General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - October 2017

Oct 2017

Mar 31, 2023

IRDAI Removes Commission Limit for Agents

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) lifted limits on the payment of commissions to insurance intermediaries. With this, life and non-life players will have more freedom in offering commissions – the compensation paid to and received by an insurance agent from an insurer for soliciting and procuring an insurance policy.
However, the commission will have to be within their overall Expenses of Management (EOM) and insurers can have board-approved limits for paying commissions to their agents.
IRDAI has asked insurance companies, including life and non-life, to fix an overall cap on commission to agents, brokers and other intermediaries, giving more flexibility to insurers in managing their expenses.
This means the regulator has replaced the earlier cap on different commission payments to various types of intermediaries with an overall board-approved cap which should be within the allowed expenses.

Rajib K Mishra Takes over as Chairman and Managing Director of PTC India

Power trading company PTC India appointed Rajib Kumar Mishra as the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD).
Mishra was holding the additional charge of CMD of the company. He joined the PTC Board in February 2015 as Director (Marketing and Business Development).
Prior to this, Mishra worked as Executive Director of PTC since October 2011 and was responsible for Operations, Business Development, Retail & Advisory Services.
He has 38 years of professional experience and has served at state-run NTPC and Power Grid in various capacities. He has authored four published books and twenty-four technical and management papers.

Tata Power re-appoints Praveer Sinha as CEO, MD

Tata Power re-appointed Praveer Sinha as the company's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director.
His re-appointment to the top post is for a period of four years from May 1, 2023, to April 30, 2027, subject to the approval of the members of the company.
His present tenure as a CEO and MD is scheduled to conclude on April 30, 2023.

Mar 30, 2023

Prodapt Appoints Harsha Kumar as CEO

Prodapt, the largest and fastest-growing specialized player in the Connectedness industry, announced the elevation of Harsha Kumar to Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Harsha took over from Founder and CEO Vedant Jhaver, who will serve as the Chairman of Prodapt.
As President over the last seven years, Harsha has played important roles in helping define growth strategies, delivering strong results through deep customer relationships, scaling practice areas, developing leadership talent, and building a strong operations organization for future growth.
Before joining Prodapt, Harsha held several leadership positions in the technology services industry, and has successfully incubated and scaled several businesses that have grown to become large divisions.
Prodapt provides technology services and consulting to clients across every layer of the Connectedness vertical, including the largest communications, media, and technology firms around the world.

NPCI Recommends PPI Charges for UPI Payments

Starting April 1, merchant transactions exceeding Rs. 2,000 in value done using Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPI Wallets) on UPI will attract an interchange charge of 1.1%. However, "the new interchange charges are only applicable for the PPI merchant transactions and there is no charge to customers," the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which governs UPI
It is further clarified that there are no charges for the bank account to bank account based UPI payments (i.e. normal UPI payments).
The Interchange fee is generally associated with card payments to cover transaction cost.
In the statement, NCPI said that as per regulatory guidelines, the PPI Wallets had been permitted to be part of the interoperable UPI ecosystem.

Pranav Haridasan Named New MD and CEO of Axis Securities

Pranav Haridasan was appointed as the new Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Axis Securities for the next three years. B. Gopkumar, who is currently the MD & CEO of Axis Securities, was transferred to Axis Asset Management Company as MD & CEO. Pranav Haridasan has over 20 years of experience in financial markets, having worked with Citigroup Global Markets as Director and Head of India/ ASEAN Execution Services before joining Axis Capital.

Mar 29, 2023

SJVN Gets 'GREEN' Finance from Japan Bank for International Cooperation

SJVN Ltd, a state-owned company, secured Rs. 915 crore in 'GREEN' financing from Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) to support its 90 MW Omkareshwar floating solar project in Madhya Pradesh and 100 MW Raghanesda solar project in Gujarat. The 'Facility Agreement' was signed virtually between SJVN and JBIC under the Global Action for Reconciling Economic Growth and Environmental Preservation (GREEN) program of JBIC. The purpose of this debt is to fund the 90 MW Omkareshwar Floating Solar Power Project in Madhya Pradesh and 100 MW Raghanesda Solar Power Project in Gujarat, which have a combined estimated cost of Rs. 1,288.35 crore.
SJVN is committed to achieve 25 GW of generation capacity by 2030, more than half of which is bound to come from solar and wind resources, and emphasised for more association with JBIC for GREEN financing in near future.

Aditya Birla Capital Sells Insurance Broking Arm to Samara Capital

Aditya Birla Capital (ABCL), the holding company of the financial services business of Aditya Birla Group, will exit its insurance broking business by selling Aditya Birla Insurance Brokers (ABIBL) to Samara Capital for an upfront payment of Rs. 455 crore.
Under the share purchase agreement (SPA), the company and Infocyber (the other shareholder) may receive an additional consideration after completion of five years from the closing which is conditional upon the fulfilment of certain conditions under the SPA.

Mar 28, 2023

IDFC First Bank Joins Hands with Crunchfish to be a Part of RBI's Pilot Project to Enable Offline...

