cost of Rs. 100 for NHAI FASTag between February 15 and 29, 2020," the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said in a statement.
Road users can visit any authorised point-of-sale location with a valid registration certificate (RC) of the vehicle and get an NHAI FASTag free of cost.
NHAI FASTags can be purchased from all national highway fee plazas, regional transport offices, common service centres, transport hubs, and petrol pumps, among others.

Feb 12, 2020

Medical Devices to Come Under Drug Regulator Purview

The government issued a final notification to consider all medical devices as drugs, bringing them under the purview of the drugs regulator and tightening regulations for them to improve safety and quality.
According to the notification by the ministry of health and family welfare, all medical devices, including implants and contraceptives, will be brought under the lens of the Central Drugs and Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) in a phased manner starting April 1.
The notification will recategorise medical devices that are used for life support, diagnosis, treatment or alleviation of any disease or disability, and even devices that are used to disinfect other medical devices. Under medical devices rules, low risk-devices are inspected by private notified bodies while licenses were given by CDSCO. For high-risk devices, inspection and licensing are both done by CDSCO.

Moody's Downgrades Indusind Bank to Negative

Concerns over a further deterioration in asset quality have led ratings agency Moody's Investors Service to revise down its outlook on IndusInd Bank to 'negative' from 'stable'. The private sector bank's rating has been affirmed at the earlier one of 'Baa-3/P-3'.
Baa3 denotes the lowest rating in investment grade on long-term corporate obligation which carries moderate risks.
The outlook has been revised to negative to account for the risk of further asset quality deterioration.
The agency noted that the bank has seen deterioration in asset quality, particularly in the corporate segment over the last few quarters, and attributed the same to tight refinancing conditions faced by borrowers.

M&M Korean Arm Draws Up Rs. 3,000 cr. Turnaround Plan

Korean automaker SsangYong Motor Company, a subsidiary of Mahindra & Mahindra, which is currently facing steep headwinds and losses in its domestic market and worsened by the coronavirus syndrome now, has drawn up a three-year turnaround plan to get back to profitability by 2022.
The plan includes ways to reduce capex, considering synergies between SsangYong Motor Company and Ford Motors and developing new markets in Russia and Vietnam to increase export volumes.
The company expected a funding of 450 to 500 billion Korean Won (up to Rs. 3,000 crore), through a combination of equity and borrowing for a full recovery.

GST Compensation Given to States

According to Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur, the Centre released Rs. 81,043 crore as GST compensation to states for April-September 2019. In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, he said that GST compensation cess collection has shown upward trend since October 2019. GST compensation cess of Rs. 7,607 crore was collected in October, Rs. 7,727 crore in November, Rs. 8,331 crore in December and Rs. 8,637 crore in January.
For 2019-20, the amount targeted to be collected from cess in GST was Rs. 1.09 lakh crore. Of this, Rs. 70,534 crore was collected between April-December 2019.

Brookfield Emerges as the Largest Private Investor in India

Canadian alternative asset manager Brookfield Asset Management trumped US private equity firm Blackstone to emerge as the largest private capital investor in India in 2019, lifted by deals with Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL).
Investments by Brookfield totalled nearly $6.28 billion in 2019 across private equity and real estate, far outpacing the $2.38 billion in investments by Blackstone, according to deals tracker Venture Intelligence.

Infosys to Buy Simplus

Infosys Ltd informed the stock exchanges that it will acquire Simplus, one of the fastest growing Salesforce platinum partners in the US and Australia for up to $250 million. The acquisition is expected to close during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020.
Simplus is a leading provider and advisor in cloud consulting, implementation, data integration, change management and training services for Salesforce quote-to-cash applications with more than 4,500 projects.
This acquisition, along with that of Fluido announced in September 2018, is expected to strengthen Infosys' position as an end-to-end Salesforce enterprise cloud solutions and services provider, providing clients with the necessary capabilities for cloud-first digital transformation.

Feb 11, 2020

DGT Proposes to Issue Digital 'E-Credentials/E-Certificates'

The Government is developing the Electronic Skill Credential Standard (ESCS) Specification.
Directorate General of Training (DGT), Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship proposes to issue digital 'e-Credentials / e-Certificates' which are freely portable for candidates and easily verifiable at scale by employers and job matching platforms but continue to allow print and other visual forms for human consumption. This would enable candidates to verifiably state their skill levels with a high degree of trust in authenticity to aggregators, matchers, and employers. In the DGT ecosystem, all the certificates are 'e-Certificates', digitally signed.
E-Credentials are an electronic scheme-based standard for describing credentials data in a machine-readable format (JSON-LDrepresentation of RDFa- Resource Description Framework, a web standard) along with its printable human-friendly version to make credential exchange between digital agents open and reliable. Certificates issued according to this specification can be aligned to one or more educational standards. They are secured using digital signatures. These will also be pushed in DigiLocker.

