General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - June 2020

Jun 2020

Aug 24, 2020

Tata Capital Launches Swift Insta Personal Loan via Whatsapp

Tata Capital, the financial services subsidiary of Tata Group, announced the launch of 'Swift Insta Personal Loan' (SIPL) on Whatsapp where the existing customers can easily apply loans and receive sanctions for personal loans using the company's chatbot TIA on Whatsapp.
The company launched TIA in whatsapp recently as a service platform dealing with an array of requests, including providing EMI details or updating customer records, where the medium connected well with the customers. Now, with the introduction of SIPL on whatsapp, it allows to service and sanction loans all on a single platform.
At present, the platform will be available in a comprehensive manner offering only personal loans. The platform will be further expanded to other loan categories as well.

RBL Bank Partners with Accenture to Enhance its IT Systems

RBL Bank announced its partnership with Accenture to transform the bank's IT systems and accelerate its digital transformation journey.
The engagement will enable RBL Bank to offer next-generation banking services, enhance the resilience and scalability of its systems and business processes, and improve its operational efficiency.
As a key step in this journey, Accenture will provide managed services and help RBL Bank modernize and consolidate its large and disparate applications environment, which will help streamline and automate key business processes such as finance and compliance, human resources and sales.
Accenture will also create a flexible and more responsive technology backbone for RBL Bank to enable the continuous roll-out of improved digital capabilities and long-term system improvements while helping the bank manage IT costs more effectively.

Karnataka Vikas Grameena Bank and SBI General Insurance Co Ltd Sign MoU to Sell General Insurance...

Karnataka Vikas Grameena Bank (KVGB) and SBI General Insurance Co Ltd signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Dharwad, Karnataka to sell general insurance products through the branches of KVGB. The MoU was signed by B. C. Ravichandra, General Manager of KVGB, and Mahendra Tripathi, Head (Compliance and Legal), SBI General Insurance Co Ltd.
As per the MoU the customers of KVGB will be able to avail bouquet of products that can cover their health, home, motor, property through the range of solutions that the company offers.
SBI General Insurance Co Ltd will provide KVGB an enormous scope to cater the diverse insurance requirements of its customers.
This alliance is a step to enhance the portfolio of KVGB to meet the diverse financial needs of its customers.

Govt. Frames Norms to Enforce 'Rules of Origin' for Imports under FTAs

The government has come out with norms for the enforcement of 'rules of origin' provisions for allowing preferential rate of customs duties on products imported under free trade agreements.
The new norms have been framed with a view to checking inbound shipments of low quality products and dumping of goods by a third country routed through an FTA partner country.
The Department of Revenue has notified the 'Customs (Administration of Rules of Origin under Trade Agreements) Rules, 2020' which would "come into force on September 21, 2020".
These rules "shall apply to import of goods into India where the importer makes a claim of preferential rate of duty in terms of a trade agreement.
The ''rules of origin'' provision prescribes for the minimal processing that should happen in the FTA country so that the final manufactured product may be called originating goods in that country.
Under this provision, a country that has inked an FTA with India cannot dump goods from some third country in the Indian market by just putting a label on it. It has to undertake a prescribed value addition in that product to export to India. Rules of origin norms help contain dumping of goods.
India has inked FTAs with several countries, including Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and ASEAN members.
Under such agreements, two trading partners significantly reduce or eliminate import/customs duties on the maximum number of goods traded between them.

Aug 23, 2020

GMM Pfaudler to Acquire Stake in Global Business of Pfaudler Group

GMM Pfaudler Limited announced that it has signed definitive agreements to acquire a majority stake in the global business of its parent, the Pfaudler Group from the private equity firm Deutsche Beteiligungs AG Fund VI.
As per the agreements, GMM (directly and through its subsidiary Mavag AG) and the Patel family will acquire, a 54% and 26% equity stake, respectively in the Pfaudler Group. DBAG will continue to retain the balance 20% stake. The consideration for the 54% stake acquired by GMM, which is expected to be around USD 27.4 million, will be funded by the Company through a mix of internal accruals and debt.
Pursuant to the acquisition, GMM shall become the ultimate holding company with the entire business of Pfaudler being consolidated into the Company. The Company will have a consolidated revenue of Rs. 20 billion and EBITDA of approximately Rs. 2.5 billion.