IDFC FIRST Bank teamed with Crunchfish to participate in the RBI's pilot programme to facilitate offline payments. This initiative will provide access to digital payments even when there is no network. The Swedish company Crunchfish introduced this one-of-a-kind digital payment system for merchants and customers as part of the RBI's Regulatory Sandbox Program.
This project will allow offline retail payments in India's payment ecosystem using a Digital Cash platform. IDFC FIRST Bank will be one of the first few banks to participate in HDFC Bank's pilot initiative. The RBI authorised the proposal to demonstrate offline payments between two banks. IDFC First Bank now has access to the Digital Cash SDK thanks to the signing of the Development and Demonstration Agreement, which is a non-commercial agreement. A Software License Agreement will govern the commercial parameters of installation.

YES Bank Issues First Electronic Bank Guarantee with NeSL

Yes Bank collaborated with National E-Governance Services Limited (NeSL) to issue its first electronic Bank Guarantee (e-BG). The integration of their digital document execution (DDE) platform has made it possible to completely digitize the previous paper-based process of issuing and maintaining Bank Guarantees. This includes the digital stamping and signing, which has significantly reduced the time it takes to issue Bank Guarantees.
According to a statement, the NeSL platform will handle the complete lifecycle of the bank guarantee, including its issuance, amendment, invocation, and cancellation. This will allow trade finance stakeholders to securely access the documents from a single repository.

First Citizens Bank Acquires Silicon Valley Bank

First Citizens BancShares Inc. agreed to buy Silicon Valley Bank which was seized by regulators following a run on the lender.
The Raleigh, North Carolina-based bank entered into a purchase and assumption agreement for all deposits and loans of SVB. The deal includes the purchase of about $72 billion SVB assets at a discount of $16.5 billion.

NDTV Appoints Former SEBI Chairman UK Sinha and Business Leader Dipali Goenka as Independent Dire...

U.K. Sinha and Dipali Goenka were appointed Independent Directors of NDTV for a period of two years, based on the recommendations of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee, and subject to the approval of shareholders and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. U.K. Sinha was also designated as Non-Executive Chairperson of NDTV.
U.K. Sinha served as the Chairman of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) between 2011 and 2017.
Dipali Goenka is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Welspun India Limited. She is an accomplished global business leader known for her dynamism, entrepreneurial spirit and passion for protecting the environment.
NDTV was founded in 1984, by economist Prannoy Roy and journalist Radhika Roy, a husband and wife duo from the city of Kolkata.
In August 2022, Adani Group, a multinational conglomerate, acquired a 100 per cent stake in Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited (VCPL), who owned convertible debentures (in the form of warrants) in Radhika Roy Prannoy Roy (RRPR) Holding Pvt Ltd, which in turn owned 29.18 per cent stake in NDTV. With the VCPL purchase, the Adani Group indirectly acquired these warrants which gave it a 29.18 per cent stake in NDTV on conversion.
In November 2022, the Adani Group launched an open offer to acquire an additional stake in NDTV, resulting in acquisition of 8% additional stake.
In December 2022, Radhika and Prannoy Roy sold 27.26 per cent out of their 32.26 per cent shareholding in the news network to Adani Group, making the conglomerate, the single largest shareholder with over 64.71 per cent stake.

Mar 27, 2023

ICICI Lombard Becomes First to Offer 'Anywhere Cashless' Feature

Private sector general insurer ICICI Lombard launched an 'anywhere cashless' feature for its health insurance policyholders, which allows customers to avail cashless facilities even at non-empanelled hospitals. Under this facility, which the company claimed is an industry-first initiative, customers will not have to bear any out-of-pocket expenses, which has been one of the major pain-points for customers.
However, the company said the 'anywhere cashless' feature is subject to each hospital offering cashless facility and that for one to use this feature the policyholder must inform the company 24 hrs before admission.

Gevra Coal Mine in Chhattisgarh's Korba District Makes History

The Gevra coal mine in Chhattisgarh's Korba district became the country's first coal mine to produce over 50 million tonnes (mt) of dry fuel in a financial year.
Ranked among one of the five largest coal mines in the world, Gevra has a significant place in the business of SECL — an entity of the state-run Coal India (CIL). Along with Dipka and Kusmunda mega projects also located in Korba, it shares two-thirds of the total output of the SECL.

RBI Imposes Rs. 30 lakh Penalty on Karur Vysya Bank

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed a monetary penalty of Rs. 30. lakh on Karur Vysya Bank for non-compliance with certain provisions of the Reserve Bank of India (Frauds- Classification and reporting by commercial banks and select FIs) directions 2016. This penalty was imposed in exercise of powers vested in RBI under the provisions of section 47 A (1) (c) read with section 46 (4) (i) of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949.
This action was based on the 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.

Reliance Industries Appoints Srikanth Venkatachari as CFO

Reliance Industries' board designated Srikanth Venkatachari, joint chief financial officer, as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the company with effect from 1 June 2023.The current CFO, Alok Agarwal, will assume a new role as senior advisor to the chairman and managing director of the company assisting him on a wide range of strategic issues with effect from 1 June 2023, after 30 years of service.
Alok Agarwal was appointed as CFO of the company in 2005. He was an accomplished finance professional.

Rittick Roy Burman to Manage the Overall Khadim India Operations

Footwear brand Khadim India Ltd entrusted Rittick Roy Burman, whole-time director, to manage the regular affairs and overall operations. Rittick, who is a member of the promoter group and key managerial personnel of the company, will be reporting to Siddhartha Roy Burman, Chairman and Managing Director of Khadim.
The change in leadership is announced following the resignation of former CEO, Namrata Ashok Chotrani.

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