In a Sign of Times, Your Signature is Losing its Stamp

..........The courier boy doesn’t bother verifying it, nor does the retailer while accepting the debit/credit card receipt. Even the banks seem less enthusiastic — the net cast wider for customers in rural areas can manage with thumb impressions, and the middle class is happy with netbanking. The truth is, in a world increasingly turning around passwords and Personal Identification Numbers (PIN), manual signatures are finding fewer takers..........

.......Indian currency notes also carry what seems to be a contradiction: two signatures from one person, since the signature of the RBI Governor appears in both Roman and Devnagari. This is as per the Official Languages Act, which mandates that since our notes are bilingual, the signatures are too, but it leaves open the question of what the protocol will be if a governor has a signature in neither script. Would the other script be Roman or Devnagari? Or would the governor have to sign in these scripts, but not use his regular one?...............

Read - ET

Should RBI Lend its Gold?

.......Already, half of the RBI’s gold is lying in the vaults of Bank of England and the Bank for International Settlements. Bank of England also supplies some of the players from whom Indian banks buy. So, it would mostly be a matter of shifting gold from one shelf to another within the same vault. If the RBI wants to sell off its gold (god forbid!), it can give banks time to call in their loans. The impact on the nation’s current account deficit of replacing foreign suppliers with the RBI could be electric........

Read - ET

Gold has made my wife trust me!

One thing positive has emerged from gold’s fall from grace. My wife has now begun to trust me. Wondering? It is something that happens in every home. Try to drive sense in your better-half, it can be only in vain.......

Read - HBL

Gold makes the vanishing act

.....The price drop, which has triggered an interest in purchasing gold from the retail market has frustrated a good number of customers as retail traders face short supply from wholesalers........

Read - The Hindu

Banks should use biometric device, UID database to verify account holders identity

...True, banks are only complying with the RBI's diktat to periodically update customer identification data: once in five years for low-risk category customers and not less than once in two years for high- and medium-risk category customers. Ordinary citizens are hamstrung. There is no reason why a salaried employee whose tax is deducted at source should provide her identity proof afresh............

Read - ET

ATMs spew torn, soiled notes

Ludhiana, April 19 : Easy cash is in a big trouble. If ATMs spewing counterfeit money across the country weren’t enough, damaged currency notes have made their way to ATMs in the industrial city. And what is worse, banks refuse to accept torn notes dispensed by machines installed by them as transaction slips don’t provide any proof of their ATM dispensing the same. Customers complain of getting torn, mutilated, burnt, cut and pasted notes from ATMs. Avtar Singh, a city resident, had withdrawn cash from an ATM. When he was counting the notes, he was shocked to see a torn note with a tape on it. His woes did not end here. When he contacted an official of the bank concerned, he refused to change the note saying there was no proof that the note was dispensed to him by their ATM. He said it was a serious matter and the RBI should take strict action against banks circulating damaged notes. The damaged notes should be replaced by the bank concerned, he said. “Recently, when I withdrew money from an ATM, I noticed that two notes were torn and one was fixed with a tape. When I approached the bank, officials there expressed their helplessness in replacing the notes,” said Gagan, a teacher. 

Enquiries revealed that despite specific instructions from the RBI, some banks, due to outsourcing and shortage of manpower, are not ensuring that all notes issued by them are authentic. They resort to random tests on cash sorting machines. A senior official from a private bank said: “Since a person has no proof that the specific note was withdrawn from our ATM, we are unable to replace it. The bank replaces soiled and tear notes by cutting a specific amount and customers can get their notes replaced.” 

The Tribune

Banks and funny money

It is a familiar story. Whenever we are confronted by a fresh crisis, we cannot help some recycling of vocabulary on banks, regulators and politicians. So, let me keep it simple. Banks accept deposits from customers. The domestic economy cannot absorb it. So they put the money in Greek bonds. Thanks to the sovereign crisis, Greek bonds suffer a huge haircut. So, banks lose a lot of money. They go under and given their bloated size, drag down their country. This, in simple terms, is what happened in Cyprus..........

Read - HBL

Clubbing allowances with basic pay for PF deduction on cards

......"On the issue of clubbing of wages, even the employers' representatives supported the view that all such allowances which are regularly and uniformly paid to workers should form part of basic pay for PF deductions,"...........

Read - ET

Poor response to settlement scheme

....... "The principal amount of loans is Rs 350 crore and accumulated interest is Rs 1,600 crore. Despite our initiative, no defaulter has responded positively to the appeal to join the OTS and to make the payments. The bank has good deposits, but due to low recovery of outstanding loans, the ratio of erosion of deposit is 30%. Unless we bring it down to 20%, there is no hope of the bank coming back on track."..........

Read - TOI

Pensioners’ hope for better service

........Many of the pensioners expressed such grouses at a ‘town hall’ meet organised by the Karnataka Banking Ombudsman in Mangalore recently. The delay in crediting pension amount to the accounts also irked them. One of the pensioners said that most branches in the city credit the pension amount by 30th of the month. However, some branches took five more days to credit the amount....................

Read - HBL

Suggestions by FSLRC not to come in way of FCRA Bill

Recommendations of the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) to merge all financial market regulators in to one entity will not come in the way of clearing amendments in the Forward Contract Regulations Act amendment (FCRA) Bill.......

