Which bank receives NCLT approval for merger with Bharat Financial Inclusion?

Fincare Small Finance Bank (SFB) honoured with the prestigious Celent Model Bank 2019 Award in Financial Inclusion category, for 'Redesigning Lending to Reach Small Businesses'. The award recognizes LAP (Loans against Property) D.Lite, which is a tab-based solution designed and developed in-house by Fincare SFB for instant underwriting of loans against property targeted at micro and small enterprises. The Award was announced on its 12th anniversary in 2019 and was organized by Celent in New York. The other banks to receive the award in other categories were Bank of America, CIBC, Fidor Bank, HSBC, Rabobank, and Santander.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has given its in-principle approval to Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) Ltd for acquiring 9.9 per cent stake in Bandhan Bank following the Gruh Finance deal. Gruh Finance, the affordable housing finance arm of HDFC Ltd, was taken over by Bandhan Bank in a share-swap deal in January. After the deal was announced, HDFC made an application to the RBI for holding shares in Bandhan Bank. Recently RBI gave its approval to HDFC to acquire the shareholding of up to 9.9 per cent of the paid-up capital of Bandhan Bank upon the effective date of the scheme of amalgamation.

For the 1st time, private lender YES Bank Ltd, in terms of market valuation, has slipped by 3 levels to come down to the 10th spot. The position of the bank has come down due to its shares collapsing over 30% in the last 4 sessions after YES bank had reported a net loss of Rs. 1500 crore in its March quarter earnings. The most valued Indian bank with a market cap of Rs. 6.34 trillion is HDFC Bank Ltd. This is followed by (SBI) State Bank of India and Kotak Mahindra Bank with market cap of Rs 2.76 trillion and Rs 2.68 trillion, respectively. Shares of YES Bank were down 5.3% at Rs.166.30 on the 6th of May, 2019 and its market capitalization was Rs. 38,515.71 crore.

The Reserve Bank of India has slapped a penalty of Rs 2 crore on Punjab National Bank for non-compliance of regulatory directions with regard to SWIFT operations. SWIFT is a global messaging software used for sharing information on inter-bank transactions by financial entities.

The Reserve Bank of India on May 3, 2019 announced that it has imposed penalties on five prepaid payment instrument (PPI) issuers, including Vodafone m-pesa and PhonePe, for violation of regulatory norms.

State-owned Allahabad Bank announced a reduction in benchmark lending rate by 0.05 percentage points across various tenors. The marginal cost of funds-based lending rate (MCLR) for a one-year loan has been reduced to 8.60% from 8.65% effective May 14. Most of the loans including housing loans are benchmarked against MCLR for one year.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has cut its repo rate under Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF) by 25 basis points to 6.0% in its first bi-monthly policy statement of the current financial year FY20, with immediate effect. The move will cheer markets and investors and is the second consecutive rate cut by the RBI. It has also maintained the policy stance neutral and lowered the retail inflation and GDP forecasts. This is the second consecutive rate cut from RBI under new Governor Shaktikanta Das, after a rate cut in February 2019.

The foreign partner of SBI Life Insurance, BNP Paribas Cardif has sold 5 crore shares of the company for Rs 2,889 crore to increase its public shareholding to 25% of its paid-up equity share capital on or before October 2, 2020. This sale has not undertaken as per the methods prescribed by SEBI for achieving the minimum public shareholding (MPS) Threshold.The average price of equity share during the sale was Rs 577.93 per equity share.On the other hand, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has bought 2 crore shares at an average price of Rs 577.50 per shares.

India's first Fintech (Financial technology) start-up enabling payments via interoperable UPI(Unified Payments Interface) QR (Quick Response) codes, BharatPe notified its venture into merchant services by launching a new app UPI Bahi Khata that allows merchants to keep a track of their cash/credit (Udhar) sales customer wise, to request the accounts receivable from customers through SMS (Short Message Service) payment links or through WhatsApp and to record accounts that are payable to suppliers. The newly launched app also helps the merchants to network and collaborate with other BharatQR merchants near them to expand their businesses. The major features on BharatPe app for merchants are: UPI Khata (Ledger), Managing Supplier Bills, Cashback, Settlements and Refer and Earn.

Quikr has acquired Bengaluru-based secondhand goods marketplace Zefo, for INR 200 Crore to strengthen the sales of its pre-owned goods business. With this pre-owned product's market in India will reach USD 12-15 billion in the year 2020. Normally a pre-owned product's price can be as low as 30-60 percent of a new one. Zefo is an online marketplace for selling refurbished TVs, mobile phones and furniture.