Banking Awareness of 6, 7 and 8 May 2023

Topic: Banking System

1. Max Life Insurance Company and Capital Small Finance Bank (SFB) have entered into a partnership.

• Through the partnership, savings, protection, retirement, and group life insurance plans will be offered to customers of Max Life and Capital SFB.
• Max Life Insurance Company has joined hands with Capital Small Finance Bank as part of its growing Bancassurance network.
• Bancassurance is an insurance distribution model in which an insurance company partners with bank to sell policies.
• Capital Small Finance Bank Ltd started functioning as India’s first Small Finance Bank in 2016. Its headquarters is in Jalandhar, India.
• It was earlier a local area bank, called Capital Local Area Bank.
• Capital Local Area Bank was working as India's largest local area bank since 2000.

Topic: Miscellaneous

2. Government has permitted 22 financial companies to carry out Aadhaar-based authentication of clients.

• As per Finance Ministry’s latest notification, the reporting entities under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) can verify the customers’ identity using their Aadhaar numbers.
• The notification includes companies such as Godrej Finance, Amazon Pay (India) Pvt Ltd, Aditya Birla Housing Finance, Tata Motors Finance Solution, IIFL Finance, and Mahindra Rural Housing Finance Ltd.
• PMLA also prescribes other modes of verification like offline verification under the Aadhaar Act.
• It also prescribes use of a passport and any other officially valid document or modes of identification as may be notified by the Central government.
• Recently, UIDAI launched a feature for residents to verify their email and mobile number linked to their Aadhaar.
• Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique number issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). It was launched on 28 January 2009.

Topic: Regulatory Bodies/Financial Institutions

3. SEBI has introduced Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) system.

• It has launched LEI system for issuers that have listed non-convertible securities, securitised debt instruments and security receipts.
• LEI system is also for issuers that are planning to list non-convertible securities, securitised debt instruments and security receipts.
• LEI is a unique global identifier for legal entities taking part in financial transactions.
• It is designed to develop a global reference data system which identifies every legal entity in any jurisdiction. The legal entity must be party to a financial transaction.
• It is a unique 20-character coder that can identify legally distinct entities engaged in financial transaction.
• As per RBI mandate, non-individual borrowers having aggregate exposure of more than Rs 25 crore must obtain LEI code.
• SEBI will later specify the requirement of LEI for issuers proposing to list or having outstanding municipal debt securities.
• The LEI code can be obtained from Legal Entity Identifier India Ltd.
• It is a subsidiary of the Clearing Corporation of India Ltd. RBI has recognized it as issuer of LEI.

• Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) accredited it as the local operating unit in India for issuance of LEI code.

Topic: Reports and Indices

4. The demand for gig workers who earn over ₹15,000 per month increased by 21.38% according to RazorpayX Payroll Insights.

• This is despite a 36.45% decline in the hiring rate in past six months.
• Most growth (28.24%) in the headcount of gig workers was seen in the business department.
• Headcount growth of 20.18% was recorded in the finance department.
• In the past six months, hiring full time employees slowed down across all departments as per the data.
• Hiring of full-time CXOs and senior executives declined the most (36.02%) in past six months.
• Within the gig workers’ cohort, total salary payouts increased by 20.94%.
• Gig workers are workers involved in a job that is temporary or freelance and performed on an informal or on-demand basis.    

Topic: Corporates/Companies

5. BharatPe will rebrand PAYBACK India as Zillion.

• BharatPe is a leading fintech. PAYBACK India is India’s largest multi-brand loyalty program.
• The company aims to target customers across age groups.
• Zillion will provide a wide range of options for customers to earn and redeem at a large number of partners across the country.
• Customers will be able to earn Zillion coins across the network of offline and online partners.
• BharatPe was co-founded by Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani in 2018.

