The First Public Sector Bank in India to Meet RBI's EMV Mandate is;

The board of Lakshmi Vilas Bank approved a share swap acquisition by housing finance firm Indiabulls Housing Finance. The merged entity, Indiabulls Lakshmi Vilas Bank, will be among the top eight private banks by size and profitability. The merger will need the approval of the Reserve Bank of India and other regulators. As per the share swap ratio for the merger, for every 100 shares of Lakshmi Vilas Bank shareholders will get 14 shares of Indiabulls Housing Finance.

Asian Development Bank (ADB) launched 5$ billion Action Plan for Healthy Oceans and Sustainable Blue Economies for the Asia and Pacific region. This will support ADB's developing member countries' efforts for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), inclusive of the SDG 14: Life Below Water. Among the 10 rivers that transports 88% to 95% of plastics into the sea globally, 8 are in Asia and Pacific region. The Healthy Oceans Action Plan was launched at the 52nd Annual Meeting of ADB's Board of Governors, Fiji.

Reserve Bank of India received a huge response for introducing a $5-billion swap facility for the banks to facilitate permanent liquidity support.To ease the liquidity crunch, Reserve Bank of India will buy dollars from banks for three years and offer them rupees in return, which will bulk up the central bank's foreign-exchange reserves while injecting cash into the banking system.Banks offered $16.31 billion at the auction against the notified amount of $5 billion for the rupee-dollar swaps and out of this $16.31 billion received via 240 offers by market participants, the RBI accepted $5.02 billion via 89 offers.

HDFC, India's largest mortgage lender, which has agreed to merge its low-cost arm Gruh Finance Pvt. Ltd. with Bandhan Bank, can hold 9.9 percent in the bank, according to its exchange filing. That's the maximum a non-banking finance company can own in a private bank. HDFC had sought approval for 14.96 percent.

Bank of Baroda and city-based Srei Equipment Finance Ltd will collaborate to offer joint loans for infrastructure equipment under a new agreement.This collaboration will allow both Srei and Bank of Baroda to cooperate and widen their respective markets and customer base.Sourcing of loans will be facilitated through iQuippo, which is a Kanoria Foundation initiative.

KVS Manian and Gaurang Shah appointed as Kotak Mahindra Bank's whole-time directors for a three-year term effective from the date of approval from the Reserve Bank of India. He is currently working as the president - corporate, an investment bank and Gaurang Shah is the president- group chief risk officer of the bank.

Bank of Baroda (BoB) became the second largest public sector undertaking (PSU) bank after merging Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank into itself as part of the first three-way amalgamation. BoB is now the third-largest bank after State Bank of India (SBI) and HDFC Bank. Following the merger, the number of PSBs has come down to 18. The consolidated bank will have over 9,500 branches, 13,400 ATMs, 85,000 employees to serve 12 crore customers. The bank will have a business mix of Rs 15 lakh crore of balance sheet, with deposits and advances of Rs 8.75 lakh crore and Rs 6.25 lakh crore, respectively. Post-amalgamation, the bank will have a 22 per cent market share in Gujarat and 8-10 per cent market share in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

State-owned Bank of India (BoI) raised Rs.660.80 crore by issuing shares to employees under Employee Share Purchase Scheme (ESPS). The bank issued 6,25,52,188 shares of Rs.10 each to eligible employees. The Bank offered a discount of 24.28% on the applicable price to the employees and about 94.70% of total employees participated.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has turned down IDBI Bank's proposal to change its name following the transfer of a controlling 51% stake to LIC, insurance behemoth, from the government of India. The board of IDBI Bank had, last month, sought the RBI's approval for a change in the name of the lender to either LIC IDBI Bank or LIC Bank following the takeover by Life Insurance Corporation (LIC). However, RBI did not elaborate on the reasons for denial by the regulator for changing the name.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) notified that Exim Bank has proffered soft loans worth 266.6$ million to Rwanda for various projects. The funding for the projects has been done in 3 distinct tranches. The projects are for supporting agricultural projects; for the development of Special Economic Zones (SEZs); for financing road projects in Rwanda. Exim Bank, according to the agreement will provide $100 million to finance the development of 2 SEZs, as well as for the expansion of the Kigali SEZ in Rwanda.