Banking and Financial Awareness 2nd week

SIDBI Foundation Day – Launches ‘Samridhi- Virtual Assistant’ & ‘Bankability Kit’

SIDBI has celebrated its foundation day as a day of Sampark means to connect, Sanwad means interaction, Suraksha means security and Sampreshan means disseminate.
Mohammad Mustafa, Chairman Managing Director of SIDBI, has also launched a series of initiatives from its Lucknow bank headquarters.
Throughout the day, a ‘Bankability Kit’ was launched by a bank. It is made in cooperation with Bank of Baroda and IDBI Bank. It comprises what bankers seem at, how to interact with banks, the care to be taken, do’s and don’ts and many more.
A MoU was confirmed with The New India Assurance Co. Ltd. and two more MSMEs which were issued insurance policies.
Bank also launched ‘Samridhhi- the virtual assistant’ on banks revamped universal loan portal www.udyamimitra.in. It will also answer standard queries of customers 24*7.

The Reserve Bank of India has revised the methodology used by debt market players which include banks and primary dealers, for their valuation.
It intends to prevent the possibility of manipulation in the prices of securities, mainly government securities (G-Secs).
As per reserve bank of India directive, security or bond valuation will be based on the weighted average price of the last half-an-hour of trading on the last trading day of every quarter against the last traded price earlier.
The methodology means as for how bonds are valued is crucial for mark-to-market (MTM) purposes.

A Memorandum of Undertaking (MoU) was signed between the Indian Army and HDFC Bank on the Defence Salary Package.
The current MoU is tailor-made to suit the demands of serving soldiers, pensioners and families.
Under the current MoU apart from other benefits the Army personnel will get free personal accident death coverage and free permanent disability cover of Rs 30 lakhs, free educational cover of up to Rs 1 Lakh per year for continuous four years for education of dependent child in case of accidental death of defence personnel and 100% processing fees waived for Car Loans and Personal Loans.
The first MoU between HDFC Bank and the Indian Army was approved in 2011 and was renewed in Mar 2015.

Soft Bank has signed a $930-million deal with China's energy conglomerate Golden Concord (GCL) to manufacture and sell solar equipment in India.
The joint venture will work on photovoltaic technology, which is used in solar panels.
GCL will give technology and Soft Bank will assist to get land and regulatory permissions.
India is going to plan to have a totally renewable energy capacity of 175 GW by 2022 through a mix of natural sources like solar, wind, biomass and small hydro.
In this joint venture, GCL will make an investment of 40% and the remaining 60% by Soft Bank. This project will have a 4 gigawatt-capacity and it is going to produce solar ingots, silicon wafers, batteries, and components.

Jio Payments Bank Limited has started its operations as a payments bank from April 3, 2018.
It is a joint venture of Reliance Jio and the state bank of India.
Reliance Industries Ltd was one of the 11 applicants which were issued an in-principle approval to set up payments bank in August 2015.

Jana Small Finance Bank formerly known as Jana Lakshmi Financial Services has announced the commencement of its banking operations.

Looking to give an incentive to start-ups, markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has determined to double the investment limit of angel funds in venture capital undertakings to Rs10 crore from the current limit of Rs5 crore.
The SEBI board has signed amendments to Alternative Investment Funds (AIF) regulations with respect to ‘Angel Funds.’

IndusInd Bank, a Private sector lender, has received RBI's consent to buy the securities services arm of IL&FS.
In March 2017, the bank has entered an agreement with Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services, the promoter shareholder of IL&FS Securities Services Ltd (ISSL), to obtain 100% stake in ISSL.

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has decided to keep the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) same at 6.0%.
The Reverse Repo Rate (RRR) under the LAF remains same at 5.75%, the Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate at 6.25%.
India’s real gross domestic product (GDP) growth marginally goes upward from 6.5% to 6.6% in the first advance estimates.
Retail inflation came down from 5.1% in January to 4.4% in February.