Which bank Card raised Rs. 700 crore from banks and financial institutions to grow above industry average?

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has divested its entire stake in National Housing Bank (NHB) and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) for Rs 1,450 crore and Rs 20 crore, respectively. The move is part of ending the cross-holding in regulatory institutions and follows the recommendation of second Narasimham committee report of October 2001 and the RBI's own discussion paper on the same entitled 'Harmonizing the role and operations of development financial institutions and banks. The current change in the capital structure of both these financial institutions was brought in by the government through amendments to the Nabard Act of 1981 and the NHB Act of 1987 which were notified on January 19, 2018 and March 29, 2018, respectively. With this, the Government of India (GoI) now holds 100% stake in both these financial institutions.

Global card payments brand Mastercard has announced its plan of investing $1 billion in India operations over the period of next 5 years. About $350 million of the total amount would be invested in setting up a local payments processing center as per the Reserve Bank of India's mandate to store all payments data locally. The rest of the investment will go towards existing services and expanding capacity among others. This is the first such processing center of the company outside of the US and could provide service markets such as Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific.

Kotak Mahindra Bank (Kotak) stated that it will charge customers for UPI transactions starting 1st of May 2019. For each Kotak Bank account, the first 30 UPI fund transfers will be free after which a charge will be levied on all fund transfers from the bank account. This will be applicable across all platforms, including Paytm, PhonePe, Google Pay or Truecaller Pay among others. The bank will charge Rs 2.50 per transaction for an amount value below or equal to Rs 1,000, and Rs 5 per transaction will be levied for a payment value above Rs 1,000.

The Reserve Bank set the average base rate to be charged from borrowers by non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and micro-finance institutions (MFIs) at 9.21% for the first quarter of the next fiscal (April-June). The regulator in February 2014 had issued directions to NBFC-MFIs regarding pricing of credit.

According to a recent Asian Development Bank's (ADB) report titled 'Asian Development Outlook 2019: Strengthening Disaster Resilience', around 26 trillion dollars from 2016 to 2030, or 1.7 trillion dollars investment needed per year to build disaster-resilient infrastructure in Asia. Asian Development Outlook 2019.This is because Developing economies across Asia are among the most vulnerable to natural disasters and have suffered damages of around 644 billion dollars since 2000.Of these, approx 507 billion dollars wasted for weather-related hazards while the remaining 137 billion dollars wasted for geophysical hazards.

According to a report by The Economic Times, India's Central Bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would tighten rules on opening and operating current accounts of corporate borrowers to prevent the diversion of funds. sRBI had notified that the banks with collection accounts will have to transfer funds to the current account and the current accounts could be opened only with the lead bank of a lending association. The rules would be applicable to corporates who have borrowed and used credit facilities of more than Rs 50 crore from the banking system.

Private lender HDFC Bank said it is planning to raise up to Rs.50,000 crore this fiscal by issuing bonds on private placement basis. It will raise funds by issuing perpetual debt instruments [part of additional tier I capital], tier II capital bonds and long-term bonds [financing of infrastructure and affordable housing] up to a total amount of Rs.50,000 crore in the period of next 12 months through private placement mode. The bank would consider the proposal on April 20.

A unique proposition to pay electricity bill on EMIs launched by Bajaj Finserv through its lending arm Bajaj Finance Ltd. through the campaign of #BijliOnEMI. Customers can avail an Insta Credit loan in their Bajaj Finserv Wallet to pay their electricity bills on EMI. Bajaj Finance Ltd. financed the purchase of over 12 lakh air conditioners across our country in the year 2018. Bajaj Finance Ltd launched this campaign and customers buying air conditioners of Rs 20,000 and above will be eligible for Rs 5000 Instant Credit loan and for the air conditioners above Rs 40,000 will receive Rs 7000 Instant Credit loan to their Wallet.

Punjab National Bank (PNB) appointed Rajesh Kumar Yaduvanshi as the Executive Director of the bank. Rajesh Kumar Yaduvanshi joined PNB as a management trainee in 1985. He is equipped with an experience of 34 years in the banking career and is a certified associate member of Indian Institute of Bankers. In the past, he had worked with Dena Bank in the capacity of the Executive Director. He holds a doctorate in science from Indian Agricultural Research Institute, (IARI) New Delhi.

The Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMB) has become the first Destination Bank to go live with Net Banking and Debit Card-based authentication solution on NPCI's e-Mandate API platform. The facility will enable its customers to create electronic mandates (similar to the erstwhile eNACH with Aadhaar + OTP) via both the Debit Card and Net Banking channels. This allows Kotak to go live as a sponsor or acquirer bank for corporates and merchants seeking recurring payments. In a first-of-its-kind initiative in the industry, customers can register both physical and e-mandates on a single platform with validation on the mandate fields to remove rejections on account of various reasons.