RBI data on Affordable Housing in Four Years
- The house price-to-income ratio has increased in the last 4 years, as per the RBI’s quarterly Residential Asset Price Monitoring Survey.
- The survey shows that the house price-to-income ratio has increased from 56.1 in the 2015 March quarter to 61.5 in 2019 March quarter.
- A wide gap between home prices in the country and real income was found in the survey.
- Bhubaneswar with a price-to-income ratio of 54.3 was found to be the most affordable city for home buying in the 2019 March quarter.
RBI revised instructions for BSBD accounts
- As per the revised circular, Banks are advised to offer basic minimum facilities free of charge without any minimum balance requirement.
- There will be no limit on the number and value of deposits made in a month.
- 4 minimum withdrawals in a month along with ATM withdrawals are allowed.
- No minimum balance would be required to avail such additional services.
- The BSBD account can be converted into a normal saving account only at the written request of the customer.
- The banks would be penalized under RBI Banking Regulation Act, 1949 if found for non-compliance of any instruction.
- RBI has mandated all banks to offer BSBD accounts to those looking to open a bank account.
- In a BSBD account, no minimum balance is required to be maintained.
RBI Imposed a penalty on SBI and UBI
- RBI imposed a penalty of Rs 7 crore on SBI and Rs 10 lakh on Union Bank of India for violating norms issued by RBI.
- SBI was found to violate the code of conduct for opening and operating current accounts(CRILC), income recognition and asset classification (IRAC) norms, fraud risk management and its reporting.
- The Union Bank of India was fined for non-compliance on the cybersecurity framework direction issued by RBI.
- After bank’s reply, RBI concluded to impose a monetary penalty of Rs 7 crore.
- RBI has imposed penalty with powers vested under the provision of section 47A(1)(c) of the Banking Regulation Act,1949.
HDFC Bank, CSC Launches Credit Card for VLEs
- The credit card has been launched for small traders, village-level entrepreneurs (VLEs) and VLE- sourced customers.
- HDFC Bank and CSC have signed a pact in July 2018 in which the bank offered to provide products and services in remote locations to VLEs that are enrolled with CSCs.
- CSCs acts as delivery points of various government and public utility services across the country.
- There are about 3.6 lakh CSCs in the country with transacting the business of about Rs 70,000 crore.
