Banking, Finance & MoU related news RBI sets up task force on Public Credit Registry The Reserve Bank of India on 23 October 2017 constituted a 10-member ‘High Level Task Force on Public Credit Registry (PCR) for India’. The task force will be headed by YM Deosthalee, ex-CMD of L&T Finance Holdings. The other members of the task force are Sekar Karnam, Vishaka Mulye, Rashesh Shah, Sriram Kalyanaraman, Bidisha Ganguly, Sharad Sharma, Vivek Srivastava, Parvathy V. Sundaram and Anujit Mitra. The Task Force will have its secretariat at Department of Statistics & Information Management. Terms of reference of the Task Force - To review the current availability of information on credit in India. - To assess the gaps in India that can be filled by a comprehensive PCR. - To study the best international practices on PCR. - To determine the scope of the comprehensive PCR along with the type of information to be covered along with cut-off size of credit. IndusInd Bank launches m-wallet with MobiKwik IndusInd Bank, in association with MobiKwik, announced the launch of a co-branded wallet ‘IndusInd MobiKwik’ that allows its customers to pay at the MobiKwik merchant network using their accounts, with a ’Direct Debit Feature’ The direct debit feature will allow IndusInd Bank account holders to link their accounts just once and pay using the co- branded app as and when required, thereby eliminating the need to load the MobiKwik prepaid wallet separately. SBI signs MoU with Escorts for tractor financing The State Bank of India (SBI), the country's largest public sector lender, said it has signed an agreement with Escorts Limited to finance farmers for the purchase of Escorts tractors. The aim of the tie-up with Escorts is to promote, market and make accessible, organised finance facility, with superior features, at competitive interest rates to farmers across the country, who wish purchase Powertrac and Farmtrac tractors manufactured by Escorts, a statement issued here said. Farm mechanisation is essential for sustaining agricultural growth especially in the context of diminishing agricultural labour. However, large communities of small and marginal farmers are still not in a position to take full benefit of farm mechanisation because of lack of awareness, low availability of finance, fragmented land holding etc. www.exampundit.in EEPC inks pact with PNB to extend finance to SMEs, exporters The Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) of India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Punjab National Bank to provide easy access to finance to SMEs and merchant exporters of the council. Punjab National Bank will provide finances with assurance that loans up to Rs. 10 crore would be provided within six to seven weeks at competitive rates, said a press statement issued by EEPC India. According to the agreement, PNB would also extend foreign currency loan facilities and provide advisory support to the EEPC India members to finance projects through its more than 200 authorised foreign exchange branches. 1 | P a g e TRAI recommends 40% reduction in carbon emissions in telecom network by 2023 The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on 24 October 2017 recommended 40 per cent reduction in carbon emissions in telecom networks by 2022-23. The telecom regulator has also suggested that the government should pass all the benefits granted under various schemes for using renewable energy technologies to telecom operators. The TRAI in its recommendation to the Department of Telecom, on approach towards sustainable telecommunications stated: - The target for reduction in carbon emission be set as 30 per cent by year 2019-20 taking base year as 2011-12 and 40 per cent by the year 2022-23. - The targets should be reviewed in the year 2022-23. Union Government announces Bank Recapitalisation Plan to boost Indian Economy The Union Finance Ministry on 24 October 2017 announced Rs 2.11-lakh crore Bank Recapitalisation Plan for Public Sector Banks (PSBs). The move comes after the Public sector Banks have been struggling to come out of bad loans. Banks will get Rs 1.35 lakh crore from bonds, Rs 18,000 crore from the Budget and raise the remaining Rs 58,000 crore through sale of share. Another substantial announcement made by the Union Finance Minister was allocation of Rs 6.92 lakh crore in the infrastructure sector with Modi Government’s roads and highways project Bharatmala plan. Simply put, recapitalisation of banks mean adding capital to Public Sector Undertaking Banks. As owners of PSUs government can provide capital to these banks. It is different from loan because a loan has to be repaid whereas recapitalisation injects money without incurring any liability. Union Government and ADB sign USD 300 Million Loan to promote fiscal reforms in West Bengal The Union Government and Asian Development Bank on 24 October 2017 signed USD 300 million loan to promote a series of fiscal reforms in West Bengal to improve the quality of public service delivery. The program agreement was signed