Banking, Finance & Economy Current Affairs - 2022-23

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The Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) has granted a loan of Rs 1000 crore to Jammu and Kashmir Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation Ltd (JKIDFC). Out of these funds, Rs 500 crore are already disbursed by the IOB. It will help to enhance credit growth and fund the various infrastructure development programs in the region.

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National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) designed the “UPI Lite – On-Device wallet” (“UPI Lite”) functionality for UPI users for small value transactions. About 75% of the total volume of retail transactions (including cash) in India are below Rs 100 transaction value. Further, 50% of the total UPI transactions are having a transaction value of up to Rs 200/-. To easily process such small value transactions, NPCI has launched this facility of “UPI Lite”.

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Egypt added as the fourth new member of BRICS New Development Bank. Bangladesh, UAE, and Uruguay joined BRICS New Development Bank in September 2021. Membership expansion enables New Development Bank to position itself as a premier development institution for emerging economies. BRICS New Development Bank is a multilateral bank that was established by Brazil, Russia, China, India, and South Africa to finance sustainable development and infrastructure projects.

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Rating agency ICRA has lowered the growth forecast for India’s GDP in 2022-23 (FY23) to 7.2 percent. Earlier this rate was 8 percent. The ICRA Ltd. has projected the GDP growth forecast for 2021-22 (FY22) at 8.5%.

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ICICI Bank has made it to the Top 50 Banks in the Asia Pacific as per S&P Global Market Rankings. ICICI Bank, one of the four DSIBs, has garnered the 50th Spot in the S&P Global market Rankings, released on 21st April 2022. It has a total asset of 226 bn USD. The asset Position shows the credit potential of a Bank.

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Following RBI’s announcement of policy rates, the Banks are aligning their interest rates to RBI. The Reserve Bank of India, in an unprecedented move, held an emergency meeting of MPC and announced new policy rates to contain the inflation which had soared past the 6% threshold. The Reserve Bank of India has been mandated to maintain inflation in the range of 2 to 6 %. RBI hiked the repo by 40 bps following which ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda, and Bank of India made corresponding hikes in their interest rates too.

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Jeff Bezos, who established Amazon exactly 27 years ago on July 5, 1994, has stepped down as CEO, and Andy Jassy, a longtime AWS executive, has taken over as the company’s new CEO. Jassy is currently identified as President and CEO of Amazon.com, as well as a member of the Board of Directors, on the Amazon investor relations website .

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Byju’s has agreed to buy Singapore-based online higher education platform Northwest Education Pte.

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Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) shares made a lacklustre start on the stock exchanges, trading at a discount to the initial public offering price. The shares of the insurance behemoth began trading on the BSE and NSE at Rs 872 per share, down 8.11 percent from the IPO price of Rs 949 per share. The stocks fell despite the fact that the Sensex and Nifty were in the green.

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India Post Payments Bank (IPPB), Department of Post (DoP), and Ministry of Communication have introduced issuer charges for the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS). AePS Issuer transaction charges will be in effect from June 15, 2022. AePS is a bank-led model that enables online interoperable financial inclusion transactions at the Point of Sale (MicroATM) using Aadhaar verification through any bank’s business correspondent. AePS provides six different transaction types.