ICICI Lombard and Bharti AXA to Merge General Insurance Businesses

ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co. Ltd. and Bharti AXA General Insurance Co. Ltd, announced that they will combine their insurance businesses through a share swap deal, which once consummated will create the country's third largest general insurance entity.
Following board meetings, a scheme of arrangement with Bharti AXA General Insurance Company was approved. Under the scheme of arrangement, ICICI Lombard would be acquiring Bharti AXA General Insurance.
Based on the share exchange ratio recommended by independent valuers, shareholders of Bharti AXA will receive two shares of ICICI Lombard for every 115 shares of Bharti AXA.
At present, promoter ICICI Bank Ltd holds is 51.89% stake in ICICI Lombard, while the rest is with the public. After the proposed deal, promoter stake will come down to 48.11%.
At present, Bharti Enterprises owns 51% in Bharti AXA General, while its France-based JV partner AXA has 49%.
ICICI Lombard is a listed insurance firm, and Bharti and AXA will be public shareholders in the combined entity after the deal.

NTPC Gets Nod to Set Up Renewable Energy Business Arm

Power giant NTPC received the approval of Niti Aayog and Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) to set up a wholly-owned company for its renewable energy business.
Now, NTPC will move to form a subsidiary firm for renewable energy business, as it has requisite approvals for the purpose.
The wholly-owned subsidiary will be incorporated under the provisions of the Companies Act, 2013.
NTPC is planning to have 10GW of solar energy by 2022, which entails an investment of around Rs. 50,000 crore.

Aug 22, 2020

KVIC Issues Legal Notices to Khadi Essentials and Khadi Global

Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has issued legal notices to two firms, Khadi Essentials and Khadi Global for unauthorisedly and fraudulently using the brand name Khadi.
According to KVIC, the two firms are engaged in selling a range of cosmetic and beauty products through various e-commerce platforms using the brand name "Khadi" and thus misleading consumers.

India Imposes Anti-dumping Duty on Phosphoric Acid from Korea

India imposed anti-dumping duty on phosphoric acid from Korea for five years with a view to guard domestic manufacturers from cheap imports. The duty was imposed after the Commerce Ministry's investigation arm Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) concluded in its probe that continued dumping of 'Phosphoric Acid of all grades and concentrations (excluding Agriculture or Fertilizer grade)' from Korea was impacting domestic industry.
In international trade parlance, dumping happens when a country or a firm exports an item at a price lower than the price of that product in its domestic market.
According to global trade norms, a country is allowed to impose tariffs on such dumped products to provide a level-playing field to domestic manufacturers. The duty is imposed only after a thorough investigation by a quasi-judicial body, such as DGTR, in India.

Megha Engineering Lowest Bidder for Zojila Tunnel

According to the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL), Megha Engineering & Infrastructure Ltd (MEIL) emerged as the lowest bidder for the prestigious Zojila Pass tunnel to provide all-year connectivity between Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh union territories.
Among the three bidders in the race including Larsen & Toubro and Ircon International JV, the Hyderabad-headquartered company had quoted the lowest Rs. 4,509.5 crore for the tunnel project, stuck for over six years now.
The project holds strategic significance as Zojila Pass is situated at an altitude of 11,578 feet on the Srinagar-Kargil-Leh National Highway and remains closed during winters due to heavy snowfall.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in May 2018 laid the foundation stone.
Barely months after the foundation, the NHIDCL in January 2019 terminated the contract awarded to troubled IL&FS group company IL&FS Transportation after it abandoned the project citing financial problems.

HSBC India comes up with Green Deposit Programme for Corporate Clients

HSBC India launched a "green deposit programme", exclusively for corporate clients, under which deposits will be used by the bank to finance green initiatives and environment friendly projects. The deposit scheme will come in the form of a term deposit, which typically attracts higher interests as compared to savings deposits.
As per the bank, deposits under this scheme will go towards financing eligible businesses and projects that promote the transition to a low-carbon, climate resilient and sustainable economy.
This deposit scheme of the bank will offer its corporate clients stable and pre-agreed returns, and offer the same protection as a normal bank deposit does. Furthermore, clients will get quarterly reports containing portfolio-level information regarding the use of the deposited funds.

YES Bank Signs Deal to Sell its Mutual Fund Business

Shares of YES Bank closed 1.2 per cent lower after the bank announced that it has signed an agreement for the sale of 100 per cent stake in two of its subsidaries, YES Asset Management Limited (YES AMC) and YES Trustee Limited (YTL), to GPL Finance for an undisclosed amount.
YES AMC is the asset management company of YES Mutual Fund and YTL is the trustee of YES Mutual Fund.
White Oak Investment Management Private Limited owns 99 per cent of the purchaser, GPL Finance, and the ultimate beneficial holder of the purchaser is Prashant Khemka who owns 99.99 per cent of White Oak Investment Management Private Limited.
YES Bank expects the sale to be completed within the next 8-12 months.
Upon completion of the transaction, YES AMC and YTL will cease to be subsidiaries of YES Bank, which will exit its mutual fund business.

