Banking & Financial Awareness January 2019: Week II

Changes in Gold Monetisation Scheme

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has made changes with the Gold Monetization Scheme (GMS) to allow charitable institutions, Central Government entities and state government entities to deposit gold under GMS.
Now the entities allowed to deposit gold under the scheme include

Resident Indians (Individuals, HUFs, Proprietorship & Partnership firms)
Trusts including Mutual Funds/Exchange Traded Funds registered under SEBI (Mutual Fund) Regulations
Companies
Charitable institutions
Central Government
State Government
Any other entity owned by Central Government or State Government

The scheme was launched in 2015 with tagline earn while you secure.
The scheme provides the dual benefit of, interest (denominated in gold) on the gold deposited and an option of encashing the gold at maturity.
All the scheduled commercial banks except the RRBs are authorised to implement the scheme.
The gold deposits can be made under 3 term deposit plans: Short term:1 to 3 years Medium term:5 to 7 years Long term:12 to 15 years.
Short-term deposit rates are decided by the banks concerned, while the medium and long-term deposit interest rates are decided by the Central Government.
The minimum deposit one can make in a gold monetisation scheme is 30 grams of any purity and there is no maximum limit.

The exemption limit for Goods and Services Tax (GST) registration has been increased to Rs 40 lakh from the current Rs 20 lakh to ease the cost of compliance for small taxpayers or micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
This exemption limit has been doubled to Rs 20 lakh for North-Eastern and hilly states. The increased exemption limit of Rs 40 lakh is applicable for those businesses who deal in goods and also do intra-state trade and not for those who do inter-state transactions.
The small States such as Puducherry which have a small assess base have been given the option to ‘opt in’ or move to a lower exemption and registration limit.
The threshold limit for the compensation scheme under which small traders and businesses pay a 1 per cent tax based on turnover has been increased to Rs 1.5 crore.
Kerala has been allowed to levy a 1 per cent calamity cess on the intra-state sale of goods and services for a period of up to two years to mobilise revenues to meet the cost of rehabilitating parts of states that were ravaged by floods.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI), under the relevant provisions of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, imposed a penalty of Rs 3 crore on Citibank India for non-compliance in criteria for directors of the bank.
This penalty has been imposed taking into account the failure of the bank to adhere to the ‘Fit and Proper’ directions issued by RBI

Jana Small Finance Bank has launched a new Current Account with Auto-Sweep facility that will enable bank’s existing and potential new customers to auto sweep-in and sweep-out the idle funds in the current account to Sweep Fixed Deposit and earn high interest. For a tenor of 365 days on sweep deposit, the customers will be able to earn interest of 8.5 percent.

Market regulator SEBI has set up a Research advisory committee(RAC) that will help and analyse the new methods of policy making for the development of capital market. The committee formed will be headed by Sankar De
The committee would be “defining objectives, scope and direction of research relevant for development and regulation of capital markets in India and for SEBI, especially keeping in view the linkage of research to policy making”

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has constituted a high-level committee under Nandan Nilekani to suggest measures to strengthen the safety and security of digital payments in the country.
The committee will review the existing status of digitization of payments, identify gaps in the ecosystem and suggest ways to fill them.
The panel has to suggest a medium-term strategy for deepening digital payments, and measures to strengthen safety and security.