Banking and Financial Awareness May 2020: Week I

AIIB to provide $500 mn loans to India fight COVID-19

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will provide a loan of $500 million for fighting against the pandemic COVID-19.
This loan will be provided under AIIB’s Covid-19 Crisis Recovery Facility to help countries to counter the situation due to coronavirus.

Moody's Investor Service has cut its GDP forecast for India to 2.5% in 2020.
Earlier, Moody's projected India's GDP growth to be 5.3%.
This decrease in the growth forecast is due to the COVID-19 and lockdown in the country.
However, the agency expects India's GDP to recover in 2021 and the growth rate can be 5.8%. But this rate is subject to the situations due to coronavirus.

Punjab National Bank Housing Finance Limited has joined hands with the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi for providing support in the research and development of unique prototype material that is used in the manufacture of reusable Personal Protective Equipment(PPE) surgical gowns and masks.
These kits are being used by doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers across the country.
Jacquard knitting technology will be used for the designing and development of PPE kits.

A defense public sector undertaking, Bharat Dynamics has entered into an agreement with the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in order to manufacture ventilators for COVID-19 patients.
The agreement was actually signed between Bharat Dynamics, IIT Kanpur, its incubator Foundation for Innovation and Research in Science and Technology (FIRST), and Nocca Robotics Pvt Ltd. (NRPL).
The basic aim of the agreement is to manufacture affordable ventilators.

Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) has announced to launch the India SME Services Platform.
It is an initiative to digitize inclusive access to the enterprise ecosystem.
The bank said that looking at the current situation due to COVID-19, it is important that Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME) employ digital platforms and digital payment methods.

Singapore's DBS Bank has revised its forecast for India's GDP growth for the FY21 to 1% from 1.5% earlier.
The growth forecast of 1.5% was made on April 9 by the bank.
This is due to the impact of COVID-19.

The Reserve Bank of India has canceled the license Mumbai's 105-year old co-operative bank - The CKP Cooperative Bank Ltd.
The license of the bank is not valid after April 30.
This has been done because the financial condition of the bank has deteriorated and it was unable to repay its depositors.
The depositors of the bank will get a maximum amount of 5 Lakh from the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) according to the law.
The law was changed this year only to increase the DICGC limit from 1 lakh to 5 lakh.

Karnataka Vikas Grameena Bank (KVGB) which is a regional rural bank has launched ‘Vikas Abhaya’ a loan scheme to provide some relief to Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise (MSME) borrowers.
The loan scheme is launched for those borrowers whose business activities are disrupted because of the COVID-19 pandemic in Dharwad, Karnataka.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) extended the regulatory benefits announced under the special liquidity facility for mutual funds (SLF-MF) scheme to all banks, irrespective of whether they avail funding from RBI or deploy their own resources under the scheme.
Any bank that meets with the liquidity requirements of mutual funds by extending loans and undertaking outright purchase or repos against the collateral of investment-grade corporate bonds, commercial papers, debentures and certificates of deposit held by mutual funds will be eligible to claim all regulatory benefits.