MoU for Skill Development In Port And Maritime Sector

To reap the benefit for vast employment opportunities in the maritime sector and with a view to certify their skill sets, Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed digitally between Ministry of Shipping and Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.
A MoU was signed in the presence of Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey and Minister of State for Shipping and Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Mansukh Mandaviya and others.
The vision of making India the Skill Capital of the World will continue to prosper if we work together and craft strategies to enhance access and innovate in the areas of skilling. Maritime transport is a critical segment that propels the economic development of our country. This strategic partnership with The Ministry of Shipping is also derived from the same motto.

Aug 21, 2020

DGCA to Implement E-governance Project for Approvals and Licenses

Aviation regulator DGCA said that it is implementing an e-governance project that will provide all approvals and licenses online by the end of this year.
Services pertaining to pilot licensing, medical examinations and services relating to flying training organisations have already been moved online under the e-governance project called eGCA.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and PriceWaterhouseCoopers(PwC) have been engaged as service provider and as project management consultant (for the eGCA project), respectively.
The project aims at its digital transformation, wherein all its services shall be offered digitally through eGCA portal to its stakeholders that include pilots, aircraft engineers, operators and flying training organisations.

Religare Health Insurance Co Renamed Care Health Insurance

Religare Enterprises changed the name of its health insurance subsidiary to Care Health Insurance.
"Name of Religare Health Insurance Company Ltd, subsidiary of the company, has been changed to Care Health Insurance Ltd with immediate effect.
It did not provide any reason for changing the name of its subsidiary.

NPCI Launched its Subsidiary Firm, 'NPCI International Payments Limited'

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched a wholly-owned subsidiary, NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) to internationalise (or export to foreign markets ) NPCI's indigenously developed offerings and technological acumen, i.e. real-time payment system, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and card payment network, RuPay along with a few more offerings of NPCI. It is also responsible to co-create payment technologies with other countries.
NPCI appointed Ritesh Shukla as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NIPL.
As per the Regulatory records the NIPL was incorporated on April 03, 2020.
Ritesh Shukla will be supported by Anubhav Sharma, Head International Business, Partnership, Business Development and Marketing, and Rina Penkar, Head International Business, Product Development as part of NIPL's core team.

Govt. Operationalises Rs. 20,000 crore Stress Fund for MSMEs

In a move to provide emergency credit support to MSMEs impacted by coronavirus lockdown, the government has operationalised Rs. 20,000 crore stressed fund which is likely to benefit around 2 lakh medium and small entrepreneurs. The government has issued guidelines for Credit Guarantee Scheme for Subordinate Debt (CGSSD) which is a part the Rs. 20.97 lakh crore Aatma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) announced that the central government has launched subordinate debt scheme to provide financial facility to stressed MSMEs.
The objective of the scheme is to help MSMEs with growth potential at a time when they are facing severe shortage of equity and low revenues. It seeks to extend support to the promoters of the operational MSMEs which are stressed and have become NPA as on April 30, 2020. The promoters of the MSME unit will be given credit equal to 15 per cent of stake in the company or Rs. 75 lakh, whichever is lower.

L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering Signs MoU with NTPC Ltd for CO2 to Methanol Demonstration Plant

L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering (LTHE), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with power utility major NTPC Ltd (formerly known as National Thermal Power Corporation Limited), a Maharatna PSU. As per the MoU LTHE will be the engineering, procurement and construction management partner to build a carbon dioxide (CO2) to methanol demonstration plant in NTPC Power Station.
Under this MoU, LTHE and NTPC will further collaborate to accelerate the development and then commercialise CO2-to-methanol plants.
The plant will comprise 3 subunits namely, carbon dioxide capture from flue gas, hydrogen production by electrolysis of water and catalytic conversion of carbon dioxide, and hydrogen to methanol.
Establishing CO2 to methanol plants is an important step towards India's commitment to combat climate change.

RBI Frames Plan for Financial Education among School Students, Communities

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) came out with a '5-Core Actions' approach for promoting financial education, which among other things include development of relevant content for school children and adults, community participation and collaboration among various stakeholders.
The 'National Strategy for Financial Education 2020-2025' (NSFE), released by the RBI, has suggested a multi-stakeholder-led approach for creating a financially aware and empowered India.
The five Cs, outlined by the strategy paper, are: Content, Capacity, Community, Communication and Collaboration.
Strengthening financial inclusion in the country has been one of the important developmental agendas of both the Government of India and the four financial sector regulators (RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and PFRDA).
Financial literacy supports the pursuit of financial inclusion by empowering the customers to make informed choices leading to their financial well-being.
To achieve the vision of creating a financially aware and empowered India, NSFE has laid down strategic objectives, like inculcate financial literacy concepts among the various sections of the population through financial education to make it an important life skill, and encourage active savings behaviour.

