Banking Awareness Questions for IBPS PO and Clerk | 01st November 2018

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed state-owned oil companies to borrow long term working capital from overseas. RBI relaxed the policy on borrowing up to 10 billion US dollar from the overseas by the state owned fuel retailers. Till now oil marketing companies including Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd, were not allowed to raise external commercial borrowing (ECB) for working capital needs on a long-term basis. Now, the RBI has allowed them to raise ECB of minimum maturity of 3 or 5 years.

The Reserve Bank has released operational guidelines to facilitate payments among prepaid instruments (PPI) such as mobile wallets, a move aimed at promoting digital transactions. The guidelines elaborate on requirements for achieving inter-operability for mobile wallets and cards, and norms for customer protection and grievance redressal. According to the guidelines, inter-operability among mobile wallets, and between bank account and e-wallet would be enabled through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system.

The government has doubled the monetary limit to 20 lakh rupees for filing loan recovery application in the Debt Recovery Tribunals (DRT) by banks and financial institutions. A Finance Ministry notification stated the move is aimed at helping reduce pendency of cases in DRTs.There are 39 DRTs in the country.

Nearly two dozen lenders, led mostly by state-run banks has signed the Inter-Creditor Agreement (ICA) framework to speed up the resolution of stressed assets which are under Rs 500 crore bracket.

Sunil Mehta Committee, set up to look into the faster resolution of stressed assets, recommended the creation of an asset management company for the resolution of stressed loans worth more than Rs. 500 crores. It recommended a five-pronged strategy Project 'SASHAKT' to deal with Non-Performing Assets in the country's banking system. The strategy includes:

1. SME resolution approach,

2. Bank-led resolution approach,

3. AMC/AIF led resolution approach,

4. NCLT/IBC approach, &

5. Asset-trading platform.

Insolvency & Bankruptcy Board of India notified the IBBI (Insolvency Resolution Process for Corporate Persons) (Third Amendment) Regulations, 2018. IBBI has mandated that a resolution professional should determine whether a corporate debtor indulged in fraudulent transactions within a specified time period during the resolution process. IBBI is based in New Delhi.

Punjab National Bank (PNB) bagged "Rajbhasha Kirti" award for outstanding performance in implementing the Official Language Policy during 2017-18.

Punjab National Bank announced that the Department of Financial Services report has rated it as number one state-owned bank in terms of digital transactions.

State Bank of India and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development have joined hands to provide collateral-free credit through Joint Liability Groups inTelangana. The two signed an MoU, along with seven NGOs from Nizamabad, Medak and Warangal districts, for the promotion and credit linkage of 2,000 JLGs during the current year.

Chanda Kochhar, the first woman to head India’s second-biggest private sector lender by assets, called time on her three-decade career at ICICI Bank even as a probe continues into alleged irregularities in granting of some loans during her nineyear chief executive tenure.

Axis bank become the first bank in the country to introduce Iris Scan Authentication feature for Aadhaar -based transactions through its micro ATM tablets.

Paytm Payments Bank has appointed veteran banker Satish Kumar Gupta as managing director and CEO. Gupta comes in after Renu Satti stepped down as CEO in July and moved on to head the company’s new retail business.

Fino Payments Bank, one of India's first payments banks, has been allowed to open new accounts by RBI after it submitted a compliance report.

Ujjivan Small Finance Bank launched an overdraft (OD) facility for micro & small enterprise (MSE) customers. OD facility is offered to all MSEs with a turnover of Rs 50 lakh or more. Interest rate is for one year, with a credit limit between Rs. 11 lakh to a maximum of Rs 50 lakh, which can be renewed annually.

SEBI has approved a proposal to allow foreign investors to trade in commodity derivatives market, except for sensitive commodities, as well as common application form for the registration of FPIs in the domestic market.