Banking Awareness of 12, 13 and 14 June 2024

Topic: Regulatory Bodies/Financial Institutions

1. Retail policyholders can cancel their insurance policy at any point throughout its term, according to IRDAI.

• They can do so by notifying the insurer. For the remaining duration of the policy, they will get a refund.
• As per IRDAI circular, the policyholder is exempt from providing a reasons for policy cancellation.
• The insurer may only cancel a policy on the basis of proven fraud, according to an IRDAI circular.
• The insurer may only cancel after providing the retail policyholder with a minimum of seven days' notice.
• IRDAI also said that each insurer should provide a retail product that is recognised as a base product.
• If the policy has term of up to one years and the customers cancels it, the insurer will refund the customer for the amount of the premium for the unexpired policy period.
• This provision is applicable only if no claims have been made during that period.
• Policies having terms longer than a year should be refunded for the unexpired period if the risk coverage for those years hasn't started.
• According to IRDAI, a claim cannot be rejected because of a missing document.
• Each policy should come with a Customer Information Sheet (CIS) for each retail customer.
• According to IRDAI, customers who purchase vehicle insurance should have a multiple options, including Pay as you Drive, Pay as you Go, and Pay as you Use insurance cover.
• The loan facility against the policy is now obligatory for all life insurance savings products.
• The ‘free look period’ is now increased from 15 days to 30 days from the date of receipt of the policy document.
• This allows policyholders to review the terms and conditions. They can cancel the policy if they are not satisfied with any of the terms and conditions.

Topic: Indian Economy/Financial Market

2. Retail inflation declined marginally to 1-year low level of 4.75% in May.

• The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based retail inflation stood at 4.83% in April 2024 and 4.31% in May 2023.
• Inflation in the food basket was 8.69% in May. This marginally declined from 8.70% in April, according to National Statistical Office (NSO) data.
• Headline inflation has sequentially moderated since February 2024.
• However, its range has been narrow from 5.1 per cent in February to 4.8 per cent in April 2024.
• Earlier, the RBI projected the CPI inflation for 2024-25 at 4.5 per cent.
• RBI shall ensure the CPI inflation is at 4 per cent with a margin of 2 per cent on either side.

Topic: Indian Economy/Financial Market

3. Government has placed restrictions on gold jewellery and parts import from all countries.

• These restrictions exclude India’s free-trade agreement (FTA) partner United Arab Emirates.
• Government has imposed restrictions amid an ‘unusual surge’ in the inbound shipments.
• The increase in imports has been the highest in the case of gold jewellery parts.
• The imports of gold jewellery parts recorded 30 times jump to $1.55 billion in FY24 from $51.51 million a year ago.
• Top five sources of imports for the gold jewellery parts have been UAE ($1 billion), Indonesia (341.9 million), Tanzania (107.2 million), and Thailand ($35.9 million).
• The US was the largest source of imports for the gold studded with diamonds. It was closely followed by the UAE.
• According to Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) notification, import of finished products of gold jewellery (gold studded with pearls, diamonds, precious stones) and parts have been brought under the “restricted” category from “free” category.

Topic: Banking System

4. ‘SME Digital Business Loans’ have been launched by SBI.

• SME Digital Business Loans is a new product that offers end-to-end sanction turnaround time of up to 45 minutes for SMEs (small and medium enterprises).
• It leverages an ecosystem of APIs (application programming interface) to streamline the lending process.
• SME Digital Business Loans will be accessible to customers through all the Bank’s channels.
• These channels include SBI’s website, branches, SME Centres, as well as internet platforms.
• In future, SBI will make this product available across all its CSP (customer service point) partner touchpoints and via QR codes at outdoor touchpoints.
• SBI said it has developed a data-driven credit assessment engine.
• This can provide sanction decisions within 10 seconds after submitting the required details.
• SBI also said it has also waived the requirement for financial statements for loans up to ₹50 lakhs.
• For this, SBI now relies on transaction history and GST returns for appraisal.

Topic: Banking System

5. According to Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd (MOFSL), SBI’s balance sheet size has surpassed the GDP of 174 countries worldwide.

