 The Asian Development Bank has slashed its growth forecast for India for fiscal year 2019-20 to 6.5% from 7%. The bank lowered the growth rate because of weaker growth in the first quarter due to a slowdown in consumption and investment activities that hit manufacturing and service sectors. |
| Source: The Live Mint |
 The Reserve Bank of India has imposed restrictions on Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank, under which the depositors cannot withdraw more than Rs 1,000 from their accounts. The depositors will be allowed to withdraw a sum not exceeding Rs 1,000 of the total balance in every savings bank account or current account or any other deposit account. The curbs will remain for six months. PMC Bank has also been barred from making fresh loans and taking deposits. PMC Bank is a multi-State scheduled urban co-operative bank with operations in the states of Maharashtra, Delhi, Karnataka, Goa, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. |
| Source: The Hindu |
 Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced that Public Sector Banks will organise ‘loan melas’ or “Shamiana meetings” in 400 districts. The meetings will be organised to provide loans to NBFCs and retail borrowers, including homebuyers and farmers. PSBs will focus on giving loans to the ‘RAM‘ category: retail, agriculture and MSMEs. The open house public meetings will be held in two tranches. The first will be held between October 3 and 7 in 200 districts, while the remaining 200 will be covered October 11 onwards. She also announced that no MSME stressed loan would be classified as an NPA until March 31, 2020. |
| Source: The Economic Times |
 Airtel Payments Bank launched “Bharosa savings account” services, designed for deepening the financial inclusion in the country. This service enables customers to withdraw cash, check their balance or access a mini statement of their account at over 6,50,000 Aadhaar-enabled payment system (AePS) enabled outlets across India. Bharosa savings account would offer Rs 5 lakh personal accident insurance on maintaining the balance of Rs 500 along with one debit transaction per month. Customers would also be eligible for cashback, if they decided to receive government subsidies in their Bharosa account or if they made cash deposits in it. |
| Source: The Livemint |
 The Goods and Services Tax Network has decided to make Aadhaar authentication or physical verification mandatory for new dealers from January 2020. Those who do not want Aadhaar authentication, physical verification will be carried out, which will be completed in three days. The step has been taken to check malpractices in Goods and Services Tax. In the first phase, Aadhaar authentication will be mandatory for new dealers. Afterwards, all those enrolled on GSTN would be asked to provide their Aadhaar numbers. |
| Source: The DD News |
 The Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI Bank) and Life Insurance Corporation of India Credit Cards Services (LIC CSL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of LIC, will launch a co-branded credit card, which will be marketed to customers, agents, and employees of the corporation and its subsidiaries. |
| Source: The Hindu |
 Reserve Bank Of India (RBI) is to implement the idea to develop a mobile application with an aim to help the visually impaired people to identify currency notes. For this, RBI has selected Daffodil Software Pvt Ltd. The application should be able to identify the denomination of legal tender banknotes of Mahatma Gandhi Series and Mahatma Gandhi (New) series by capturing the image of the notes that are placed in front of the mobile camera or scrolled across it. The mobile application should be searchable via voice option in all app stores. |
| Source: The Economics Times |
 India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) rollout of Aadhaar Enabled Payment System Services (AePS). With AePS services, any person with a bank account linked to Aadhaar can perform basic banking services such as cash withdrawals and balance enquiry irrespective of the bank they hold their account with. IPPB has become the single largest platform in the country for providing interoperable banking services to customers of any bank by leveraging the last mile unprecedented reach of the Postal network. |
| Source: The Livemint |
 The Department of Financial Services has approved the Rs 12,000 crore capital infusion plan in the 3 state-run general insurance companies. The decision has been taken to boost their capital base and meet regulatory norms. The 3 state-run general insurance companies list includes National Insurance, Oriental Insurance and United India Insurance. The recapitalisation will also improve their solvency ratio and prepare the 3 companies for the merger which will make the entity the largest insurance company in the country. |
| Source: The Economic Times |
 The Finance Ministry has introduced a Code of Conduct for non-official directors of public sector banks. Under the new rules, the PSBs board will also have to send an annual performance report that rates a director based on professional and ethical conduct, and contribution to the board. The performance evaluation by peers will measure the director on various parameters including avoidance of direct or indirect conflict of interest, acting according to rules in the best interest of the bank, avoiding any gain to self or associates and maintaining confidentiality. The above measures taken by the department of financial services at the finance ministry aims to improve corporate governance in banks. |
| Source: The Economic Times |
You need to login to perform this action.
You will be redirected in
3 sec
