RBI managing banks well: Raghavji

Bhopal : Better bank management plays a significant role in any country’s development and Reserve Bank of India is performing this role very well. This was stated by finance minister Raghavji, while addressing a programme held in village Gondarmau of the city, organised by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday. Raghavji in his address gave detailed information on banking extension and its benefits to common man. He said no nation can progress without better bank management. It is necessary that every person must understand banking system and bring them in practice. He said payment in several schemes of the government is being made through bank. Emphasising on safety of money he said bank is the only measure for protection from loot, theft and fraud.




Financial awareness needed, says H.R.Khan, RBI Deputy Governor



RBI Deputy Governor, H R Khan focusing on financial awareness said the main objective of this programme is to link more and more people with banking system. He said nearly 6,000 villages having more than 2000 population, are covered under this banking system. He appreciated the role of the state government in taking initiative in imparting of financial education in general education. Khan, explaining about various online facilities, said that banks are providing facilities of business facilitator and delivery banking. Small savings are being promoted. Banks through NGOs are working to develop womens interest towards banking. The facility of money transfer is being streamlined. Chief secretary Avani Vaish said students should be informed about banking system as they are the future. RBI Regional Director P K Panda spoke on smart card and other facilities. Bhopal divisional commissioner Pravin Garg, collector Nikunj Kumar Shrivastava, SSP Yogesh Chaudhary, Banking Lokpal Karunakaran were present on the occasion.

FPJ 

Row over parking space at Bakery Junction

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Ownership of the vacant land beneath the Bakery Junction Flyover sparked off a bitter row on Monday morning after local traders and political parties objected to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) taking possession of it. The agitators forcibly removed a signboard and chains the RBI had used to cordon off three slots of parking space for its own use. Things cooled down down after the police arrived on the scene and held talks with both parties. The land in question is opposite the RBI office. The agitators maintained that the RBI had illegally cordoned off public space. But RBI officials, who had also posted two guards in the area, said the plots were allotted to the RBI as compensation for surrendering land free of cost for road-widening. ‘’They have illegally taken possession of public land. It was not merely the RBI, but traders nearby too had given up land for widening the road,’’ said T S Binukumar, CPI local committee secretary. ‘’There is little parking space in this neighbourhood. So, the RBI monopolising the space is unfair. They have asked two days’ time for presenting documents, which we don’t believe they have,’’ he said. But RBI officials denied this, saying that they had proof in writing. According to them, the State Government had allotted them the land for parking six four-wheelers and a smaller section between two pillars of the flyover for parking two-wheelers. ‘’The RBI surrendered 16 cents of land for widening of the road. The State Government had in writing given us the commitment for substitute land,’’ said RBI assistant general manager (Estates Department) R Sudeep. The Kerala Road Fund Board (KRFB), which developed the road in question, supported the RBI view. ‘’It is true the commitment was given. The argument that traders there had also surrendered land is, however, not true, as only RBI land was acquired,’’ KRFB chief operating officer P C Harikesh said. There, in fact, are three parking slots in the disputed area, half of which was earmarked for the RBI and the other half for public use, he said. RBI officials said they had temporarily withdrawn from taking possession of the land owing to the outcry.

IBN Live

Subbarao's multi-recipe problem

.......... Many economists believe although liquidity is not a problem, RBI should cut banks’ Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR). However, some finance ministry officials say cutting the Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) and increasing the use of open market operations (OMO) would be a better way to manage liquidity. The sector has not been hit by a liquidity crunch, but bankers their margins are under pressure and slashing CRR would be right in this environment...........

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ATM devised for sightless customers

MUMBAI: A group of organizations working to make the city disabled-friendly would have made Louis Braille proud on his birth anniversary Wednesday. Having devised a range of software programmes and gadgets that could be used by visually handicapped people, they unveiled the collection at a special function in Bandra, held to mark his birthday. Among them was an automatic teller machine (ATM) that blind people can use to withdraw money. "We inaugurated an online Braille library that allows students to download files and print them to read. There is a full display of access technology like low-vision aids and teaching aids," said Sam Taraporevala, head of sociology at the Xavier's Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged ( XRCVC). The institute partnered the National Association of Visually Handicapped (NIVH), Dehradun, in this exhibition. NCR Corporation, which manufactures ATMs, demonstrated a machine that can be used by sightless customers. "It is a regular ATM fitted with auto-guidance software," said Nagesh Nayak, professional services practice manager of NCR. "One can use a regular headphone and plug it into the jack to receive instructions and operate the numeric keypad on the machine." Operative buttons like 'Enter' and 'Cancel' are embossed and codified. It would help to have Braille stickers affixed to the numeric keypad, though Nayak says that just about 10% sightless people read the script. "The raised dot on the number 5, which is a feature of most keypads, comes in handy to detect the rest of the numbers. People who go blind later in life are scarcely familiar with Braille, it is mostly the young who read it," he said. As for security, should a sighted person catch a glimpse of the screen while a visually-challeged person is operating the machine, all he would see is a blank screen. Unfortunately, banks have been slow to take to this technology primarily for the initial investment it would entail. "However, the Reserve Bank of India has issued guidelines to say that one-third of all the new ATMs must be accessible to the blind," says Taraporevala. 

