Banking, Financial and Economic Awareness of 13 and 14 August 2020

By PendulumEdu | Last Modified: 14 Aug 2020 16:36 PM IST

Main Headlines:

1. Opposition to report of government-appointed Committee of Experts on Non-Personal Data (NPD)

Legal experts are against report of government-appointed Committee of Experts on Non-Personal Data (NPD).
Two important recommendations from the report of committee are consent mechanism for anonymization and usage of Non-Personal Data (NPD) and a separate regulator to oversee issues linked to NPD.
As per the committee report, Non-Personal Data (NPD) is data which is not defined as personal data in Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019.
Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 was introduced in Lok Sabha on December 11, 2019. It has been referred to Joint Parliamentary Committee.
Committee of Experts on Non-Personal Data (NPD):
- It was headed by Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan.
- It was formed by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) in September 2019
- It was formed to formulate framework for regulation of non-personal data.
- On 12 July, 2020, committee has released its draft report for public comments.

RBI has tightened norms for CICs and restricted number of layers of CICs within a group to two.
RBI has restricted number of layers of CICs within a group to address complexity in groups and presence of many CICs within a group.
RBI has decided March 31, 2023 as deadline for reorganization of business structure of already existing CICs as per the new norm.
As per the revised norms, Group Risk Management Committee (GRMC) will be set up by CICs. GRMC will be set up by parent CIC in the group by CIC with largest asset size if no identifiable parent CIC is in group.
Under the revised norms, CIC making any direct/ indirect equity investment in another CIC, will be seen as a layer for the investing CIC.
Core Investment Companies (CICs):
- They are Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) having acquisition of shares and securities as their business.
- CICs hold at least 90% of their net assets as investment in equity shares, preference shares, bonds, debentures, debt or loans in group companies.
- Investments in equity shares in group companies form at least 60% of net assets of a CIC.
- Currently, number of CICs registered with RBI stands at 64.

Paytm has launched stock market trading service on its online investment and wealth management platform, Paytm Money.
The service is available in beta version of Paytm Money App and provides cash delivery trades free of cost and intraday trades at a charge of Rs 10.
In the online trading service launched by Paytm, KYC is fully digital and account opening process is 100% paperless.
Initially, the service is available to selected users and it will be available to everyone in few weeks.

Indian Private Equity & Venture Capital Association and EY (IVCA-EY) report shows that private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) investments in India in July increased to $4.1 billion.
Total 77 deals have been recorded in July. Increase in buyout deals supported increase in PE/VC investments. Buyout deals means deals for purchasing controlling share in a company.
Compared with July 2019, PE/VC investments in July 2022 were lower by 51%. They were 41% lower compared with June 2020.
Buyout of the US subsidiary of Majesco by Thoma Bravo was largest deal in July. KKR’s buyout of JB Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals was second largest deal in July.
In terms of money invested, technology was top sector in July 2020. It was followed by financial services and pharmaceuticals. In July 2019, Infrastructure sector was top sector in July 2019.

Indian private sector bank, Federal Bank has selected global financial services technology provider company, Fiserv for supporting launch of its first independent credit card.
Fiserv will support the launch of Federal Bank’s credit card by enabling digitization of bank’s end-to‑end card issuance and processing cycle.
Federal Bank is an Indian private sector bank. It is headquartered in Aluva, Kochi. Its CEO is Shyam Srinivasan. Its tagline is your perfect banking partner.
Fiserv is global financial services technology provider company. It is headquartered in Brookfield, Wisconsin, United States. Its CEO is Jeffery W Yabuki.

EmBark platform has been launched by Financial Software and Systems (FSS), a digital payment and financial technology company.
The platform has been launched to digitally strengthen micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector.
It is a multi-faceted payment acceptance platform to interconnect banks, processors, merchant acquiring institutions and MSMEs.

Registration of BS-IV vehicles sold in March has been allowed by Supreme Court.
Only registration of vehicles sold before the start of lockdown and having details on government’s Vahan portal has been allowed.
Earlier, SC has cancelled its March 27 order allowing sale of BS-IV vehicles for 10 days all over India, except Delhi.
Vahan portal (Vahan 4.0) for registration of vehicles was introduced by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) in March 2017.
Bharat Stage norms:
- Bharat stage emission standards (BSES) were introduced in 2000.
- In 2010, India switched to Bharat Stage-III (BS-III) fuel. BS-III fuel is considered equivalent to Euro-III fuels. Sulphur content in BS-III fuels was kept at 350 ppm.
- In April 2017, BS-III norms were replaced by BS-IV norms. BS-III norms limit Sulphur content in fuels to 50 ppm.
- India has directly switched from BS-IV to BS-VI fuel norms from April 1, 2020. Under BS-VI norms, Petrol and diesel contain 10 parts per million (ppm) of Sulphur.