Topic: Indian Economy/Financial Market
1. India recorded highest-ever monthly export of $37.29 billion in December.
- Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said that India has achieved the highest ever monthly export of $37.29 billion in December 2021.
- India’s export has increased by 37 percent from the figures of December 2020. The import has also increased by 38 percent from last December.
- India's exports of goods will cross 400 billion dollars in this fiscal year. According to the data, outbound shipments during April-December 2021 crossed $300 billion.
- Engineering goods export has grown by 37% over the last December while export of Gems and jewellery has grown by 15.8%.
- Readymade garments and cotton yarn export has grown by 22% and 46% over the last December respectively.
- India’s export of services during April-December 2021 was $178.81 billion. In April-December 2021 period, exports stood at $299.74 billion.
- India’s highest annual export so far was in 2018-19 at $330 billion. The previous monthly high was in March 2021 at $34 billion.
- India’s imports also increased sharply by 38.06% in December to $59.27 billion. This has widened trade deficit to $21.99 billion against $15.72 billion in December 2020.
- Imports in April-December 2021 were $443.71 billion. The trade deficit in the period stood at $143.97 billion.
Topic: Appointments
2. Vijay Paul Sharma re-appointed as chairman of CACP.
- Vijay Paul Sharma has been re-appointed as the Chairman of Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices (CACP).
- He left the post in May 2021 after the completion of his five-year tenure. He was first appointed as CACP Chairman in June 2016.
- After the end of Sharma’s tenure, Naveen P Singh, a member of the CACP, took charge as the chairman of CACP.
- Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices (CACP):
- It is an attached office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
- It was earlier named as Agricultural Prices Commission. It came into existence in January 1965.
- It recommends minimum support prices (MSPs) to the government.
Topic: Reports and Indices
3. PMI for manufacturing sector declines to 55.5 in December.
- Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for the manufacturing sector has declined from 57.6 in November to 55.5 in December.
- However, the quarterly PMI reading at 56.3 is the highest since the final quarter of the fiscal year 2020/21.
- PMI for the services sector also declined or a second successive month in December to 55.5. It reached the lowest level in three months.
- While services have a share of 54% in Gross Value Added (GVA), manufacturing has over 14.5 % share.
Topic: RBI
4. RBI appointed Ajay Kumar Choudhary and Deepak Kumar as its Executive Directors with effect from January 3, 2022.
- RBI has appointed Ajay Kumar Choudhary and Deepak Kumar as its Executive Directors with effect from January 3, 2022.
- Ajay Kumar Choudhary was Chief General Manager-in-Charge, Department of Supervision, RBI.
- As Executive Director, he will oversee the functioning of Fintech, Risk Monitoring and Inspection.
- Deepak Kumar was heading the Department of Information Technology of RBI.
- As Executive Director, he will oversee the functioning of Foreign Exchange and Communication and Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation.
Topic: Banking System
5. Airtel Payments Bank received ‘scheduled bank status’ from RBI.
- RBI has granted ‘scheduled bank status’ to Airtel Payments Bank under the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934.
- Airtel Payments Bank is one of the fastest-growing digital banks in the country, with 115 million users.
- Now, Airtel Payments Bank can apply for government-issued requests for proposals (RFPs) and primary auctions. It can also participate in government-operated welfare schemes.
- Airtel Payments Bank provides complete end to end digital solutions and it has a retail network of over 500,000 banking points.
- Recently, RBI gave Scheduled Bank status to Paytm Payments Bank Limited.
- Fino Payments Bank Ltd (in 2021) and India Post Payments Bank Ltd (in 2019) have also received Scheduled Bank status.
- Airtel Payments Bank:
- It was founded in January 2017 and it is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel.
- Its headquarters is located in New Delhi.
- Its CEO is Anubrata Biswas.
- Scheduled Banks:
- Scheduled Banks are those banks that are included in the Schedule II of RBI Act, 1934.
