The drivers and staff of all vehicles classified as ‘transport’ will be brought under the definition of ‘third party’ in third party insurance policies, the finance ministry said today. This will cover buses, vans and other commercial transport vehicles and will be implemented through the upcoming amendment to theMotor Vehicles Act. At present, only the driver […]
With the country’s largest bank, State Bank of India, refusing to rollback service charges for customers who do not maintain a minimum balance in their accounts, only Oriental Bank of Commerce, UCO Bank and Punjab & Sind Bank remain as ‘free’ providers of savings bank services, according to an analysis of RBI data. SBI said […]
Punjab National Bank, the third largest public sector bank in India, and smaller cousin Corporation Bank can teach bigger siblings like State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda a thing or two about going after big loan defaulters, an analysis of Reserve Bank of India data shows. In the last four years, these two banks […]
Yes Bank, one of India’s youngest, and fastest-growing banks, said it had no plans to go for a billion-dollar qualified institutional placement of its shares as reported by the media. The bank had tried to do a mega share sale in September last year, but the effort didn’t find success for various reasons. This time, […]
Bank of Baroda said its board of directors had approved the raising of up to Rs 1,000 cr by selling perpetual bonds. The bonds would be sold via private placement, i.e. without a public auction or book building. The timing and other details will be determined by market conditions, the Gujarat-based bank said. Bank of […]
State Bank of India and HDFC Bank were the most successful in attracting and retaining deposits in the wake of demonetization of currency, according to an analysis of their deposits growth so far this financial year. The highest growth was reported by State Bank of India, which added a massive Rs 3.15 lakh cr of […]
Incidents of fraud and theft involving credit and debit cards have fallen sharply in the current financial year, according to data for the first nine months provided by the Reserve Bank of India. While the exact reasons for the sharp decrease is not known, banks in India have been putting in more and more precautions after […]
The demonetization of high-value currency notes saw a rise in the number of bank robberies towards the end of 2016, but all of the increase came from just three states — Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar and Haryana. Overall, cases of theft, robbery and loot of on bank properties increased by 11% in the last three months […]
PayTM, India’s biggest mobile payment company and a minority subsidiary of Alibaba Group, said it partnered with Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur to bring its cashless payment solution to the country’s premier engineering college. Under the program, students will be able to make payments using the mobile app at hostel canteens, medical store, tea stalls, […]
Private equity and venture capital firms are largely bullish on India in the context of big economic reforms, but are awaiting the results of the ongoing Uttar Pradesh elections to assess the level of popular support that such policies enjoy, according to a survey by VCCircle. VCCircle, which tracks private investment activity in India, said […]
Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom company, will take a crucial step towards entering the financial services business as it launches its Payments Bank operation across India tomorrow. Payments Bank refers to a limited operations bank that can be primarily used for making transactions, and not for depositing money. The operator has already started operations of […]
Customers of PayTM, India’s largest wallet service can now make payments using the Unified Payments Interface, the government of India’s open payments platform. The company has signed up with ICICI Bank be able to receive payments from its customers who are on the UPI platform using its ID ‘paytm@icici’. However, customers cannot simply transfer the money to […]
Paynear, which helps shopkeepers and businesses to accept card payments without buying a point-of-sale (POS) machine, has tied up with Axis Bank to implement support for UPI or Unified Payment Interface. UPI allows users to send and receive money and make payments using IDs that resemble email addresses (for example, rajesh@icici). Paynear is an Indian […]
The Reserve Bank of India has responded to widespread criticism of its directive to collect ‘explanations’ from those depositing more than Rs 5000 by clarifying that this directive will not apply to bank accounts with proper documentation. “On a review of the above, we advise that the provisions of the above circular at sub para […]
Snapdeal-owned FreeCharge has tied up with ICICI Bank’s Merchant Services, which will allow consumers to pay their bill at over 1 Lakh ICICI stores with their Freecharge accounts. These merchants are located at across 700 cities and towns in India, the company said. “FreeCharge’s partnership with ICICI Merchant Services, powered by First Data, will ease […]
Old notes will no longer be accepted at petrol pumps and airline ticket counters starting from Saturday, according to sources. So far, petrol pumps and airlines had been given an exemption from demonetization of 500 and 1000 rupee notes. However, in an effort to control the widespread ‘whitening’ of black money, the government is gearing […]
The surge in populism and anti-establishment sentiment witnessed in the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election seem likely to push structural policies in the direction of economic nationalism, said Fitch Ratings in its latest global economic outlook (GEO). This will result in a reduction in trade openness and international labour […]
The government has banned over-the-counter exchange of old 500- and 1000-rupee notes due to suspected gaming of the system by those with black money. According to banking industry sources, the over-the-counter exchange system was being massively misused by hawala operators and others who had illegal funds to convert their old currency into new notes. “The system […]
Despite a moderation in India’s GDP growth rate in the short term due to cash crunch, the Indian economy will still grow faster than that of China, global ratings agency Fitch said. “We still expect India’s GDP growth to trend higher than China’s in the medium term,” said the agency, whose primary job is to […]
Airtel Payments Bank, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel Limited, today said that it has rolled out a pilot of its banking services in Rajasthan. The pilot is aimed at testing systems and processes ahead of a full scale pan Indian launch. With this, Airtel Bank has become the first payments bank in the country to […]
