Daily Business, Banking and Economic Affairs: 5-8th Oct 2021

Daily Business, Banking and Economics Affairs for IBPS, RBI, SBI, NABARD Exam. Latest Business, Banking, Economy and Financial Affairs. Read Latest Business News from Banking Sector, Corporate, Companies, Financial Institution in Detail.

Business, Banking and Economic Affairs is one of the Most prominent sector in General Awareness Section of any Banking Exams like SBI PO, IBPS PO, RBI GRADE B, NABARD Grade A, LIC AAO, SBI Clerk, SEBI Grade A etc.

We are here for you to provide the important Recent and Latest Banking Current Affairs, Economic Affairs, Industry In News, Companies in News, Business In News  from 1st - 4th October 2021, which have unique updates of Latest Current Affairs 2021 events  from all newspapers such as The Hindu, The Economic Times, PIB, Times of India, PTI, Indian Express, Business Standard and all Government official websites.

Our Current Affairs September 2021 events will help you to get more marks in Banking, Insurance, SSC, Railways, UPSC, CLAT and all State Government Exams. Also, Try our Monthly Current Affairs 2021 PDF and Monthly PIB Summary PDF  which will be a pedestrian to crack your exams.

RBI keeps repo rate unchanged, lowers CPI inflation forecast

• Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday announced the October bi-monthly monetary policy statement, in which he said that the MPC has decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 4% for the eighth straight meeting.
• The MPC continues to maintain its 'Accomodative’ stance. 
• The reverse repo rate will also continue to earn 3.35% for banks for their deposits kept with RBI.

RBI Monetary Policy highlights:

• Increasing IMPS (Immediate Payment Service Transaction) per transaction limit from Rs. 2 lakhs to Rs. 5 lakhs, to enhance customer convenience, enabling instant domestic fund transfer 24 x 7.
• Extension of Rs. 10,000 crore On-Tap Special Liquidity Long Term Repo Operations (SLTRO) for small finance banks, till December 31, 2021
• Introduction of pan-India Framework for Retail Digital Payment Solutions in offline mode, for areas with little or scarce internet access
• Geo-tagging of all existing and new payment system touchpoints, to expand reach of payments acceptance infrastructure
• New fraud prevention cohort (4th Cohort) in RBI's Regulatory sandbox, to provide further impetus to fintech ecosystem
• Continuation of Enhanced Ways and Means Advance Limits and liberalized overdraft measures for states, till March 31, 2022
• Continuation of classifying bank lending to NBFCs as priority sector lending, till March 31, 2022
• Internal Ombudsman Scheme for NBFCs with higher customer interface, to strengthen internal grievance redress mechanism

Variable Reverse Repo (VRR) auctions will be stepped up fortnightly from ₹4 trillion to ₹6 trillion. RBI may complement the 14-day VRR auctions with 28-day VRR auction. Liquidity absorbed in the first week of December under fixed-rate auction to be ₹2-3 trillion, announced the Governor

• Real GDP growth for Q1 of FY 2022-23 is projected at 17.2%
• The GDP forecast includes 7.9% in Q2, 6.8% in Q3 and 6.1% in the fourth quarter (Q4)
• RBI retains gross domestic product (GDP) growth target at 9.5% in FY22
• CPI inflation is seen at 5.3% for this fiscal from earlier estimate of 5.7%

The Governor also gave confidence in being able to meet our export target of $ 400 Billion during FY 2021-22 as exports have remained above $ 30 US Billion in September 2021, for the seventh consecutive month.

• As a relief to the States and UTs, RBI has also extended the interim enhancement of Ways and Means Advance (WMA) limits of Rs. 51,560 Crore up to March 31, 2022.

RBI supersedes boards of 2 Srei group lenders

• The RBI on Monday seized two lenders of the Kolkata-based Srei group citing governance issues and payment defaults, in preparation for referring them to a bankruptcy court.
• The central bank named former Bank of Baroda chief general manager Rajneesh Sharma as administrator of Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd and Srei Equipment Finance Ltd, superseding their boards
• Sharma will be assisted by an advisory committee of R. Subramaniakumar, T.T. Srinivasaraghavan and Farokh N. Subedar.
• Subramaniakumar was earlier administrator for Dewan Housing And Finance Corp. Ltd (DHFL), the only non-bank lender so far referred to insolvency court.

