Banking Awareness PYQs

• ICICI Bank signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Small Business FinCredit India Pvt Ltd (SBFC) on 4 January 2019.
• Under the MoU, it will jointly provide loans worth up to Rs 1 crore to the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
• ICICI Bank will co-originate loan against property with SBFC at a mutually agreed ratio.
• The loans of up to Rs 1 crore is for a tenure of 15 years.

• ICICI Bank has entered into an agreement with the BSE to buy stake in its subsidiary INX for nearly ₹31 crore.
• India International Exchange (INX) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the BSE and is India's first international exchange at International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in GIFT City, Gujarat.
• GIFT city stands for Gujarat International Finance Tech City and is situated in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
• ICICI bank MD & CEO-Sandeep Bankshi
• ICICI bank HQ-Mumbai
• BSE MD & CEO-Ashish Kumar Chauhan
• First woman independent director of BSE-Jayshree Vyas

The correct answer is Option 1, i.e., e-Kuber platform

• Priority Sector Lending Certificates (PSLCs) are tradable certificates issued against priority sector loans of banks so as to enable banks to achieve their specified target and sub-targets for priority sector lending through the purchase of these instruments in the event of a shortfall and at the same time incentivizing the surplus banks to lend more to these sectors. It can be traded using the e-Kuber platform by the RBI.

• The Government of India, in consultation with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has decided to issue the Sovereign Gold Bonds.
• The Bonds will be sold through Scheduled Commercial banks(except Small Finance Banks and Payment Banks), Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited (SHCIL), designated post offices, and recognised stock exchanges viz., National Stock Exchange of India Limited and Bombay Stock Exchange Limited.
• The Bonds will be restricted for sale to resident individuals, HUFs, Trusts, Universities and Charitable Institutions.

• Home-grown e-commerce platform Flipkart was founded in 2007 by former Amazon employees Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal.
• In the past decade, it has become the country’s largest online retailer.
• The growth prompted U.S. retail giant Walmart to purchase a controlling stake in the business in 2018.

• The government has set up a working group under Niti Aayog member Ramesh Chand to revise the current series of Wholesale Price Index (WPI) with base 2011-12 and devise a new **Producer Price Index (**PPI).
• PPI measures the average change in the price a producer receives for his goods and services sold in the domestic market and exports.

• Plan Bee is an amplifying system that imitates the buzz of a swarm of honey bees to keep wild elephants away from railway tracks.
• This strategy adopted by Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has won the ‘Best Innovation Award' in Indian Railways for the 2018-19 fiscal.
• The prize is awarded by Indian Railways and comprises of a citation and a cash award of Rs.3 lakh.

• The “Complaint Management System (CMS)” of RBI was launched by the Governor, RBI on Jun 24, 2019.
• It is a software application to facilitate RBI’s grievance redressal processes.
• Members of public can access the CMS portal at RBI’s website to lodge their complaints against any of the entities regulated by RBI.

• Budget 2019 has proposed an additional push of Rs 70,000 crore to the public sector banks.
• Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced this move to boost credit in the ailing PSU banks.
• The Nifty PSU Bank index went up 2.5 per cent after the announcement.

• A Credit Guarantee Enhancement Corporation will be set up in the current fiscal year as part of the measures to deepen the bond market.
• The government will work with the RBI and SEBI to enable stock exchanges to allow AA-rated bonds as collateral.

• The six-member committee on the development of housing finance securitisation market, headed by Bain & Co Senior Advisor Harsh Vardhan, has been asked to assess the role of various counterparties, including the servicers, trustees, rating agencies, in the securitisation process and suggest measures required.

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) board has finalised a Three Year Roadmap to improve supervision and regulation, among other functions of central bank.
• This medium term strategy is named as Utkarsh 2022.
• An internal committee to identify issues that needs to be addressed over next 3 years was formed, which was anchored by Viral Acharya, the outgoing Deputy Governor of RBI.

• The government’s flagship pro-poor scheme Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) has found maximum success in Delhi, Goa, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Puducherry. Delhi topped the list of states with maximum percentage of PMUY beneficiaries availing at least four refills.
• Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Tripura were in the bottom of the list.

• NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), the commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), was officially inaugurated in Bengaluru on 23 May 2019.
• NSIL's main objective is to scale up industry participation in Indian space programmes.
• NSIL will act as an aggregator for all space-related activities in industry and develop private entrepreneurship in space-related technologies.

• World Bank would offer a loan of $250 million to the Kerala Government for the Resilient Kerala project, aimed at enhancing the state’s resilience against the impacts of natural disasters and climate change in the wake of last year’s floods.
• The announcement was made during “Rebuild Kerala: Development partners' conclave,” a meeting of various funding agencies for rebuilding flood-ravaged Kerala$.

• IFSC stands for Indian Financial System Code. It is a 11-digit alpha-numeric code that uniquely identifies a bank branch participating in any RBI regulated funds transfer system.
• The IFSC code helps to transfer money using RTGS, NEFT or IMPS method. The first 4 digits of the IFSC represent the bank and last 6 characters represent the branch. The 5^th character is zero.

• The government of Madhya Pradesh has launched the Mukhyamantri Yuva Swabhiman Yojana to provide employment for youth.
• The scheme guarantees 100 days of employment every year to urban youths from economically weaker sections (EWS).
• The youth would get Rs 4,000 stipend per month and total Rs 13,500 for the 100 days period would be provided.

Fiscal Deficit as a percentage of GDP is the most important factor to judge the health of an economy and budget. The fiscal deficit target for 2018-19 has been revised to 3.3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) 

• Unemployed youth having graduation or equivalent degree will be given unemployment allowance up to Rs 3,500 by the Rajasthan government.
• They will get the benefit of the Chief Minister Yuva Sambal Yojana from February 2019.
• To be eligible for the scheme, applicants should be natives of Rajasthan.
• The amount will be given for two years or until they get employed.

• The World Bank and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) have teamed up to enable recording of secondary market bond trading using blockchain tech.