Banking Awareness of 16, 17 and 18 November 2021

Topic: RBI

1. RBI directed NBFCs to appoint Internal Ombudsman.

• RBI has directed Non-Banking Finance Companies (NBFCs) to appoint Internal Ombudsman within six months.
• RBI has directed Deposit-taking NBFCs with more than 10 branches and non-deposit-taking NBFCs with an asset size of a minimum of 5 thousand Crore rupees to appoint an internal ombudsman within 6 months.
• It will be the apex body for their internal grievance redress mechanism. All complaints that are partly or wholly rejected by the NBFC will be reviewed by the Internal Ombudsman.
• The Internal Ombudsman (IO) will not take any complaints directly from the public.
• The person appointed as the IO shall be either a retired or a serving officer, not below the rank of Deputy General Manager.
• The NBFC may appoint more than one IO depending on the number of complaints received per branch.
• NBFC will be required to put in place a system of periodic reporting of information to Reserve Bank on a quarterly and annual basis.
• The implementation of the IO mechanism will be subjected to monitoring by the NBFC’s internal audit system and regulatory oversight by RBI.

Topic: Banking System

2. Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) corpus currently stands at ₹614 crore.

• Reserve Bank of India has announced that the total PIDF corpus currently stands at ₹614 crore.
• RBI has also announced that over 2.45 lakh physical devices and over 55.36 lakh digital devices were deployed for payment acceptance under the PIDF as of end-September 2021.
• PoS, mPoS (mobile PoS), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) are physical devices.
• Digital devices include inter-operable QR code-based payments such as UPI QR, Bharat QR, etc.
• RBI has contributed ₹ 250 crore and authorised card networks have contributed ₹153.72 crore. Card issuing banks have contributed ₹210.17 crore to total corpus.
• From 26 August 2021, it also covers PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi Scheme) beneficiaries in tier-1 and tier-2 centres.

Topic: Banking System

3. CASA (Current Account Savings Account) campaign launched by Karnataka Bank.

• CASA (Current Account Savings Account) campaign has been launched by Karnataka Bank.
• Karnataka Bank has also launched a new current account scheme — KBL Current Account – Premium.
• The scheme is specifically designed to meet the needs of small and medium entrepreneurs.
• Under the scheme, customers can have a new current account by maintaining a monthly average balance of ₹25,000 and can avail a host of premium facilities.
• Under the campaign, the bank aims to mobilise over 4.15 lakh current and savings accounts through active involvement of its 8000-plus workforce in all the 858 branches of the bank.

Topic: Corporates/Companies

4. Paytm Money, Paytm’s wholly-owned subsidiary, launches ‘Voice Trading’.

• Paytm Money, Paytm’s wholly-owned subsidiary, has launched AI-powered ‘Voice Trading’.
• It allows users to place a trade or get information about stocks via single voice command.
• It also enables users to skip the usual five to six-step process of trade in a dynamic environment with simple voice commands.
• ‘Voice Trading’ is available currently to selected users only. It will be available to users during coming weeks.

Topic: Banking System

5. U GRO Capital enters into a co-lending partnership with SBI.

• U GRO Capital has entered into a co-lending partnership with SBI to provide credit to MSMEs.
• Under the partnership, SBI and U GRO aim to disburse up to ₹500 crore by March 2022.
• The agreement has been signed as part of RBI’s revised co-lending guidelines.
• U GRO Capital is a technology-focused small business lending platform.
• U GRO Capital also has co-lending partnerships with Bank of Baroda and IDBI Bank.

Topic: Banking System

6. PhonePe processed more than two billion transactions on its platform in October 2021.

• PhonePe has processed more than two billion transactions on its platform in October 2021.
• PhonePe had crossed the one billion monthly transaction mark in February 2021.
• PhonePe has seen over 145 million monthly active users. Sameer Nigam is founder and CEO of PhonePe.
• Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions reached a record high at ₹7.71 lakh crore in value terms in October.
• According to National Payments Corporation of India’s recent data. Number of transactions on the UPI platform stood at 421 crore in October, compared to 365 crore in September.
• As per 2021 India Mobile Payments Market report, PhonePe and Google Pay enjoyed market shares of 44% and 35%, respectively, in first six months of 2021. PhonePe and Google Pay are most popular UPI payment apps.
• PhonePe is a Bangalore-based Indian digital payments and financial services company. It was founded by Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari and Burzin Engineer in 2015.

Topic: Indian Economy

7. Producers’ inflation based on Wholesale Price Index (WPI) increased to 12.5 % in October against 10.7 % in September.

• Producers’ inflation based on Wholesale Price Index (WPI) has increased to 12.5 % in October against 10.7 % in September.
• This is the highest level in five-months and second highest in the current series (base year 2011–12).
• High inflation rate in October is mainly due to increase in prices of mineral oils, basic metals, food products, crude petroleum and natural gas, chemicals and chemical products, etc.
• Inflation for fuel and power increased to 37.18 % in October against 24.81 % in September.
• Inflation for primary articles (agricultural produce and others) declined little. It increased for manufactured products.
• Inflation in textiles, paper, chemicals, rubber and plastics, basic metals, fabricated metals, and furniture has been in double-digits for five successive months.

Topic: Indian Economy

8. As per World Bank’s latest report, India received $87 billion in remittances in 2021.

• As per World Bank’s latest report, India received $87 billion in remittances in 2021.
• As per the report, US was the largest source. It accounted for more than 20 % of remittances.
• As per the report, India is followed by China, Mexico, the Philippines, and Egypt in terms of remittances.
• The report says that in India, remittances are projected to grow 3% in 2022 to $89.6 billion. 
• The bank said that remittances to low and middle-income countries are projected to grow 7.3% to reach $589 billion in 2021.
• India had received over $83 billion in remittances in 2020. It was the world's largest recipient of remittances in 2020.

Topic: Taxation

9. Anti-dumping duty imposed on steel and fibreglass measuring tapes imported from Singapore and Cambodia.

• Anti-dumping duty has been imposed by Finance Ministry on steel and fibreglass measuring tapes imported from Singapore and Cambodia.
• The revenue department has imposed an anti-dumping duty of $1.83 per kg on steel measuring tapes from Singapore and Cambodia.
• For fibreglass measuring tapes imported from Singapore and Cambodia, the anti-dumping duty has been kept at $ 2.56 per kilogram.
• In July last year, Finance Ministry had imposed anti-dumping duty on steel and fibre glass measuring tapes from China.

Topic: Corporates/Companies

10. SIDBI enters into partnership with Google for social impact lending programme.

• Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) has entered into partnership with Google for a social impact lending programme.
• The programme entails financial assistance up to ₹1 crore at competitive interest rates targeted at micro- enterprises.
• As per SIDBI, the tie-up brings a corpus of $15 million to micro-enterprises as a crisis response related to Covid-19 to reinvigorate them.
• The programme is targeted at micro enterprises (having turnover up to ₹5 crore), with loan sizes ranging between ₹25 lakh to ₹1 crore, being implemented by SIDBI
• Sivasubramanian Ramann, Chairman and Managing Director, SIDBI said that the collaboration would enhance efforts to expand MSME sector’s access to credit.

Read Banking Awareness PDF - 16, 17 and 18 November 2021