The first Destination Bank to launch debit card based e-mandates On NPCIs E-Mandate API Platform.

India's largest bank State Bank of India has moved to a new interest rate regime on large savings account deposits as well as short-term loans. Earlier, SBI had announced that it will link its interest rate on savings account with a balance above Rs1 lakh and short-term loans like overdraft and cash credit facility to Reserve Bank of India's repo rate, effective 1 May 2019. The interest rates on large SBI savings account deposits and interest rate on some short-term loans will automatically change as and when RBI changes its repo rate. This will help in better transmission of RBI's policy rates into the banking system.

The government has decided to infuse a capital of 5,042 crore rupees into state-owned Bank of Baroda ahead of its merger with two other public sector lenders Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank,with Bank of Baroda which would be effective from 1st April 2019.With this initiative, the share price of Bank of Baroda rose 6.21% to 129.10 compared to the previous close of 121.55 on BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange).According to the Scheme of Amalgamation, shareholders of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank will get 402 equity shares and 110 equity shares of BoB respectively for every 1,000 shares held.

The State Bank of India (SBI), ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank would have to comply with additional capital requirement norms by 1st April 2019 as the banks continue to be in the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s list of Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs) for 2018. D-SIBs are required to maintain higher capital as compared to other banks. It means that these banks are too big to fail and failure of any of these banks will have cascading effect on Indian financial system. The D-SIB framework requires the RBI to disclose the names of banks designated as D-SIBs starting from 2015 and place these banks in appropriate buckets depending upon their Systemic Importance Scores (SISs). SIBs are subjected to higher levels of supervision so as to prevent disruption in financial services in the event of any failure.

The BSE has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with HDFC Bank with an objective to strengthen the BSE Startups platform. The MoU has been signed to spread more awareness on the benefits of the listing of startups on this BSE startup platform. The exchange had launched the startup platform in December, with an aim to encourage entrepreneurs to get listed and raise equity capital for their growth and expansion.

HDFC Bank has been identified as number 1 bank by customers in India, as per Forbes World's Best Bank survey. In the first edition of this survey, Forbes partnered with market research firm Statista to measure the best banks in 23 countries. HDFC Bank emerged as India's No 1 bank. ICICI Bank was at number 2 and SBI was surprisingly ranked 11th in the list. Customers were asked to rate banks on overall recommendation and satisfaction, as well as 5 key attributes or 'sub-dimensions' namely trusts, terms & conditions, customer services, digital services and financial advice.

Manappuram Finance, a Non-banking finance company withdrew a release which had issued earlier regarding securing Rs 695 crore debt funding from NABARD.Previously this Rs 695 crore funding will agree to use for priority sector lending.

As per RBI notification, IDBI Bank has been categorized as a private sector lender following the acquisition of majority stake by Life Insurance Corporation. IDBI Bank has been under the prompt corrective action framework of RBI that bans it from corporate lending and branch expansions, salary hikes and other regular activities. In January 2019, LIC completed the process of picking up a controlling 51% stake in the nearly crippled IDBI Bank. IDBI Bank has been categorized as a 'private sector bank' with effect from January 21, 2019.

National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), the State-run power giant, has signed a term-loan agreement with Canara Bank to raise Rs 2,000 crore. The agreement would be used to part finance its capital expenditure. The loan has a door to door tenure of 15 years and will be utilised to part finance the capital expenditure of the NTPC.

HDFC Bank Ltd crossed the Rs6 trillion market capitalization mark for the first time, making it only the third Indian firm-after Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) and Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL)-to achieve the milestone. RIL is the most valued company in India with a market cap of Rs8.50 trillion, followed by TCS at Rs7.48 trillion.

Karur Vysya Bank announced that it has raised Rs 487 crore through Basel-III compliant bonds for funding its growth plans. The decision was taken in the Capital Raising Committee of the board. The committee allotted 48,700 BASEL-III compliant unsecured, redeemable, non-convertible tier-II bonds of Rs 1,00,000 each, totalling to Rs 487 crore and the capital raising was done on private placement basis. The instrument will be listed on NSE.