......Relief for the families of the 4,120 persons missing in Uttarakhand flash flood during June 14-20, 2013. All the scheduled commercial banks of the country are advised to settle the claims related to family members of the missing persons on submission of two documents according to a late evening circular form The Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The family members of the missing persons can get the claims settled by submitting two documents – the death certificate issued by the designated officer under Ministry Home Affairs circular and a letter of indemnity.........
The very purpose of VITALINFO is to provide a platform for wider dissemination of updated information related to and happening of events in and around RBI.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Policy watch: P-notes: The big money laundering machine
....The RBI notification compelled banks and investors to cut their dollar positions. Curiously, nobody in the policy circles probed further. It was as if everyone knew that some FIIs had been short-selling the rupee in non-deliverable trades without prior formal sanction from P-note holders. It was as if someone powerful in the government had given them the go-ahead, confident that nobody would intervene. That is, till the RBI decided to pull the plug. P-notes were prevented from eroding the rupee.........
Soaring vegetable prices fuelling inflation: Rangarajan
... “Capital flows will not only be adequate to cover the deficit but may even add to reserves, he added. With regard to fiscal deficit, the former Reserve Bank of India Governor said there is a need to raise the revenue-GDP ratio and contain expenditure, more particularly subsidies which need to be pruned, well-focussed and prioritised. “Government has to decide which subsidies must take preference over others. What is needed is to have a fix on the quantum of subsidies to be provided as a proportion of GDP or of government revenue,” he said, adding several policy actions that may be not popular were needed...........
Banks should show real yield on fixed deposits
..........However, banks continue to follow less transparent practice with other products and most important among them is the interest paid on fixed deposits (FDs). For example, the FD pamphlets from most banks usually carry two columns - one for the interest rate and other for the "annualised yield". The explanation to the annualised yield............
Over 19,000 micro and small units turn sick in AP
...........While 7,818 sick units were reported to be potentially viable, only 3,527 units were put under nursing, according to the press release. The federation urged the RBI to hasten the process of rehabilitation of these units at the earliest.
Microfinance crisis leads to loss of 35,000 jobs
........The headcount at another microlender, Spandana Sphoorty Financial Ltd, has come down to 4,400 from 13,500 in October 2010. While some of the former employees moved to other private financiers, many still remain jobless. Before the crisis, Andhra Pradesh was the biggest market for microfinance, accounting for more than one-fourth of the total assets of the industry. The southern state is now home to about Rs.6,000 crore of bad loans. MFIs depend on loans from large commercial banks. In 2011, banks restructured about Rs.6,000 crore worth of loans to six microlenders after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allowed them to do so without terming them non-performing assets or bad loans.........
Hidden debit card surcharge adds 'cost' fire to fuel in Bhopal
...Last year, RBI asked banks to cap charges on debit card transactions at 0.75% for transaction values up to Rs 2,000 and 1% for larger transactions. While banks are tightlipped on the issue, petrol pump owners say they refused to pay merchant discount rate (MDR) to banks and in turn banks are passing on the charge to customers..........
Zero-liability cards are useful
............... To protect yourself against this, you can opt for credit or debit cards which have the zero-liability feature. Both Visa and MasterCard offer this feature. RuPay will start offering this by the end of this year or early January, said an official from National Payments Corporation of India. But unless your card issuing bank offers this facility, you cannot avail of it. Banks have to incur an additional cost for the insurance to cover the liability in case of a loss of card, which pushes up their cost, which is why not all banks offer it, while some offer it on select cards...........
First Indonesian bank branch
.............“Our intention is to see how can we grow our business in Mumbai, and at the same time interact with regulators, including the RBI, in terms of how fast and where can we expand our services in the country,”.....
NRI takes 5% stake in Dhanlaxmi Bank
Prominent non-resident Indian (NRI) businessman M A Yusuffali has acquired 4.99 per cent stake in Thrissur- headquartered Dhanlaxmi Bank. However, he has not disclosed the amount of investment in Dhanlaxmi. After acquiring close to five per cent stake each in Federal Bank and Catholic Syrian Bank (CSB) this year itself, Yusuffali 's latest move is very crucial for Kerala’s banking sector...........
Monday, October 21, 2013
Depositors’ interests must be paramount - Dr.S.S.Tarapore
Tradeoffs inevitable in managing currency, says Gokarn
..........“The rupee rising is bringing down the cost of unavoidable imports. It is therefore feeding through into lower inflationary pressures domestically. So, to prevent the currency from rising in an inflationary situation means that you are going to have to do something more on the interest rate side to offset the inflationary pressures of an undervalued currency. That is the choice that has to be made,”.............