Topic: Banking System

6. Visa has launched cardholder verification value (CVV)-free payments for tokenised cards.

• With the help of this feature, users can carry out online transactions without entering CVV, if the card has been tokenised.
• The merchants who will adopt CVV free feature will not need to ask customers for their CVV every time they do a transaction.
• They will verify three-digit CVV only once, at the time of tokenizing the card.
• Merchants like Zomato and payment service providers like Razorpay are live with the Visa’s CVV-free solution.
• Visa has earlier paused Visa Safe Click service, launched in 2019 to eliminate the requirement of CVV or OTP for transactions below Rs 2,000.
• Through tokenisation, card details are hidden with a unique code.
• Tokenised transactions are two-factor authenticated, once at the time of tokenisation and again when the OTP is entered.
• Through tokenization, customers are not required to put in details like the 16-digit debit or credit card number, CVV and the expiry date at the time of each transaction.
• Latest RBI data shows total debit and credit transactions totaled 458.8 million in February, worth Rs 1.68 lakh crore.
• National Payments Corporation of India data shows total UPI transactions in February exceeded 7.53 billion, processing payments worth Rs 12.35 lakh crore.
• Visa is an American multinational financial services corporation. 

Topic: Summits/Conferences/Meetings

7. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman addressed ADB’s Governors’ Seminar.

• She addressed the seminar on the theme ‘Policies to Support Asia’s Rebound’.
• The seminar was held as part of 56th ADB (Asian Development Bank) Annual Meeting in Incheon, South Korea.
• At the 56th ADB annual meeting in Incheon of South Korea, She emphasized on four ‘I’s for long-term sustainable growth.
• These ‘I’s are Infrastructure, Investment, Innovation and Inclusivity.
• She said World Trade Organisation (WTO) should look at farm subsidies with open mind.
• A WTO member country’s food subsidy bill is not allowed to breach the limit of 10% of the value of production based on the reference price of 1986-88.
• India has asked for inclusion of programmes implemented after 2013 under the ambit of ‘Peace Clause’.
• Under the Peace Clause, WTO Members agree to refrain from challenging breach in ceiling by developing nation at WTO’s dispute settlement forum.

Topic: RBI

8. GetVantage has obtained a NBFC licence from the RBI.

• Its NBFC arm GetGrowth Capital would manage the lending operations.
• GetVantage will capitalize the NBFC with ₹50 crore.
• It aims to raise ₹200 crore in total to scale up its lending operations.
• GetVantage is supported by investors, which include Chiratae Ventures, Varanium, InCred, DMI, and Japanese investors like Sony and DI.
• Earlier, BharatPe acquired a majority stake of 51% in NBFC Trillion Loans to boost its lending business.
• GetVantage is a revenue-based financing platform. Bhavik Vasa is its founder and CEO.

Topic: RBI

9. G20 TechSprint competition launched by RBI to improve cross-border payments.

• On 4 May, a global technology competition G20 TechSprint, has been launched by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for developing innovative solutions to improve cross-border payments.
• The fourth edition of the G20 TechSprint has jointly been launched by the RBI and the BIS Innovation Hub (BISIH) of the Bank for International Settlements under India’s G20 Presidency.
• The 2023 TechSprint will focus on solutions for three challenges cross-border payments face.
• Anti-Money Laundering and Sanctions technology solutions will be the first focus to reduce illicit finance risk.
• In second aspect, foreign exchange and liquidity technology solutions will be covered to enable settlement in emerging market and developing economy (EMDE) currencies.
• In the third, technical solutions for multilateral cross-border central bank digital currency (CBDC) platforms will be introduced.
• From May 04, 2023 to June 04, 2023, the competition is open to developers from around the world for submitting application and the TechSprint will conclude around August/ September 2023.
• Shortlisted teams will be invited to develop their solutions over a period of six weeks, and each team will be eligible for a stipend of INR 8 lakh, approximately US$10,000.
• For each problem statement, the winners will be awarded 40 lakh rupees approximately US$50,000.

Topic: Appointments

10. Polavarapu Mallikharjuna Prasad will be the next Chairman and Managing Director of Coal India Limited (CIL).

• The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PSEB) recommended the name of Polavarapu Mallikharjuna Prasad as the next Chairman and Managing Director of Coal India Limited (CIL).
• He is currently serving as the chairman cum managing director of the Ranchi-based CIL arm - Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL).
• He joined as CMD of Central Coalfield Ltd in September 2020.
• Coal India Limited (CIL):
  • Coal India Limited is a coal mining and refinery company owned by the government of India.
  • It is the world's largest coal producer. It is a Maharatna Public Sector Undertaking.
  • It is headquartered in Kolkata, West Bengal.

Read Banking Awareness PDF - 6, 7 and 8 May 2023