• At ₹62 lakh crore, SBI’s balance sheet size is equivalent to 21 per cent of India’s GDP, according to MOFSL.
• GDP of only 22 countries is greater than SBI’s balance sheet size ($742 billion).
• SBI came at the rank one among the top 14 global banks, with a RoE (return on equity) of 18.8 per cent in FY24.
• It was followed by JP Morgan Chase & Co and China Merchants Bank.
• In the last two years (FY22-FY24), SBI delivered the fastest loan growth (about 16% CAGR) among the top 14 global banks.
• JP Morgan Chase & Co (11 per cent CAGR in CY21-23) and Agricultural Bank of China (9 per cent CAGR in CY21-23) followed the RBI.
• With 44% returns over the past year, SBI ranked second among the 14 large global banks studied by MOFSL.
• Mitsubishi UFJ was at number one position with 70% one-year returns.

Topic: Indian Economy/Financial Market

6. Corporate profit to GDP ratio has reached a 15-year high in the FY24.

• The corporate profit represented by the Nifty-500 universe to GDP has grown to 4.8 per cent.
• The rise in profit was led by the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), oil and gas and automobile sectors.
• These sectors contributed 95% to the total increase, according to the Motilal Oswal Financial Services report.
• Sectors such as metals, technology and chemicals did not contribute much.
• The NSE-500 index accounts for 91 per cent India’s market cap.
• The corporate profit for the Nifty-500 universe increased 30% last fiscal to ₹14.11-lakh crore in comparison to ₹10.88 lakh crore in FY23.
• The nominal GDP increased 9.6% y-o-y to ₹295-lakh crore (₹269-lakh crore).
• Nifty-500 represents the top 500 companies based on full market capitalisation from the eligible universe.

Topic: Indian Economy/Financial Market

7. A growth of 5% has been recorded in India’s IIP for April 2024 over the corresponding period of the previous year.

• In April 2023, the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) growth rate was 4.6%.
• The growth rate of mining sector for April 2024 over April 2023 was 6.7% according to the data released by Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
• The growth rate of manufacturing sector for April 2024 over April 2023 was 3.9%.
• For the same period, electricity sector recorded a growth of 10.2%.
• Based on use-based classification, primary goods, infrastructure or construction goods and consumer durables were the top three contributors to the growth of IIP.
• On a month-on-month basis, the industrial output growth has decreased to a three-month low.
• The IIP slowed to 5% in April, in comparison to 5.4% in March and 5.6% in February 2024.

Topic: Reports and Indices

8. India slipped to 129th place on the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Gender Gap index.

• India secured 129th place by slipping two places in the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Gender Gap Index.
• Iceland retained its top position in the rankings, followed by Finland, Norway, New Zealand, and Sweden.
• India is one of the countries with the lowest levels of economic parity. India showed the best gender parity in terms of enrolment in secondary education.
• India ranked 65th in terms of political empowerment of women.India has closed 64.1% of its gender gap in 2024.
• India’s position has declined from 127th to 129th due to declines in 'Educational Attainment' and 'Political Empowerment,' parameters.
• ‘Economic Participation and 'Opportunity' parameter scores have improved.
• In this ranking, the U.K. was ranked 14th, while the USA was in 43rd place.
• In South Asia, India was ranked fifth after Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan, while Pakistan was ranked last.
• Sudan is in the last position on the Global Gender Gap Index of 146 countries.

Topic: Appointments

9. Jyoti Vij has been appointed as director-general of the FICCI.

• Jyoti Vij has assumed the charge of director-general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) with immediate effect.
• Vij is currently the additional director general at FICCI. She has worked across various sectors.
• Shailesh Pathak has resigned from the post of secretary general, FICCI due to personal reasons.
• Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) has appointed Abhijit Kishore, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Vodafone Idea, as new chairperson.
• He has been appointed for the 2024-25 term, effective from June 2024.
• Rahul Vatts, Chief Regulatory Officer (CRO) of Bharti Airtel, will be the Vice Chairman of COAI.
• COAI is the leading industry body for telecom, Internet, technology and digital services companies.
• FICCI is the largest, oldest and apex business non-governmental trade association in India.

Topic: Banking/Financial/Govt Schemes

10. Under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, the government will provide assistance for the construction of 3 crore rural and urban houses.

• On 10 June, it was announced in the first cabinet meeting of the newly formed NDA government in New Delhi.
• The Government of India has been implementing the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) since the year 2015-16.
• Its objective is to provide assistance to eligible rural and urban families in building houses equipped with basic amenities.
• Under the housing schemes under PMAY, a total of 4.21 crore houses have been constructed for eligible poor families during the last 10 years.
• All the houses constructed under PMAY are provided with other basic amenities like household toilet, LPG connection, electricity connections, active household tap connection etc. by merging with other schemes of Central Government and State Governments.

Read Banking Awareness PDF - 12, 13 and 14 June 2024