HDFC Bank, second largest private bank in the country, organized a 'Coin Mela' at Aminabad Branch in Lucknow. The Coin mela was inaugurated by Mr. Gouresh R. Kotian, Dy. General Manager, Issue Department, RBI, Lucknow. The initiative was in conjunction with RBI's Clean Note Policy to provide fresh notes in exchange for solid ones. HDFC Bank organized a total of 18 successive 'Coin Melas' in 16 cities in a single day, across the nation. Apart from the four metros namely; Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, the mela also took place in semi-metros such as Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Patna, Indore, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Cochin and Gurgaon. People from all walks of life took advantage of the coin mela to exchange their soiled notes and old and disfigured coins. The Bank exchanged over Rs. 27.00 Lakh worth of coins and notes during this exercise in Lucknow. A total of Rs.1280.06 lakh were exchanged across the 18 locations. A similar ‘Coin Mela’ at its Ujjain branch in Indore was inaugurated by Mr. S.C. Gandhi, Manager, Issue Dept, RBI, Bhopal. The initiative was in conjunction with RBI’s Clean Note Policy to provide fresh notes in exchange for solid ones.
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Saturday, February 26, 2011
Financial inclusion and literacy twin pillars: RBI Governor
Reserve Bank of India Governor Dr D Subbarao stressed the need for the 'financial literacy' in the context of the present fiscal scenario, stating that it had to be an integral part of financial inclusion and consumer protection. ''In RBI, we treat financial inclusion and financial literacy as Twin Pillars,'' Mr Subbarao said while addressing the 24th Foundation Day and Convocation of Sambalpur University. He said many people think RBI to be a mysterious institution. In a bid to clarify such monolith, the RBI Governor explained the activities of the institution and the range and diversities of the apex bank. Dr Subbarao said the RBI was the regulator and supervisor of Banks, non-banking financial companies and significant parts of the financial markets. In a market system, regulation is required in order to protect the interests of the stakeholders and preserve the financial stability, he added. Orissa Governor M C Bhandare said the imperatives of neo-liberal economy had influenced the priorities and perspectives of higher education in India in ''startling'' new ways. He appealed to the staff and students of this university to face the challenges that are likely to come in the future. The Governor said Orissa, well endowed with mineral resources, had not achieved the desired progress and development. ''Poverty and illiteracy are the biggest hurdles and are two ugly spots which need to be removed,'' he said and urged the graduating students to play a major role.
RBI to hold financial outreach programme
VILLUPURAM: The Rural Planning and Credit Department (RPCD) of the Reserve Bank of India will organise a “financial outreach programme” at Karuvachi near here on Saturday. A statement from the Chennai RPCD said during the current financial year (2010—2011), RBI has proposed to conduct the programme in four villages in Tamil Nadu and one in Puducherry. Of these, already two in Tamil Nadu, including Paluvanchi in Tiruchi and Seelapandiankalam in Dindigul, and, Mangalam in Puducherry, had been covered. The objectives of the programme are to create awareness among rural people about RBI in general and banking activity in particular so as to include them in the mainstream financial system by opening no frills or savings accounts, extending small credit and issuing smart cards. At the Karuvachi programme, Principal Secretary to Tamil Nadu Finance Department K.Shanmugam, Collector R. Palanisamy, Indian Bank executive director Rajeev Rishi, General Manager (RPCD) M.M.Majhi, deputy general manager S.Selvarajan and assistant general manager M.A. Nasser will participate
Court notice to RBI in co-op bank merger case
Gujarat High Court has issued notices to Reserve Bank of India, Abhyuday Co-operative Bank Ltd and the registrar of co-operative societies while hearing a petition challenging the merger of a multi state co-operative bank with a state level bank. The petitioners questioned the legality and validity of the order passed by joint registrar (audit), co-operative societies, Gandhinagar, on October 8, 2008, which paved way for the merger of Abhyuday Co-operative Bank Ltd with erstwhile Manekchowk Co-operative Bank Ltd. The plea was filed on the grounds that there is no directive in law on the merger of a co-operative bank constituted under state mechanism with a multi state co-operative bank. The petitioners sought an appropriate writ, order or direction to quash and set aside the joint registrar’s order. The petitioners, alleged debtors of Manekchowk bank, stated that they received no individual notice prior to the merger. While Abhyuday Co-operative Bank Ltd is constituted under the Multi State Co-operative Societies Act, Manekchowk Co-operative Bank Ltd was formed under the Gujarat Co-operative Societies Act. Manekchowk bank had instituted summary lavad suit No 182 of 2003 for an amount of Rs 1,77,04,503 against the petitioners before the board of nominees. The court has posted the case for further hearing on March 1.
Grant more banking licenses, but have strict regime: Economic Survey
India's Economic Survey 2010-11, tabled by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the Lok Sabha Friday, recommended more banking licences but added that strict regulations must be in place before granting licenses to more players. "Providing access to banking facility to all the citizens is one of the main objectives of the inclusive development. While providing banking access, the issue of regulatory robustness for the banking sector should not be compromised," said the annual report on the state of the economy in the current fiscal. According to the survey, the minimum capital requirement for those proposing to start a banking institution should be graded, while the government should consider having two banking licenses - one for those who would provide basic financial services to unbanked areas and the other to those involved in all spheres of banking services. The survey said that industrial houses and non-banking finance corporations (NBFC) should be considered for full banking licenses, only with clearly defined roles and regulations. "MFIs (micro finance institutions) and NBFCs should be considered for being given license for basic banking. It is very essential that the basic banking functions are clearly and objectively defined."