- Scheduled Banks enjoy debts/loans at the bank rate from the RBI.
- There are mainly two types of commercial banks in India namely –
- Scheduled Commercial banks
- Scheduled Co-operative banks
Topic: Banking System
6. Fino Payments Bank gets RBI’s approval for starting international remittance business.
- Fino Payments Bank gets RBI’s approval for starting international remittance business under the Money Transfer Service Scheme (MTSS).
- The bank said that it will carry out inward cross-border money transfer activities in association with an overseas principal.
- The bank will offer inward remittance services to its customers by Q1 (April-June) FY23. It also has plans to start outward remittance services soon.
- Fino Payments Bank is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fino Paytech Limited (FPL). It was launched in 2017.
Topic: Banking System
7. SBI, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank continue to be identified as D-SIBs.
- RBI has said that the State Bank of India (SBI), ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank continue to be identified as Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs).
- RBI said that these banks continue to be identified as D-SIBs under the same bucketing structure as in the 2020 list of D-SIBs.
- D-SIBs are placed in appropriate buckets by RBI depending upon their Systemic Importance Scores (SISs).
- SBI is placed in the third bucket and it is required to maintain Additional Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) at 0.60% of its RWAs.
- ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank are placed in the first bucket. They are required to maintain Additional CET1 at 0.20% of their Risk Weighted Assets (RWAs).
- As per RBI, the additional CET1 requirement is in addition to the capital conservation buffer.
- Capital conservation buffer is buffer capital that banks can use if they incur losses during a stressed period.
Topic: Banking System
8. South Indian Bank wins UiPath Automation Excellence Awards 2021 for Best Automation under Crisis for Business Continuity.
- South Indian Bank has won UiPath Automation Excellence Awards 2021 for Best Automation under Crisis for Business Continuity.
- The bank has won the award for its exceptional use of Robotic Process Automation capabilities for solving severe operational constraints.
- The aim of the UiPath Automation Excellence Awards is to recognise the change-makers of automation.
- South Indian Bank is a private sector bank. It is headquartered in Thrissur, Kerala.
Topic: RBI
9. RBI rolled out Framework for facilitating small value digital payments in offline mode.
- Framework for facilitating small value digital payments in offline mode has been released by RBI.
- The framework is based on the feedback of pilot experiments on offline transactions carried out from September 2020 to June 2021.
- Offline digital payment is defined as a transaction that does not need internet or telecom connectivity.
- According to the framework, offline digital payments can be carried face-to-face (proximity mode) only using any channel or instrument like cards, wallets, mobile devices, etc.
- Customers will receive alerts of offline digital transactions by way of SMS and / or e-mail after a time lag.
- Authorised Payment System Operators and Participants (Banks and Non-banks) are required to comply with the framework.
- As per the framework, the upper limit of an offline payment transaction shall be ₹200. The total limit for offline transactions on a payment instrument shall be ₹2,000 at any point in time.
- The framework allows replenishment of used limit only in online mode with Additional Factor of Authentication.
- The new framework is applicable with immediate effect. Customers also have the option of Reserve Bank – Integrated Ombudsman Scheme for grievance redress.
Topic: Reports and Indices
10. India’s first Global Index of cryptocurrencies launched by CryptoWire.
- India’s first Global Index of cryptocurrencies (IC15) has been launched by CryptoWire.
- IC15 is a rule-based broad market index by market capitalization.
- It tracks and measures the performance of the top 15 widely traded liquid cryptocurrencies listed on leading crypto exchanges in the world.
- The base value of the index is set at 10,000 and the base date is April 1, 2018.
- The index will be maintained, monitored and administered by CryptoWire’s Index Governance Committee.
- As of January 1, 2022, Bitcoin has highest (51.57) weightage at the index. Ethereum has second highest weightage (25.79). Binance coin has third highest weightage (5.03).
- CryptoWire is a special business unit of Tickerplant, a crypto stats provider.
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