SEBI slaps ₹1.02 cr penalty on Aditya Birla Money for violation of norms

• Markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Monday imposed a penalty of ₹1.02 crore on Aditya Birla Money Ltd for the violation of provisions of Portfolio Managers (PM) regulations, Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices (PFUTP) regulations, code of conduct under SEBI (Stock-Broker) Regulations,1992 and SEBI circulars.

Central Bank of India enters co-lending partnership with lIFL Home Finance

• Central Bank of India on Tuesday announced that has entered into a strategic co-lending partnership with IIFL Home Finance. 
• Under this arrangement, lIFL Home Finance Ltd. will originate and process loans as per jointly formulated credit parameters & eligibility criteria and Central Bank of India will take into its book 80% of the SME LAP Loans under mutually agreed terms

ICICI Bank launches contactless payment solution through iMobile Pay

• ICICI Bank announced the launch of a contactless payment service through its banking app, iMobile Pay, that enables customers to tap their smartphones to pay at POS (Point of Sale) machines of merchant outlets. 
• The service offers improved convenience to over 1.5 crore debit and credit card customers of the Bank as they will no longer need to carry their cards for payments at retail stores.

Axis Bank is the first Indian private bank to do a term SOFR trade finance deal

• Axis Bank on Tuesday said it has become the first Indian private sector bank to arrange a term Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) linked trade financing deal, joining a select group of banks and financial institutions globally who have executed similar transactions.
• The transaction was executed for Hindalco Industries Ltd, the world’s largest aluminium company by revenue, and linked to 90-day SOFR financed by Axis Bank’s GIFT City IBU branch, it said.
• The Reserve Bank of India had issued an advisory in June encouraging banks to cease entering new contracts using LIBOR as a reference rate and instead adopt any Alternative Reference Rate (ARR). 
• The global transition from Libor became necessary after it was discovered in 2007-08 that banks were manipulating the rate, sparking an investigation by Britain’s Financial Services Authority (FSA).

Federal Bank partners CredAvenue for securitisation platform

• Private sector lender Federal Bank on Tuesday said it has tied up with CredAvenue for portfolio management of its securitisation book and implemented CredPool, an institutional debt platform of CredAvenue.
• Federal Bank, in partnership with CredAvenue, has effectively automated the end-to-end processes for direct assignments of retail portfolio

Visa launches India’s first card-on-file tokenization service

• The Reserve Bank had recently issued a final circular making card tokenization mandatory from 1 January 2022.
• Card tokenization is a process of substituting sensitive customer data (such as card number, CVV, etc.) with an algorithmically generated token (encrypted) by a token service provider, which could be the card issuer or payment networks.
• These tokens flow through the payment systems in a secured way without disclosing the customer details or allowing the payment intermediaries (merchants, payment aggregators) to store customer data.

BharatPe forays into Buy Now Pay Later segment with launch of postpe

• Postpe provides credit to customers. Customers can download the app from Play Store and avail interest-free credit limit of up to Rs10 lakh.

In 2020, post-Covid, BharatPe also launched India’s only zero MDR card acceptance terminals – BharatSwipe

Moody’s upgrades outlook on India to stable from negative

The country’s credit rating was, however, unchanged at Baa3, the lowest investment grade.

S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings have also assigned India the lowest investment grade but with a stable and negative outlook, respectively.

• Moody’s has projected the Indian economy to grow at 9.3% in FY22 over a 7.3% contraction in FY21. 
• India's GDP surged 20.1% in the April-June quarter of FY22, its best-ever quarterly figure, mainly on account of low base last year.
• India's fiscal deficit stood at from April-August period stood at ₹4.68 trillion August, touching 31.1% of the budgeted estimate. 
• The government is currently aiming to reduce its fiscal deficit to 6.8% from 9.3% last year.
• In line with its Budget estimates, the Centre has announced it would borrow ₹5.03 lakh crore in the October-March period.
• The government had pegged its gross borrowing target for current fiscal at ₹12.5 lakh crore in the 2021-22 Budget.

What is Baa3 Rating?

• Baa3 is the subdivision of Baa, a credit rating for long-term bonds and investments by Moody's. The Baa is divided into - Baa1, Baa2, Baa3 and Baa. A Baa represents a bond or investment of relatively low-risk. Banks are permitted to make investment in Baa rated bonds.
• Baa3 is the lowest investment grade in the Moody's rating scale. If an economy is rated as Baa3, it implies that it is just one notch above the junk or non-investment grade.

What is the impact of the upgrade?

