Business, Economy & Banking Current Affairs MCQs

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Current Ashwini Lohani heads Air India. It began operations in 1932 with a single-engine, de Havilland Puss Moth monoplane. In 1962, it became the world’s first airline to boast an all-jet fleet. Last October, it also became the world’s first airline to use a Taxibot on an A320 aircraft with passengers onboard. Recently, Group of Ministers (GoM) of the central government have approved the proposal to divest stake in the national carrier. Led by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the GoM met on Tuesday and approved all proposals on debt transfer from Air India to a special purpose vehicle. The Expression of Interest (EoI) and the share purchase agreement would be issued in January 2020.

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McDonald’s India recently signed a partnership deal with the food delivery platform Zomato, for expanding its presence in the Northern and eastern parts of India.
By this partnership, the availability of McDonald products through its delivery mechanism ‘McDelivery’ will be made accessible to the customers of Zomato in the region. McDonald’s India operates in the Northern and Eastern region of the country through its wholly-owned subsidiary Connaught Plaza Restaurants.

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The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had increased the minimum investment limit by clients in a Portfolio Management Service (PMS) to Rs 50 lakh, from the earlier limit of Rs 25 lakh. The base net worth requirement of portfolio managers was raised to Rs 5 crore from the earlier Rs 2 crore. SEBI also directed that more than 25 per cent of the Portfolio Manager’s assets under management cannot be invested in unlisted securities.
The Government has recently released a gazette notification, with these directions of SEBI, which were released in November 2019. The existing Portfolio Managers are given three years’ time to meet the revised norms.

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently conducted its sixth bi-monthly Monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting and released the statement. The repo rate was left unchanged at 5.15%, as a unanimous decision taken by the MPC members.
The central bank also announced that it had no plans to monetise the government’s fiscal deficit, which means to print fresh currency notes to balance the deficit. A Self-Regulatory Organisation (SRO) for digital payment system is also to be set up by April 2020. RBI also decided to extend the Cheque Truncation System (CTS) to all regions across India.

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The Central Bank of the Russian Federation has given license to the General Insurance Corporation (GIC RE) of India to commence reinsurance business. GIC RE is a state-owned insurance company, and the sole provider of re-insurance in India.
The subsidiary company of the General Insurance Corporation of India, GIC Perestrakhovanie of Moscow has received the license. With this, the reinsurer can start domestic and international reinsurance business in Russia.

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India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) has recently achieved the milestone of two crore customers. IPPB was launched by the Indian Prime Minister on September 1, 2018, with the main objective of financial inclusion.
In September 2019, the payments bank launched the Aadhaar-enabled payment system (AePS) services. And then, it has become the single largest platform in the country to provide interoperable banking services to the customers of any bank.

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Markets regulator SEBI (Securities Exchange Board of India) recently launched a mobile application for assisting investors to enter grievances in SEBI Complaints Redress System (SCORES) portal. The app has all the features of SCORES web portal for grievance redressal, which is already functioning.
The app, ‘SEBI SCORES’, which is to be available on both iOS and Android platforms, will encourage investors to lodge their complaints on SCORES instead of sending physical letters.

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Global rating agency Moody’s Investors Service has revised downward its growth projections for India to 5.3% for 2020 from its earlier projection earlier this month-5.4%.
The latest revision is part of the rating agency’s latest ‘Global Macro Outlook’ report. As per the agency, an extensive crash due to the COVID-19 outbreak will reduce growth to 5% during the same calendar year. The OECD last week lowered India’s growth forecast for 2020-21 to 5.1%

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has extended the validity of authorization issued to IT service management company Vakrangee, to setup, own and operate the White Label ATMs (WLA) in India.
The validity of authorization has been extended till 31 March 2021. RBI has assigned a target of minimum 1,000 ATMS to be deployed by Vakrangee for three years starting from 2020, with the stipulated ratio in Metro & Urban, Semi-Urban and Rural regions.

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The CRISIL rating agency recently announced its estimate on growth rate of India for 2020-21 as 3.5 per cent. The agency had earlier projected the growth rate of India to be 5.2 per cent for the next financial year.
The recent pandemic outbreak in India and the resulting 21-day consequent lockdown are the main reasons for the agency to slash the growth rate. It also announced that the dip in growth will be concentrated in the first half of the next fiscal whereas the second half would see a mild recovery.