BSNL, Air India and MTNL Highest Loss-making PSUs in FY19, ONGC Most Profitable

ONGC, Indian Oil Corporation and NTPC were the top three profitable PSUs in 2018-19, whereas BSNL, Air India and MTNL incurred highest losses for a third consecutive year, according to a survey tabled in Parliament.
The Public Enterprises Survey 2018-19, which maps the annual financial performance of all central PSUs, revealed that the top 10 companies in the red claimed a whopping 94.04 per cent of the total losses made by all the 70 loss making CPSEs.

IIT-H incubated startup launches high-speed electric scooter

Pure EV, a startup incubated by IIT Hyderabad, launched its high-speed electric scooter 'EPluto 7G'. The vehicle has a range of 116 km per full charge and comes with a patented battery technology. It is priced at Rs 79,999.
The vehicle offers top speed of 60 kmph and battery warranty for 40,000 km. The battery and the vehicle have been designed and developed factoring in the Indian terrain and weather conditions.

Feb 10, 2020

World's Happiest Seek Road to Financial Intelligence

The most cheerful people on Earth are about to get some help managing their finances.
In Finland, which just topped the United Nation's World Happiness Index, the central bank is drawing up a financial literacy strategy for citizens.
The idea, conceived in a country that already outperforms much of the rich world in education, is to figure out whether a bit more financial acumen will help Finns borrow less.
Finnish household debt has doubled in the past two decades against a backdrop of falling interest rates and the gradual obsolescence of cash as a form of payment. The people of Finland, home to companies like Nokia and Rovio of Angry Birds fame, are known for being more tech savvy than most. But their willingness to embrace digital payments over cash has coincided with less discipline in their spending habits.
Now, a record 7% of Finland's 5.5 million citizens can't pay their bills, up by a third over the past decade. In recent years, the authorities have raised the alarm on growth in consumer credit in particular.

Covea in Talks with Exor for $9 bn Deal

French insurer Covea is in advanced talks with the Agnelli family's Exor NV to buy the Italian company's reinsurance business PartnerRe for about $9 billion in cash. Covea approached Exor with an offer for the Bermuda-based reinsurer and is holding exclusive talks with the holding company that also controls Fiat Chrysler NV and Ferrari NV. Exor, led by the Agnelli scion John Elkann—who is also chairman of Fiat and Ferrari—bought PartnerRe for $6.9 billion in 2015 to diversify its assets.

IRDAI Revises Stewardship Code for Insurers

Insurance regulator IRDAI came up with revised guidelines on the Stewardship Code for Insurers, or the set of guidelines for insurance firms on their engagement with companies in which they have invested.
All the insurers need to review and update their existing stewardship within three months. The revised guidelines among other aspects, favoured an oversight role for the insurance companies in the investee firms.
Setting a three-month deadline for the insurers to update their stewardship policy and get the same approved by their board of directors, IRDAI sought to highlight how insurance companies ought to have an active role in the general meetings of investee companies and engage with the management to improve governance.

Government Plans to Sell 5% Stake in SAIL

The government is planning to sell 5% stake in Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) through an offer for sale, which could fetch about Rs. 1,000 crore to the exchequer.
Officials from the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) and steel ministry are planning road shows in Singapore and Hong Kong for SAIL stake sale. However, the Hong Kong road show might be called off due to coronavirus outbreak.
The government holds 75% stake in SAIL. It had last sold 5% stake in the steel CPSE in December 2014.
The government may look at completing the transaction in the current fiscal as it strives to achieve the Rs. 65,000 crore disinvestment target set in the revised estimates.

Cipla Buys Four Key Wanbury Brands

As per reports, Wanbury received up to Rs. 88.60 crore for the sale of the brands to Cipla.
Drug firm Cipla acquired four brands from Wanbury Ltd.
Cipla acquired the four brands, namely CPink, CDense, Productiv and Folinine to further strengthen its presence in the women's health segment.

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