• Since overseas borrowing costs are tied to a country’s rating and the agencies’ outlook on the nation, an upgrade usually helps in lowering borrowing costs for the government as well as the corporate sector. With chances of default receding and improvement in overall debt service ability, foreign investors take comfort in subscribing to government and corporate bonds at lower rates.

Cabinet approves setting up mega integrated textile parks to create jobs

• The union cabinet has approved a proposal for setting up seven mega integrated textile parks in order to generate employment and attract investments for the sector
• The scheme will have a total outlay of ₹4,445 crore over five years
• The decision is inspired by 5F vision of PM Modi - Farm to Fibre to Factory to Fashion to Foreign
• The PM-MITRA scheme, first announced in the Union Budget 2021, is designed to enable the textile industry to become globally competitive.
• PM-MITRA will offer an opportunity to create an integrated textiles value chain right from spinning, weaving, processing/dyeing and printing to garment manufacturing at one location.
• The value chain at one location and will reduce logistics cost of industry. The scheme is intended to 1 lakh direct and 2 lakh indirect employment per park.

'Delayed recovery': Fitch cuts India's FY22 GDP growth forecast to 8.7%

• Fitch Ratings has cut India's economic growth forecast to 8.7% for the current fiscal but raised GDP growth projection for FY23 to 10%, saying the second Covid-19 wave delayed rather than derail the economic recovery.
• In its APAC Sovereign Credit Overview, Fitch Ratings said India's 'BBB-/Negative' sovereign rating "balances a still-strong medium-term growth outlook and external resilience from solid foreign- reserve buffers, against high public debt, a weak financial sector and some lagging structural factors".
• The ‘Negative’ outlook, it said, reflects uncertainty over the debt trajectory following the sharp deterioration in India's public finances due to the pandemic shock.
• Fitch, however, saw a wider fiscal deficit. "We forecast a 7.2 per cent of GDP (excluding disinvestment) central government deficit in FY 22," it said.

TVS Motor, Tata Power in pact to create EV charging infrastructure in India

• TVS Motor Company, one of India's leading manufacturers of two wheelers and three-wheelers, has entered into a strategic partnership with Tata Power. 
• As part of the MoU, the two companies agreed to drive the comprehensive implementation of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure (EVCI) across India and deploy solar power technologies at TVS Motor locations.
• This will also give the customers of TVS iQube Electric access to the widespread charging network by Tata Power through the TVS Motor customer connect app and Tata Power EZ Charge app across India.

Airtel conducts India’s first rural 5G trial in partnership with Ericsson

• Bharti Airtel on Tuesday informed the stock exchanges that it has conducted India’s first 5G trial in Bhaipur Bramanan village, located on the outskirts of Delhi-NCR region.
• The 5G site infrastructure was powered by Ericsson’s 3GPP-compliant 5G radio

CCI approves Carlyle’s $3 bn Hexaware bid

• The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Tuesday approved global private equity firm Carlyle Group’s bid to acquire Baring Private Equity Asia's (BPEA) Indian portfolio Hexaware Technologies. The deal is expected to be in the range of $3 billion. 

CoinSwitch Kuber onboards Ranveer Singh as brand ambassador

• Ranveer Singh will feature in three ad films for CoinSwitch Kuber’s ongoing ‘Kuch Toh Badlega’ campaign.
• Earlier this month actor Amitabh Bachchan was appointed as the brand ambassador of Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX.

Levi's and Deepika Padukone collaborate to create capsule collection

• American clothing company Levi’s on Wednesday announced the launch of a collection in association with its global brand ambassador and actor Deepika Padukone.

Reliance unveils 'Jio World Drive' with roof-top drive-in theatre in Mumbai's BKC

• Reliance Industries on Thursday announced the launch of its premium retail destination, Jio World Drive (JWD), in Mumbai’s commercial epicenter, Bandra Kurla Complex.

Reliance Retail to launch 7-Eleven stores in India; first outlet to open 9 Oct

• Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL) on Thursday said it has entered into a master franchise agreement with convenience store retailer 7-Eleven, Inc. (SEI), to set up its outlets in India.
• The first 7-Eleven store in India is set to open on 9 October, in Andheri East, Mumbai.
• 7-Eleven, Inc. is a multinational chain of convenience stores, headquartered in Dallas, Texas

TCS extends partnership with SBI for tech solutions

• IT service provider Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Wednesday announced that its partnership with India's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has been extended for another five years to drive innovation and tech solutions. 

News Source : ET, BL, BS, FE and Mint

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