PlanCom member Narendra Jadhav keen to contest on Congress ticket
............ “The Congress high command will take a final decision on Jadhav's nomination. In Jadhav, the party will nominate an educationist with a reckoning at the global level.” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called Jadhav, “a role-model for the disempowered millions in our country.” As an economist, Jadhav worked with Reserve Bank of India, the International Monetary Fund, the Afghan and Ethiopian governments. As vice chancellor of Pune University, Jadhav transformed it to a model state university in India. In 2008, the Maharashtra chief minister appointed him as the chairman of a one man high powered committee in the context of farmers’ suicides. The Jadhav Committee Report has been accepted by the government and is being implemented.......
“Updation of Pension” - A misnomer
...........The Government has wrongly taken
the demand for “Updation of Pension” as a demand for revision of the “Pension
Scheme” itself. It has therefore to be clarified that the demand is only for
rectification of the anomaly in difference of the amount of pension paid to the
present Pensioners and others who
retired earlier...................
Give Me That Promotion, Sir !!
The following poem of Dr Tapan Kumar Pradhan, Assistant General Manager, Thiruvananthpuram has entered the Final
of Poemhunter World Wide Poetry Contest. You may like to read it, as many
people have found it quite interesting....
VITALINFO- Always n All ways Appreciable - Dr.T.V.Gopalakrishnan
May I request you to add Ms.
Niranjana Shah to your invaluable VITALINFO. She was, for many years, in
the erstwhile CPC and then in DBOD and the Ombudsman's Office in Ahmedabad and
Mumbai. I had the opportunity of working with her in the CPC for many years. Warm
regards,
- S.S.Tarapore
Dear Mangesh,
I am presently in Singapore and now I feel all the more the importance
and utility of your blog. I am able to keep myself updated with the latest in
Banking, Finance and Indian Economy. You are really doing a wonderful job with
all commitment, sincerity and involvement and no word of appreciation will be
adequate enough to acknowledge your efforts and painstaking in bringing all the
information under the world of Finance together for the benefit of many who are
in India and abroad. May god bless you with all strength and enthusiasm always
and in all ways.
–
Dr.T.V.Gopalakrishnan
I came across VITALINFO and
I found it to be good and interesting. Kindly
include my name also in the list to enable me to have it regularly. Regards
- S K Shukla, Manager,
Planning Cell
HRMD, CO, Mumbai
HRMD, CO, Mumbai
NEW RS.10 NOTES
This is with reference to the Reserve Bank of India’s announcement about new Rs.10 currency notes with signatures of new RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan. Only some time back the RBI had announced plastic notes of the same denomination in select Indian cities on an experimental basis. The RBI should issue plastic notes rather than the traditional paper ones. With currency notes of smaller denominations — Re.1, Rs.2 and Rs.5 — already discontinued, the RBI should issue smaller-sized notes to save on currency printing. Sizes of currency notes were last reduced about half-a-century ago, when currency notes of Re.1 and Rs.2 were quite common in circulation. With coins in the denominations of Rs.5 and Rs.10 already in circulation, the RBI should discontinue printing notes of these denominations too. Since the life of lower denomination currency notes is quite low, it is senseless to waste public money on printing lower denomination currency notes of up to Rs.10. India should follow the example of the United Kingdom and the United States and stop printing currency notes of higher denomination like Rs.1,000 to check the menace of black money and fake currency.
Madhu Agrawal, Dariba, Delhi (Hindu)
Forthright and fearless - Ramphal will be remembered........
My View on Touching tribute by Shri Donde
I have been following your daily inputs starting with Mr. Donde's beautiful narration of the qualities of two comrades who have started their next journey. I had the privilege of interacting with Shri Ramphal Sharma as a fellow active member of the Officer's association. The most likeable quality in him was his forthrightness, fearlessness and sincerity of purpose. He was never scared of calling a spade a spade. But then always smiling. When ever I visited Delhi I made it a point to meet Ramphalji for a few minutes and to enjoy his tidbits.
May his soul rest in peace.
- B K Katyal
SBI rewards performers with overseas training
Talent
retention is increasingly emerging as a challenge for public sector banks
(PSBs). Their limited ability to reward top performers is one area where PSBs
lose out to private sector peers. With some new banks expected to enter the
space in about a year or so, the competition for talent is sure to get tougher.
Recently, banking major SBI hit upon an idea to reward its performers in a way
that may become an example for other PSBs. Last fiscal was a good year for
DFHL, the bond dealing arm of SBI. However, it was not possible for the bank to
reward DFHL’s top performers with huge bonuses or hikes. So Pratip Chaudhuri,
the recently retired chairman of SBI, offered DFHL’s performers a week’s training at London School of Economics
or Euromoney — at the bank’s expense. The training helped the executives
establish foreign links for the bank’s bond house, which is almost a necessity
in the present market.
TOI
New RTGS system to improve financial market efficiency: Rajan
.......“With its advanced liquidity and queue management features, the new RTGS system is expected to significantly improve the efficiency of financial markets,” Mr. Rajan said while inaugurating the ISO 20022-compliant system. The RTGS system is used to settle interbank fund transfers by banks and their customers and is critical in facilitating orderly settlement of payment obligations. With its implementation, new regulations will replace the operating guidelines and regulations of 2004.......
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