by Parwez Ahmad Siddiqui, Secretary of Finance Department of West Bengal. Besides the loan, ADB will also provide technical assistance grant of USD 500000 to strengthen key institutions responsible for carrying out fiscal management reforms in the state. This 'Second West Bengal Development Finance Program' targets a further increase in public investment through reduction of unproductive expenditure, and savings from efficiencies in revenue collections. www.exampundit.in Union Ministries of Power & Textiles jointly launch 'SAATHI' Initiative The Union Ministries of Power and Textiles on 24 October 2017 jointly launched an initiative 'SAATHI' (Sustainable and Accelerated Adoption of efficient Textile technologies to Help small Industries). Under this initiative, Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a public sector entity under the Union Ministry of Power, will acquire energy efficient Powerlooms, motors and Rapier kits in bulk and provide them to the small and medium Powerloom units. 2 | P a g e This aggregation, bulk procurement and financing model that EESL has earlier deployed in several sectors like LED bulbs, Smart Meters and Electric Vehicles. The 'SAATHI' initiative of the Government will be jointly implemented by EESL and the office of the Textile Commissioner on a pan-India basis. Initially, cluster wise demonstration projects and workshops will be organized in key clusters such as Erode, Surat, Ichalkaranji, etc. Union Government approves 7 lakh crore highway projects to develop 83000 km roads The Union Government on 24 October 2017 approved mega highway projects to build 83677 km of highways over the next five years at a cost of Rs 7 lakh crore. These highway projects include the ambitious Bharatmala project which is the second-largest highway project after National Highways Development Project (NHDP) that saw development of about 50000 km of roads. The Bharatmala Pariyojana or Project will subsume all the existing highway projects, including the flagship National Highways Development Project (NHDP). Referred as "Connecting India like never before", Bharatmala project is an umbrella programme for roads under which 34800 km of highways will be constructed at a cost of Rs 5.35 lakh crore. Bharatmala Project will include 9000 km of economic corridors, 6000 km of inter-corridor and feeder routes, 5000 km of national corridors efficiency improvement, 2000 km of border road connectivity, 800 km of expressways and 10000 km of balance NHDP projects. IDFC Bank launches 100th branch at Honnali, Karnataka IDFC Bank has launched its 100th branch at Honnali, Karnataka and plans to expand its network in the metros in the next one year. Of the 100 branches, 17 are in the metro cities. The bank plans to expand its branch network in the metros in the next one year, for a balanced presence in metro, urban and rural geographies. The scale-up will take the bank's network in metros alone to 100 branches, it added. This coincides with the completion of the bank's second year of operations. India imposes anti-dumping duty on stainless steel from US, EU and China India has imposed anti-dumping duty on certain stainless steel products from the European Union and other nations including China and Korea, in order to protect the domestic industry from cheap imports. www.exampundit.in The duty was imposed by the Revenue department following the recommendation by the Directorate General of Anti- Dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD). The levied duty will range between 4.58 per cent and 57.39 per cent of the landed value of cold-rolled flat products of stainless steel. CRISIL launches India's first infrastructure investability index 3 | P a g e CRISIL launched the CRISIL InfraInvex, India's first investability index that tracks, measures and assesses the development, maturity and investment attractiveness of infrastructure sectors, along with the CRISIL Infrastructure Yearbook 2017, a first-of-its-kind annual publication. For years now, the government has been doing the heavy lifting in terms of infrastructure investments. However, having only the public investment cylinder firing is not good enough. Accelerating private sector investments is an essential complementarity, and the other cylinder that needs to fire. SBI extends Rs 2,317 crore for rooftop solar power projects State Bank of India on Monday announced sanction of Rs 2,317 crore credit facilities to JSW Energy, Hinduja Renewables, Tata Renewable Energy, Adani Group, Azure Power, Cleantech Solar and Hero Solar Energy for executing rooftop solar projects with aggregate capacity of 575 MW. The sanction is towards financing Grid Connected Rooftop Solar projects under the SBI-World Bank (WB) Programme. SBI has availed a line of credit of $625 million from World Bank for on-lending to viable Grid Connected Rooftop Solar projects undertaken by PV developers and end-users, for installation of rooftop solar systems on the rooftops of commercial, institutional and industrial buildings, an official statement said.