Banking and Financial Awareness Digest: October 2022

JSW Cement Secures Loan from MUFG Bank

As its first sustainability-linked loan, JSW Cement Limited raised USD 50 million (Rs. 400 crores) from MUFG Bank India Limited.
The loan is the first transaction undertaken by MUFG Bank India Ltd. out of its new GIFT City, Gandhinagar, and Gujarat branch.
The assistance from the bank will help the cement company to increase its production capacity to 25 million tons per annum (MTPA) by 2025.
The Rs. 400 crore loans will also form a part of the company’s Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) objectives.
JSW Cement is one of the leading green cement companies in India which is a part of JSW Group and was established in 2009 with its headquarters in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The current MD of the company is Parth Jindal.

HDFC Life Insurance Company Limited launched the Insure India campaign.
The primary objective of the Insure India campaign is to raise awareness amongst and educate Indians about life insurance.
The aim of the campaign is to make long-term security plans available for common Indians so that it can help them secure their future.
Various webinars, chat shows, etc. will be held as a part of the campaign to engage with customers directly or indirectly.
These events will focus on increasing the insurance penetration in India, which presently stands at 3%.

The State Bank of India (SBI) launched the SBI Foundation’s Gram Seva Program across six states of the country.
The bank will adopt remote villages across Aspirational Districts in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal.
The Gram Seva Program comes under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of the SBI and will primarily focus on areas like healthcare, education, livelihoods, and infrastructure.
Till the 3rd phase of the program, 100 villages across 16 states of the country have been adopted with an aim of comprehensive development of the villages in the areas of rural development, sustainability, environment, healthcare, education, livelihood, skill development, etc.
Phase 4 of the program will add 30 more villages to the list, making it 130, out of which, 75 villages will be from Aspirational Districts.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched a new ‘SupTech’ initiative DAKSH, which is RBI’s Advanced Supervisory Monitoring System.
It was launched with the prime objective of improving the compliance culture even further in Supervised Entities (SEs) viz. Banks, NBFCs, etc.
DAKSH is expected to make the supervisory processes more resilient and robust.
DAKSH is one of the many initiatives of the RBI in achieving the adoption of the latest analytical tools for implementing more efficient and automated work processes.
The application will also enable cyber incident reporting and analysis, seamless communication, inspection planning, execution, etc., through a platform that enables anytime-anywhere secure access.

ICICI Bank Limited launched a ‘smart wire’ facility for Inward Remittances.
This scheme is an online solution to allow NRI and resident customers to make SWIFT-based remittances.
ICICI Bank is the first to introduce a quick and easy solution to receive such remittances.
This scheme enables users to initiate a request and submit online documents in advance and track the status.
This facility is made to be used for various purposes like savings, personal gifts, financial support, and family maintenance.

Reserve Bank of India plans to privatize IDBI Bank and disinvest in it.
Reserve Bank of India is considering tweaking the promoter criteria which will bring a wider pool of bidders for public sector banks.
The budget for 2021-22 proposed to privatize two public sector banks along with a general insurance company.
A new strategic disinvestment policy has categorized banking as a strategic sector where the government is aiming to maintain a bare minimum presence.
The Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 is yet to be introduced in the house.

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