Monthly Banking Awareness News - May 2015

• India’s largest commercial bank SBI on 21 May 2015 signed an MoU with PayPal which leading international digital payments company to facilitate cross-border transactions.
• Country’s largest private bank – ICICI Bank on 25 May 2015 launched Voice Password Service for its customers.
• HDFC Bank private-sector bank on 31 May 2015 announced that it will discontinue issuing slips after cash withdrawals at ATMs and will alert the customer through SMSes.
• The US Department of Justice on 20 May 2015 imposed record $5.7bn fine on 5 banks for rigging foreign exchange markets. Which five banks are Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), UBS, Citigroup and JP Morgan
• Bank unions and the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) on 25 May 2015 signed a wage revision agreement, which will benefit 1 million bank employees, including some from foreign and private banks. How much increase in bank employees’ salary and allowances has been agreed to in this agreement? – 15%
• Britain major European country slipped into deflation recently as disclosed by the government on 19 May 2015.
• On 26 May 2015 Vijay Kelkar was appointed as the head of the newly constituted committee that will give recommendations to recast the model of the so-called public-private-partnership (PPP) model in India.
• The State Bank of India (SBI) on 20 May 2015 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Amazon which e-commerce entity to develop payment and commerce solutions for customers and small businesses.
• State Bank of India (SBI), on 22 May 2015 reported a better-than-expected 23% increase in quarterly profit for fourth quarter ended March 2015. What was the total net profit during the quarter? – Rs. 3742 crore ($589.11 million)
• BSE Indian stock exchange on 18 May 2015 announced the introduction of the first-of-its-kind Overnight Liquid Fund product which will provide the facility to invest even for a single night in liquid funds.
• KV Kamath was on 11 May 2015 appointed as the first President of the $100-billion New Development Bank (NDB) of the BRICS countries, to be based in China’s financial hub Shanghai.
• The credit-card base in India, at the end of 2014, crossed which level of year 2010, which is often described as the pre-crisis level in banking parlance? – 20 million
• Mangaluru-headquartered Corporation Bank recently dropped plans to take over the assets and liabilities of a Maharashtra-based cooperative bank whose license was cancelled by the RBI in 2013. Bank is Rupee Co-operative Bank Limited.
• Private-sector Federal Bank on 18 May 2015 forayed into credit card segment with the launch of a co-branded credit card. It has tied up with SBI PSU bank for this co-branded credit card.
• From May 2015 National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has reduced the switching fee it charges banks for processing inter-bank ATM transactions by five paise. What is the new switching fee after this reduction? – 45 paise per transaction
• The Finance Ministry on 19 May 2015 put up draft of the ambitious Gold Monetisation Scheme which aims to bring out around 20,000 tonnes of gold lying idle with households. Based on the views of the public and stakeholders, the new scheme will be finalised and made operational. The main benefit of this scheme will allow the depositors of gold to earn interest in their metal accounts and the jewellers to obtain loans in their metal account
• What was the fiscal deficit (estimated) for 2014-15 as announced by the Union Finance Ministry on 17 May 2015? – 4% of the GDP
• The Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2014 was passed by the Rajya Sabha on 13 May. Sixteen amendments were affected in the Companies Act of 2013 through this amendment bill.
• In a setback to the Narendra Modi govt., which global financial entity on 13 May 2015 downgraded India to “underweight” category, which was the first major downgrade for the India in the past one year? – HSBC
• A new set of insider trading norms came into effect from 15 May 2015 with the aim to tackle insider trading menace in Indian capital markets. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had imposed the old regulations on insider trading in which year? – 1992
• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 7 May 2015 put in place a new framework for banks to check loan frauds. Under this framework early warning signals will be integrated at banks to give quick information ab
  
  out loan frauds being committed. Red Flagged Account (RFA) has been introduced in the current framework as an important step in fraud risk control.
• The Reserve Bank of India on 28 May 2015 released the Draft Guidelines on Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR) under Basel III Framework on Liquidity Standards for banks.
• RBI proposed to introduce PPI for Mass Transit Systems. These PPI-MTS will be semi-closed instruments that will be used facilitate the migration to electronic payments in line with the country’s vision of moving to a less-cash society.
• Union Government approved 21 FDI proposals worth 281 crore rupees. These FDI proposals were based on recommendations of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).
• The Union Cabinet on 21 May 2015 gave its nod for changes in the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy on investments by Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) and Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs).
• Union government allocated 5000 crore for development of AYUSH. AYUSH comprises Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy.
• RBI allowed Tap And Pay without PIN for transactions up to 2000 rupees.