Banking Awareness of 26, 27 and 28 March 2022

Topic: Banking System

1. Bank of Maharashtra has won best bank award from State Forum of Bankers' Clubs Kerala.

• The bank has won the award for 2020-21 at national level under the public sector category.
• Kerala’s Industries and Commerce Minister gave the award to Bank of Maharashtra Managing Director A S Rajeev.
• The bank’s MD said that it has entered into the mid-sized bank category after declaring its Q3 FY22 results.
• Bank of Maharashtra is a scheduled public sector bank headquartered in Pune. It has recently partnered with Mahagram to launch Bank Sakhi project in Odisha.

Topic: RBI

2. Framework for geotagging payment system touchpoints has been released by RBI.

• RBI has released the framework to help monitor and ensure the availability of payment infrastructure.
• Under the framework, geographical coordinates for all payment touchpoints will be captured and maintained by banks and non-bank payment system operators.
• Banks and non-bank payment system operators will also keep a registry with accurate location of all payment touchpoints across India.
• Geotagging information would be submitted to the RBI. RBI has not provided the date from which this information would be reported to RBI.
• In Monetary Policy Statement 2020-21 on 8 October 2021, it was announced that RBI would provide a framework for geotagging of physical payment acceptance infrastructure.

Topic: RBI

3. RBI has given perpetual licence to India1 Payments to set-up, own and operate White Label ATMs (WLAs) in India.

• The licence is however subject to company’s compliance with regulatory guidelines and terms of original Certificate of Authorization (CoA).
• India1 Payments (formerly BTI Payments Private Ltd) operates ATMs under the brand name India1ATMs.
• White Label ATMs (WLAs) are ATMs that are established, opened and operated by non-banks.

Topic: Miscellaneous

4. SpiceJet, Boeing and CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP) have partnered on sustainable aviation fuel.

• The partnership was announced at the ongoing Wings India 2022, Asia’s largest civil aviation conference.
• The partnership aims to explore use of Sustainable Aviation Fuel in Indian aviation industry.
• The companies will jointly work to use Sustainable Aviation Fuel supply from CSIR-IIP and its partners to help SpiceJet decarbonise its operations.
• While speaking at Wings India 2022, Union Minister for Civil Aviation Minister said that number of air passengers in India will be more than 410 million per annum by 2024-25.
• Wings India 2022 has been jointly organized by Ministry of Civil Aviation and FICCI from March 24-27 at Begumpet Airport, Hyderabad. Telangana is the host state for the conference.

Topic: Appointments

5. Shashidhar Sinha has been unanimously elected as new Chairman of BARC India.  

• Shashidhar Sinha has replaced Punit Goenka, who was the Chairman for previous two terms (three years).
• Sinha is also on Advertising Agencies Association of India’s board.
• BARC India:
  • It was formed in 2010 by various stakeholders’ bodies such as Indian Broadcasting Federation, Advertising Agencies Association of India etc. 
  • It is headquartered in Mumbai. Nakul Chopra is its CEO. 

Topic: Indian Economy/Financial Market

6. India’s forex reserves decreased by $2.597 billion to reach at $619.678 billion in week ended on March 18, 2022.

• The decline in reserves was mainly due to gold and foreign currency assets (FCAs) components.
• In week ended on March 18, 2022, gold component declined by $1.831 billion and foreign currency assets (FCAs) component declined by $703 million.
• Special Drawing Rights (3^rd component of reserves) declined by $62 million in week ended on March 18, 2022.
• Reserve Position in IMF (4^th component of the reserves) remained unchanged in week ended on March 18, 2022.
• The forex reserves had decreased by $9.646 billion in the previous week ended March 11.
• During the previous three years, India’s foreign exchange reserves have increased by around Rs 2.52 lakh crore ($270 billion).
• As per RBI governor, India’s reserves stood at $677 billion as of 21 March 2022. This includes foreign exchange reserves of $622 billion.
• RBI governor said that India holds a lot of forex ($55 billion) in forward assets, which will mature from time to time every month.

Topic: Regulatory Bodies/Financial Institutions

7. An investigation has been ordered by CCI against Google.

• Investigation would be carried out by Director General of CCI for abuse of dominant position by Google in online news media market.
• Indian Newspaper Society (INS), the representative organization of newspapers in the country, has alleged abuse of dominance by Google in online news media market.
• INS has said that the company is abusing dominant position and this is in violation of Section 4 of Competition Act, 2002.  
• CCI found that the allegations come under the purview of Competition Act, 2002.
• Section 4 of Competition Act, 2002 says that no enterprise shall abuse its dominant position.

Topic: Reports and Indices

8. 2^nd edition of Export Preparedness Index (EPI) released by NITI Aayog.

• EPI 2021 has been released by NITI Aayog in association with the Institute of Competitiveness.
• The index was released by NITI Aayog Vice Chairman, Dr Rajiv Kumar, in the presence of NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.
• Gujarat has topped EPI 2021. Maharashtra and Karnataka are on the second and third position respectively.
• Tamil Nadu and Haryana are on the fourth and fifth position. Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir is one of the top performers among UTs.
• This edition has shown that most of the ‘Coastal States’ are the best performers.
• Export Preparedness Index is based on four pillars- Policy, Business Ecosystem, Export Ecosystem, and Export Performance and 11 sub pillars.
• This index will be very useful for the government and policymakers to promote competitive federalism and to increase India’s share in global export.

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