General updates: Important Financial and Banking Affairs 16th March with PDF download

SBI has announced a one-time farm loan settlement scheme worth 6,000 crore rupees primarily for tractors. SBI in a tweet stated that One Time Settlement is announced for Agriculture Loans and the Scheme is valid until 31st March 2017.
MD of SBI Mr. Rajnish Kumar stated that loans disbursed before 2011 and falling under doubtful or loss category accounts as of September 2016, will be considered under the scheme.

HDFC Bank on 15^th March 17 launched an instant digital loan against securities (LAS) facility in collaboration with the National Securities Depository (NSDL).
The bank said customers can avail themselves of overdraft facility against shares in three steps select the shares to be pledged on net banking; accept agreement through one-time password (OTP); and pledge the shares with NSDL online through OTP.

The government has launched a new scheme — TIES — for developing export linked infrastructure in states with a view to promote outbound shipments.
Launched by Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the Trade Infrastructure for Export Scheme (TIES) seeks to bridge the infrastructure gap and provide forward and backward linkages to units engaged in trade activities.
An inter-ministerial empowered committee for sanctioning and monitoring of the project was set up for the scheme. It will be headed by the commerce secretary Rita Teaotia

ICICI Bank topped the list of banks that witnessed most number of frauds during April-December period of 2016 with state-owned SBI taking the second spot, RBI data said.
During the first nine months of the current fiscal, as many as 455 fraud cases involving Rs 1 lakh and above were detected in ICICI Bank, closely followed by SBI (429), Standard Chartered (244) and HDFC Bank (237).
The other banks which reported large number of frauds to the apex bank during the period include Axis Bank (189), Bank of Baroda (176) and Citibank (150).

Central Bank of India has been awarded first prize in the implementation of Official Language Policy in the western region for the year 2015-2016.
Sudhir Pathak, Chief Manager of Central Bank of India received the trophy and certificate from Kalyan Singh, Governor of Rajasthan at the Official Language Conference of Central and Western Regions in Udaipur recently.

The Union cabinet approved revised MoU between India and Bangladesh for establishing Border Haats.
The Union cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has given its approval to the revised Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and Mode of Operation (MoO) between India and Bangladesh for establishing Border Haats on India-Bangladesh border.
The Revised MoU and Mode of Operation will provide a legal framework for establishment and operationalisation of additional border haats

Commerce and Industry Min. launched the Trade Infrastructure for Export Scheme (TIES).
Scheme is focussed on addressing the needs of the exporters and focus is not just to create infrastructure but to make sure it is professionally run and sustained.
After delinking of the ASIDE Scheme in 2015, the State Govt have been requesting the support of the Cent. in creation of export infrastructure.

Digital wallets such as Paytm and MobiKwik are set to become inter-operable as RBI prepares to open up the Unified Payment Interface platform for them as part of the government’s digitisation campaign.
RBI is expected to issue guidelines shortly on interoperability and ‘know your customer’ (KYC) norms for digital wallet companies.

Two Indian companies, Tata SteelBSE and Wipro have been named in the list of world’s most ethical companies by American think tank Ethisphere Institute.
Ethisphere honours those companies who recognise their role in society to influence and drive positive change in the business community and societies around the world.
In 2017, there were 124 honorees spanning five continents, 19 countries and 52 industry sectors.

Indian Institutes of Information Technology Public Private Partnership (IIIT PPP) Bill, 2017 to grant statutory status to the fifteen Indian Institutes of Information Technology in Public Private Partnership and declare them as Institutions of National Importance
To enable these institutions to grant degrees to their students in the academic courses conducted by them. There is no financial implication with regard to the proposed IIIT PPP Bill, 2017

General updates