TOI

New CMD for Andhra Bank

Mr B A Prabhakar, the newly appointed Chairman and Managing Director of Andhra Bank has assumed office. Prior to joining the bank, he was Executive Director of Bank of India for three years. A graduate in commerce and a CA, Mr Prabhakar started his banking career with Bank of Baroda in 1977 as a direct recruit officer. He worked in the UK and Zambia also, said a press release from Andhra Bank.

HBL

Bank of India gets new ED

Mr M. S. Raghavan has taken over as Executive Director of Bank of India. Prior to his elevation as ED, Mr Raghavan was General Manager with Indian Overseas Bank. He has worked extensively in the areas of Credit, Operations and Information Technology.

HBL

Reviving loan growth to top agenda in RBI-bankers meet

Central bank to seek feedback from banks on liquidity situation, deposit growth and recent policy changes. Revival of credit demand is likely to dominate discussions when bankers meet top officials of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) next Tuesday. The meeting will take stock of economic parameters ahead of the central bank’s third quarter review of annual monetary policy on January 24. The central bank is expected to seek feedback from banks on loan demand, liquidity situation, deposit growth and some recent policy changes with respect to deregulation of savings bank deposit rate and non-resident (external) deposit rates. “The recovery in credit growth is critical for the economy. The growth in bank loans has remained slow, partly because of rising interest rates and partly due to uncertain macroeconomic environment, which has restricted business activities. We are planning to discuss this issue and find a solution,” said the chairman and managing director of a public sector bank. The high interest rate regime has slowed down credit offtake. The growth in bank advances fell to a 21-month low in mid-December. According to data released by RBI, bank credit expanded 17.08 per cent annually as on December 16. It was below the central bank’s 18 per cent growth forecast for 2011-12. With inflation easing, bankers said, there was a strong case for the banking regulator to cut interest rates. This will, in turn, help revive the demand for bank credit. “It’s too early to forecast if RBI will actually cut the rates later this month. But the market widely expects a rate cut. This is reflected in yields that have come down sharply in the past few days despite talks of higher government borrowing. We think it is the right time to cut rates, as inflation appears to have peaked and credit growth is slow,” said a senior official of a city-based bank. The yield on 10-year government bond closed at 8.36 per cent on Wednesday, compared to 8.57 per cent on December 30. The central bank raised its key policy rates 13 times between March 2010 and October 2011, before taking a pause in the mid-quarter review in December. RBI has signalled a reversal policy stance amid mounting concerns over economic growth. “From here on, we could expect reversal of monetary tightening. But it’s difficult to say when that will take place and in what shape it will roll out,” RBI Governor Duvvuri Subbarao said in an interview published on the BBC website on Monday. A moderation in inflation has raised hopes RBI may start reducing its key interest rates in the forthcoming credit policies. Headline inflation dropped to 9.1 per cent in November, from 9.73 per cent in the previous month, while food inflation declined to 0.42 per cent. In a recent interaction with economists, RBI indicated there was no structural or systemic risk to the liquidity position in the money market. This was despite liquidity deficit hovering around Rs 1 lakh crore, above the central bank’s comfort zone of +/- 1 per cent of net demand and time liabilities. “RBI officials reiterated they did not see any systemic or structural risk to the liquidity position in the money markets. The officials argued if liquidity was indeed structurally tight, then the associated stress would have been visible in the marginal standing facility window — an emergency facility which market participants can tap to avail liquidity, albeit at a higher cost than the liquidity adjustment facility window,” Taimur Baig and Kaushik Das, economists at Deutsche Bank, who met senior RBI officials, said. The economists also said RBI officials noted cuts in the cash reserve ratio (CRR) were advisable at this juncture, as such a move would be tantamount to giving a monetary easing signal, which in the central bank’s assessment, was premature at this stage, given the evolving growth inflation dynamics. “RBI seemed to be indicating that probably, the CRR tool would be used only as a last resort, in case any major external risks were to pose a destabilising threat to domestic financial markets,” the economists said. According to bankers, other topics of discussion may include some long pending reform in the banking sector, including new banking licences and holding company structure. 

BS

Expect RBI to maintain liquidity: Central Bank of India

...... "As a banker I would say that the basic requirement which the central bank has to take care is that despite borrowing from the government would there be adequate liquidity available for the private sector, the markets."..............

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NSI to probe black money invested in post office savings schemes

However, NSI is expected to face several challenges in the job. The move was initiated in August, but NSI officials are yet to be trained, so inspections have not been started. A decision has now been taken to train officials through the financial intelligence unit (FIU), which does the job for Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials too............

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After dissaving, get ready for cost-cut measures

........Reserve Bank of India Governor Duvurri Subbarao was left with little option to counter that, so he raised interest rates. And, as the months went into double digits, so did interest costs.....