Read | Business Standard

Why Goldman thinks general elections will help India grow by 6.4

.....Crisil had cast doubts whether the government will be able to achieve its stated objective of reigning-in fiscal deficit at 4.8 percent. Among other reasons cited include the expected lowering of interest rates by the RBI besides a drive on the policy front to expedite projects. “Ongoing policy reforms to de-bottleneck infrastructure and other investments, particularly, the Cabinet Committee on Investments can help,” the Goldman Sachs report said. Additionally other factors like the improvement in the global economic climate will also act as a “tailwind,” Goldman said.......

Read...........

Banks told to submit financial inclusion plan for next three years

Banks have been asked to finalise their next three-year Financial Inclusion Plan for the 2013-16 period, according to Deepali Pant Joshi, Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India. Broadly, the plan includes self-set targets for opening rural brick and mortar branches, employing Business Correspondents , covering unbanked villages through branches, Business Correspondents and other modes; and opening no-frills accounts to cater to the financially excluded segments............

Read - HBL

22-year-old's cybersecurity firm protects CID, RBI site

.............The episode would be a turning point for the teenager who realised he could use his skills to protect not harm. Twenty two-year-old Modi now runs his own cybersecurity company, Lucideus Tech, that has a marquee client list that includes the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Criminal Investigation Department, Reserve Bank of India, IBM and various central and state investigative and intelligence agencies...........

Read - TOI

THE CARD GAME

With plastic money gaining popularity among Indian masses, banks are stepping up efforts to increase credit card spends. Many banks have introduced reward programmes to persuade cardholders to use credit cards for booking tickets, paying bills or shopping online..............

Read - BS

‘Reorient outlook on customer service’

MANGALORE, APRIL 19:  

Bankers should reorient their outlook on customer service, according to K.C. Chakrabarty, RBI Deputy Governor. He said this while addressing the members of the Bankers’ Club of Mangalore here. Quoting Chakrabarty, a press release said here that customers are now becoming more and more vulnerable to inappropriate pricing. The possible solution to insulate customers from vulnerabilities is by ensuring that the banks treat their customers fairly............

Read - HBL

Banks will be fined Rs 1 crore for violating a single norm

............The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will now be able slap a penalty of Rs 1 crore on banks for breaching a single norm. If a bank breaches more than one norm, the amount fined will be multiple of Rs 1 crore. Earlier, for single violating the fine was Rs 5 lakh. The new norm comes into effect after Section 46 of the Banking Regulation Act was amended in the last winter session.....................

Read | Business Standard

Goldman Sachs’ five reasons for gradual pickup in India’s GDP growth

.........Even though the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has gradually been reducing rates, there is considerable skepticism in the market about its impact on investment demand. According to Goldman's analysis on the relationship of interest rates and investment demand, a 1 per cent decline in short-end rates (3-month CD) leads to a 2.7 per cent increase in Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF). The impact happens with a lag of four quarters..........

Read - ET

Federal Bank in Rupay League

.............Federal Bank is the first private sector bank and the 10th bank in the country to launch Rupay Card, a press release said. Rupay is the card scheme launched by the National Payment Corporation of India to offer a domestic, open loop, multilateral system ......

Read - HBL

Foreign firms set to cash in on demand for new format cheque scanners

...........A scanner that can scan a lot of 150 cheques will cost around Rs 1.50 lakh. A leading nationalised bank plans to buy around 500 such scanners for its branches in the South, said an official of the bank, who did not want to be named. “It is going to cost a huge amount for us. We need to rely only on global companies, as the demand for such scanners has just started for an Indian company to set up its manufacturing here,” he said. The Reserve Bank of India had asked banks to replace the existing bank cheques to CTS. This means, the collecting bank (presenting bank) sends the encrypted data and captured images of signed cheques to the central processing location (clearing house) for onward transmission to the paying bank (destination or drawee bank)...........

Read - HBL

Chits wriggle past watchdogs

..............None of these companies is registered as chit funds with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) in Bengal, they added. The RoC registration is mandatory to start a company. At least three government regulators come into play when a company or institution tries to raise money from the public — the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda)................

Read - The Telegraph

Soon, PIL in HC seeking ban on chit fund operators

.........The officials also referred to the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes Act enacted by Parliament in 1978 that prohibits chit fund operations. "What happened to this law? What is RBI doing?'' the official questioned.

Read - IE

Nabard seeks standardisation in bank documents

......... "Raigad district central cooperative bank has introduced standardised forms for keeping records of loans, pending payments from farmers, loan sanctioned under various schemes, interest to be charged on it among others. Such standardisation will make documentation simpler as all branches of the banks in the state are being computerised and will be connected to the national financial switch, a requirement for direct cash transfer.".............

Read - TOI

Interest subvention scheme expanded

......Some good news is likely to come the way of exporters on their cost of credit. A technical group, constituted by the Reserve Bank of India, is likely to take a call by this month-end on new measures for reducing the cost of export credit (in foreign currency), Sharma indicated. This group comprises senior officials from the Directorate General of Foreign Trade, Revenue Department and the RBI.............

Read - HBL

PFRDA tightens investment norms for private pension fund managers

Tightening its norms for  the private sector, in the National Pension System (NPS), the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has barred fresh investments in equity mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from the corpus. It has also asked these fund managers to restrict their single-industry exposure to 15 per cent of NPS investments under all schemes...........

Read | Business Standard