Investments in Market Infrastructure Companies by Primary (Urban) Cooperative Banks

 

Reserve Bank of India issued the first set of guidelines on Investments in Non-SLR securities by primary (urban) cooperative banks on September 18, 2007.

Subsequently on the basis of representations received from banks and their federations, the existing guidelines were reviewed on January 30, 2009.

Keeping in view the developments in the last couple of years, RBI on May 7, 2014, issued fresh guidelines on ‘Investments in Market Infrastructure Companies by Primary (Urban) Cooperative Banks’. The guidelines are applicable on All Primary (Urban) Co-operative Banks operating in India.

The guidelines are based on representations received from some UCBs regarding investment in shares of Market Infrastructure Companies (MICs):

1. Investments made by UCBs for acquiring membership of MICs will be reckoned as Non-SLR investments;
2. UCBs are allowed to exceed the limit for investments in Non-SLR/unlisted securities prescribed in Circular dated January 30, 2009, if it becomes necessary to do so for acquiring membership of MICs;
3. The MICs eligible for such investments by UCBs are Clearing Corporation of India Ltd., National Payments Corporation of India and Society for World Wide Inter-Bank Financial Tele-Communication (SWIFT).
4. The list of eligible MICs will be updated from time to time by the Reserve Bank of India.

India’s own Card payment netword “RuPay”, dedicated to the NATION

On May 08, 2014, Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi hosted a galaxy of top financial sector leaders.

The occasion was dedication of “RuPay’, India’s own card payment developed by National Payments Corporation of India to the nation.

The beta launch of ‘RuPay’, was in March 2012, with only one aim of migration of transactions from Cash to Electronic.

RuPay card is now accepted at all the ATMs (1,60,000), 95% of PoS terminals (9,45,000+) and most of the eCom merchants (10,000+) in the country.

A variant of the card called ‘RuPay Kisan Card’ is now being used by all the Public Sector banks at the direction of Ministry of Finance, Government of India.

The total number of banks issuing RuPay cards is now more than 250 and the card base as on April 30 is 17 Million plus and is growing at a rate of about 3 Million per month.

RuPay card offers personal accident insurance and permanent disability of Rs 1 lakh to the Card holder at the cost of NPCI subject to the card is kept in activated condition. Such a feature is not present on any international card scheme.

RuPay works on three standard channels — ATMs, Point of Sales (POS) and online sales, is the seventh such payment gateway in the world.

 

NPCI announces the ‘NFS Excellence Awards 2013’ winners

With 2013 fast coming to a close, NPCI has announced the Annual NFS awards.

NFS (National Financial Switch) Awards are given annually by National Payments Council of India (NPCI) to member banks that perform the best in terms of Up-time availability, service delivery ratio, customer complaint resolution and usage level of ATMs by the customers.

The 2013 winners are:

Public Sector Bank – State Bank of India

Private/MNC Sector Bank – ICICI Bank

Cooperative Sector Bank – Punjab & Maharashtra Cooperative Bank

The NFS awards are decided on the basis of key Predefined Operational Performance Parameters. Winners and Runner-Up Banks are selected by an eminent and independent panel. In order to ensure a fair approach, banks are classified into three groups and top 2 performers in each category are recognized as ‘Winners’ and ‘Runners up’.

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NPCI increases the NACH Debit Mandate processing cycle

The numbers of mandates flowing in the NACH Debit pipeline are increasing. The backbone of the ACH Debit is a successfully registered Mandate form.

Initially the TAT for receiving banks process the NACH Debit mandate was 3 business days. With the numbers increasing, the receiving banks were not comfortable with the 3 working days TAT.

Based on the feedback received from Participant Banks, NPCI has increased the processing cycle from 3 business days to 5 business days.

During October 2013, 245 ACH Debit transactions for Rs62,680,085.11/- were initiated

 

 

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