Obituary
MR.R.V.VARADARAJAN (88 years) Rtd. DCO, RBI, Mumbai expired on 24.02.2011 at Chennai. May his soul rest in eternal peace.
RBI action against PayPal as new edition of capitalism - Priyankan Goswami
The ongoing issue in the country between PayPal the new RBI guidelines is being shamelessly portrayed as a correct step of Reserve Bank of India by the bureaucrats, stock brokers and high capitalists of the country. Although the new rules of PayPal are set to disturb and create huge inconveniences to the Indian freelancers and small scale & growing IT Service providers, these lots are found to continue giving reasons for the guidelines. The 7 day time limit within which PayPal users are bound to withdraw money is being portrayed by the pro-RBI lot as a mandate which will allow better tax flow and help boost economy. However in actual, -by the new guidelines PayPal was mandated by RBI to pay interest to its Indian users for keeping money for more than seven days, something which a global virtual monetary service can never comply because of obvious reasons. This is plain dictatorship from RBI in either bringing PayPal into a framework within which the Banks in India operate, or to tie down their hands and restrict their powers in Indian market ( one of the biggest globally) so that other Banks in India can take benefits off the gap created by the situation. In fact with PayPal being tamed down, it is bigger and better chance to reap benefits for other Payment gateway services of other banks / Providers in India & abroad such as ICICI Payment Gateway (PAYSEAL), Citibank Payment Gateway, HDFC Bank Payment Gateway and AXIS Bank Payment Gateway and even third party gateway providers like CC Avenue- Mumbai, Transecute- Mumbai & Time of Money. It would be worth mentioning that with the increasing popularity and huge fan following of Pay Pal amongst Indian customers was hampering the business of Banks in India more and more, until these dictatorial guidelines restricted PayPal, at the cost of huge blow to Indian freelancers of course. Another question that arises here is why the Indian freelancers who work for their living for foreign services have to pay taxes to the Indian Government, apart from paying service taxes for using Internet and Phone connections. Such freelancers are mostly dependent on small projects (ranging from data entry to creation of small software’s) of foreign companies and clients because of the inability of the Government and current system to provide them with their daily bread and butter. They would work for another country with no aide and help from the Indian government and yet pay taxes to Indian Government. What for? With the new guideline asking PayPal to report any transactions above 500 dollars to the government, the RBI tried to showcase that the Government is now trying to have better transparency and control of funds flowing in and out of the country. But the question is, – all this while was there no check or verification on transactions taking place to and fro? The answer is YES, there were of course verifications of the PayPal transactions. As reported in a previous article in Times of Assam, the flow of funds to Indian PayPal customers is actually through PayPal India, which is monitored and transactions verified by Authorities. So the claim by RBI and the pro-RBI guideline group is nothing but a false propaganda, misleading public, to tie up PayPal and thereby help the capitalistic banks in India to rise and shine. We cannot ignore the fact the millions of fraudulent money hidden by Indians in Swiss Banks have been ignored by Government so far by Authorities except for giving Ashwashan (Assurances) to eradicate it. In fact a huge number of such people whose money is well hidden in Swiss Banks are the bureaucrats, stock brokers, bankers, etc who run the show in capitalistic India. Ultimately the entire game plan of RBI in this gimmick is something similar to the Government’s lowering down costs of vegetables and food items for the public and increasing price of petrol or cooking gas at the same time, so that the people ultimately pays more (yet be happy to see onion or brinjal prices going down!). There’s no doubt rulers of India are getting more and more capitalistic, helping the same rich section getting richer by sucking everything out of the common public. The Pay pal RBI story is part of the same ploy; inconvenience to freelancers, small scale IT service providers are going to create opportunities to the bigger players, restriction on PayPal would allow Indian Banks to capture more market.
SBI has last laugh, 'teaser' loans get nod
If there's one person who would be pleased with the Economic Survey, it would be State Bank of India chairman O P Bhatt. The government has after all sided with him in the public sector banker's battle with the regulator over "teaser rates". To begin with, government has said home loans offered by SBI (and almost all banks earlier), for which interest rates remain fixed in the initial years before turning flexible, should be called "terraced" loans. On these loans, typically, monthly installments would rise over time. Singling out the success of SBI's fixedcum-floating rate home loans, the survey said the product launched after the financial crisis of 2008 helped several new home buyers. Till November 2009, SBI had sanctioned over 28,000 such loans with an aggregate value of Rs 3,273 crore and defaults on them have been negligible. Amid protests from some of SBI's rivals, RBI tried to discourage banks from offering similar loans by mandating that they set aside more capital to deal with potential default. But the government does not seem to be in favour of this approach. "In general, it is worthwhile giving banks and financial institutions the freedom to introduce new products and thereby expand the options available to consumers and firms," it said.
Govt to remove `hurdles' for MFIs
Hyderabad: With micro finance institutions trying to lure the poor by introducing new products that supposedly do not come under the purview of MFI Act, the state government is all set to issue a notification that will replace the word "SHG women" and include a generic word " BPL households", so that MFIs continue to adhere to the stringent norms laid down in the Act. According to sources in the chief minister's office, the law department vetted the notification on Friday in order to ensure that MFIs adhere to the existing stringent rules. "The notification aims at bringing all kinds of MFI loan products, existing and future, under the purview of the Act. The MFIs are lending extensively to poor self-help group women and even their families. The notification will be made public in a day or two," the source at the CMO said.
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