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SIB M-Pay launched

Kochi, Jan. 4: Mr B. Sambamurthy, Director, IDRBT, the technical arm of the Reserve Bank of India, has launched South Indian Bank's mobile banking service — SIB M-Pay — on CBS platform, which enables fund transfer round-the-clock throughout the year. The scheme facilitates the convenience of fund transfer to other banks even on holidays. The customer receives the money instantly to the account from anyone without sharing the account number. All transactions are followed by an instant SMS confirmation . All the facilities offered are without any additional charge. Mr Gigo Joseph, CEO, Infopark, released the wallet size ‘User Guide' on SIB M-Pay by handing over a replica to Mr Abraham Thariyan, Executive Director, South Indian Bank. Mr P. J. Jacob, DGM, DICT, South Indian Bank, welcomed the gathering and Mr A. Sony, AGM, Marketing, SIB, delivered the vote of thanks.

HBL

Depositors in urban India not aware of interest rate: Nielsen

MUMBAI: A huge section of depositors in urban India are not aware of the interest rate they earn on their saving rate deposits even as the banking regulator recently deregulated the rates resulting in several banks offering higher rate to attract customers. A research by Nielsen shows that nearly 46% did not know interest they are earning from their bank while 54% of the account holders were aware of the savings rate they were earning from their bank. Of this, 18% knew the correct savings rate. Saving account was in the news a month ago after the Reserve Bank of India freed deposit rate, which was capped at 4% earlier. As a result, banks like Yes Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank began offering 6% on savings account deposits. However State Bank of India and HDFC Bank, which have almost 50% of their deposits in form of savings and current account, continue to offer 4% on saving account deposits. The research was conducted in November- December across 9 cities -Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Ludhiana and Bhubaneshwar, which involved face to face interviews among 738 respondents, said a statement by Nielsen.  The study revealed that 57% of savings account holders kept money in their savings account for medical emergencies. Half of savings account holders said keeping money in savings account made them feel confident about accessing their money any time.

ET

Reversing India's downward trajectory

... The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) does not need the approval of our contentious politics, nor of the public. All it needs is the understanding and willingness to reduce interest rates. If this happens, large businesses can concentrate on domestic investment instead of being driven offshore to protect their future, while small and medium businesses are not emasculated by high interest.......

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Market is expecting more than RBI can deliver: DSP BlackRock

......... As you may be aware of the fact that post the Reserve Bank of India Governor's comment on Monday regarding reversal of the credit policy, the market participants have assumed that the Reserve Bank of India is likely to cut rates faster than earlier anticipated date of March or April. And as a result of which,...........

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RBI asks Banks to acknowledge loan applications of MSMEs

January 4, 2012: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has today issued a notice to all scheduled commercial banks advising them to devise a system of giving acknowledgement for receipt of all loan applications. RBI has received complaints from the industry associations that banks are not acknowledging loan applications. “It is therefore, reiterated that the banks should mandatorily acknowledge all loan applications, submitted manually or online, by their MSME borrowers”, RBI said. Banks are also asked to ensure that a running serial number is recorded on the application form as well as on the acknowledgement receipt. Earlier the banks were also advised to put in place a Central Registration of loan applications and to use same technology for online submission of loan applications as also for online tracking of loan applications as recommended by the Working Group on Rehabilitation of sick MSME Units. 

Microfinance Focus

Vijay Sai Reddy clever, but CBI proves too smart

V Vijay Sai Reddy,

Honorary Consul General of Georgia,

Director, Reserve Bank of India

This was probably how Vijay Sai Reddy's visiting card would have read had the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) not registered a case against him and arrested him on Monday.....

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Govt whips PSBs for priority sector lending target slippages

..... According to RBI data, though priority sector lending saw growth of 18 per cent in 2010-11, that in agricultural advances decelerated to nine per cent as compared to 23 per cent in the previous year. In 2009-10, only two PSBs missed the targets and in the year before that, only one had done so. In 2007-08, all PSBs met the target............

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Recession is a state of mind

.......The stock markets are in doldrums, which means that the one hope of raising relatively cheaper money is gone. The tailwind of the RBI's brutal monetary tightening cycle of last year is still lashing the money markets, which means that money for businesses to operate and grow is still hard to come by and extremely expensive...........

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Policy deficit

.............Given this background, what are the policy options available? Well, not much in the short term, even while one must commend the RBI for not draining away its forex reserves in a futile intervention to defend the rupee. ...........

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Rupee on a weak wicket despite RBI moves

.....despite the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) having taken a series of measures aimed at boosting dollar inflows to prop up the rupee. While the momentum may have been arrested, the slide has continued.............

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Bengal to set up panel to finalise annual credit plan

Kolkata, Jan. 4: The West Bengal government plans to set up a committee to finalise the annual credit plan for the State for the year 2012-13. The committee will have various stakeholders including banks, government officials, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) and Reserve Bank of India, according to the State Finance Minister, Mr Amit Mitra...........

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