Aug 20, 2020

Reliance Retail Acquires Majority Stake in Netmeds

The online pharmacy space is set to become a hotly contested segment with Reliance Industries (RIL) now throwing its hat into the ring. The Mukesh Ambani-owned conglomerate announced acquisition of a majority equity stake in Chennai-based online pharmacy delivery startup Netmeds (Vitalic Health Pvt. Ltd) for a cash consideration of approximately Rs. 620 crore.
This investment represents 60 per cent holding in the equity share capital of Vitalic and 100 per cent direct equity ownership of its subsidiaries - Tresara Health Private Limited, Netmeds Market Place Limited and Dadha Pharma Distribution Pvt. Limited.
RIL's acquisition comes at a time when arch rival Amazon has just started selling pharmaceutical products in Bangalore markets. Also, two other prominent players Medlife and PharmEasy are now heading for a merger to create a have agreed for a merger, to create a large combined entity in the online pharmacy space.

Bharti AXA Life Partners with SBM Bank India

Bharti AXA Life Insurance announced its bancassurance partnership with SBM Bank India.
Under this agreement, the insurer will offer its life insurance products, including protection, health, savings and investment plans, to customers of SBM Private Wealth, the retail banking arm of SBM Bank India.
SBM Bank India, one of the youngest new age banks in the country, has presence in six cities and serves its customers through direct and collaborative networks. The collaboration would offer different life insurance products to SBM Bank's customers in Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Ramachandrapuram.
Last year, Bharti AXA Life Insurance tied up with Karnataka Bank as its first major bancassurance partnership to distribute its various insurance solutions.

Crisil Downgrades Indian Bank's Tier I Bonds

Rating agency Crisil has downgraded public sector lender Indian Bank's tier I bonds from "AA+" to "AA" due to lower eligible reserves position of the merged bank. Another public sector lender Allahabad Bank merged with Indian Bank from April 01, 2020.
The downgrade in the rating of Tier I bonds (under Basel III) is on account of lower eligible reserves position of the merged bank. Crisil evaluated the adequacy of Indian Bank's eligible reserves to service coupon after adjusting for any medium-term impact of profitability on reserves position in a stress scenario.
The capital adequacy ratio of Chennai-based lender stood at 13.45 per cent with tier I of 10.47 per cent at end of June 2020. Its stock was trading 2.2 per cent higher at Rs. 64.55 per share on BSE.
Crisil has also reaffirmed its 'CRISIL AAA' rating and assigned a 'Negative' outlook to various bonds including tier I (under Basel III), Tier II Bonds (under Basel III). The 'Negative' outlook reflects the potential stress that the bank's asset quality and consequently its profitability may witness due to the challenging macro environment.

Three more Airports to be Leased to Private Firms for 50 Years

TheUnion Cabinet approved the proposal for leasing out airports at Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram through public-private partnership (PPP) for 50 years, as the government sought to open up the aviation sector, which has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.
The three airports are part of the six airports won by the Adani Group under a competitive bidding process. The group had in February signed a concession agreement with state-run Airports Authority of India (AAI) to manage airports in Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangalore but approval regarding the other three had been deferred.
Privatisation of airports, development of maintenance repair and overhaul facilities along with freeing up of defence airspace for passenger aircraft have been proposed as the government's relief plan to support the aviation sector amid the pandemic.
Privatisation has been challenged in high courts in Assam and Kerala, but a government official told that there was no order against the process.
Besides, inter-ministerial discussions are also under way for privatisation of six other airports — Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur and Trichy.

Cabinet Expands Lending Limits for Power Discoms

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) relaxed the borrowing limits for the state government-owned power distribution companies (discoms) as a one-time measure. This was done to assist power retailers to clear their dues to generation and transmission companies to help reduce stress in the sector.
Discoms can borrow only up to 25 per cent of their previous year's working capital under the limits stipulated in the UDAY scheme. Borrowing were tied to discoms' operational performance to ensure discipline.
The limit has now been relaxed for a one-time lending. This would help those discoms that have exhausted their borrowing limits.
The liquidity of the power sector is not expected to improve in the short term, as economic activity and power demand will take some time to pick up. There is, thus, an immediate need to infuse liquidity in the power sector for continuation of power supply.

Universal Sompo General Insurance Company Ltd Collaborates with BSE EBIX

Universal Sompo General Insurance Company Ltd collaborated with BSE EBIX Insurance Broking Private Limited (BSE EBIX ) to sell General Insurance products in a fully digital environment using the distribution network of BSE EBIX. The partnership was initiated with the issuance of the recently launched Corona Kavach cover of Universal Sompo General Insurance Company Ltd through certified Point of Sales Persons (PoSPs) of BSE EBIX.
The partnership will enable more people to avail insurance plans and protect themselves and their families from COVID-19.
It is a short-term policy to cover COVID-19 related hospitalization expenses.
It can be purchased on individual or family floater basis for a period of 3.5, 6.5 or 9.5 months.

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