Business & Finance - Current Affairs for December, 2016

Committee on Digital Payments headed by Ratan P. Watal in Dec 2016 submitted its report to the Union Ministry of Finance.

The committee was formed by the Union Government to suggest measures to increase digital financial transactions across the nation.

It has said that regulation of payments should be independent from the RBI.

The Payments and Settlement Systems Act 2007 was also updated.

The committee stresses on promoting digital payments and receipts within the Government.

The committee also created a fund proposed as DIPAYAN from savings generated from cashless transactions.

It also recommended a ranking and reward framework to encourage and recognise government agencies who lead the efforts on enabling digital payments.

It asked the government to consider outsourcing the operations of payment systems like Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT).

It also recommended to upgrade payment systems like RTGS and NEFT to operate on a 24x7 basis in the due course of time.

It aimed to allow non-bank payment service providers (PSPs) to directly access payment systems.

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) should be made payments centric in its ownership and objectives.

Payments to be made inter-operable between bank and non-banks as well as within non-banks.

A formal mechanism will be created to enable innovations and new business models and implement other measures to promote digital payments.

In addition to the above recommendations, the committee also suggested other measures to promote digital payments including

• Promoting Aadhaar based eKYC and paperless authentication
• Providing disincentives for usage of cash
• Creating awareness and transparency on cost of cash

About the Watal Committee


• Chairman: Ratan P. Watal
• Formed: 23^rd Aug 2016
• 11 member committee
• Headed by Watal, the principal advisor to the NITI Aayog and the former finance secretary.
• Committee was asked to review the Payment and Settlement System Act, 2007, the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 and Information Technology Act, 2000.

Housing.com has tied up with real estate major Tata Housing to create an exclusive digital marketing platform for the sale of existing inventories and launch of new projects.

The companies have formed a partnership as part of which the realty portal would offer a full stack solution by creating an exclusive integrated pan-India brand platform showcasing their current inventory (premium homes as well as Tata Value Homes) as well as exclusive launch of their upcoming projects.

Housing.com has created a wide gamut of solutions that include interactive tools such as Virtual Reality, creation of exclusive content through Housing.com design studio, leveraging Housing News, IREF platforms as well as Housing.com events and brand platform.

The partnership would also entail working jointly with Tata Housing to develop new and in Decative solutions to manage the home buyer experience across online and offline channels.

As part of this agreement, Tata Housing would also be deploying some of these solutions and technologies on their digital platforms.

Housing.com

• Founded in 2012.
• Leading online real estate platform.
• 1.7 million verified homes listed till date.
• Raised over USD 100 million in capital from investors.
• Leading investors include SoftBank, Nexus Ventures, MJH ADI BAL.

India's first DigiDhan Mela was held on 26^th Dec 2016 in Gurugram in Haryana.

The mela is the first exercise of its kind in the country and promotes cashless transactions in the post-demonetisation period.

The mela showcased the government efforts to promote digital financial transactions.

It educated people on how to use mobile phones and Aadhaar for making payments online.

Dedicated counters were set up to issue Aadhaar cards.

In the mela, 15,000 winners of the Lucky Grahak Yojana daily reward were also drawn.

Along with Lucky Grahak Yojana, Digi Dhan Vyapar Yojana (Merchants) was also launched by the government to promote cashless transactions at retail counters.

Under this scheme, the government will award prizes to merchants for all digital transactions conducted at merchant establishments. They will be awarded the weekly prizes of INR 50000, INR 5000 and INR 2500

Both the schemes are implemented by the National Payments Corporation of India to attain the broader objectives set forth by the Digital India campaign.

About Lucky Grahak Yojana

• Scheme launched by Union Government on 15^th Dec 2016.
• Under this scheme, the government will offer daily reward of INR 1000 for 15,000 lucky consumers for a period of 100 days.
• Consumers using this alternate mode of digital payments, will be awarded the weekly prizes of INR 1 lakh, INR 10,000 and INR 5,000.
• This includes the following forms of transaction: UPI, USSD, AEPS and RuPay. Digital Wallets and private cards are exempt from this scheme.

The Ministry of Shipping and Road Transport & Highways Shri. Nitin Gadkari said projects worth INR 1 lakh crore under Sagarmala programme at various stages of implementation and development will now be overseen by the Sagarmala Development Company.

This company has been incorporated under the Companies Act 2013 with an initial authorized share capital of INR 1000 crore and a subscribed share capital of INR 90 crore.

Main objective of the company is identification of port led development projects under the Sagarmala programme and provide equity support for the SPVs set up by Ports/State/Central Ministries and funding window or implement only those residual projects which cannot be funded by any other means/mode.

Cabinet has approved the formation of SDC under the administrative control of the Ministry of Shipping in July 2016.

Company would work towards structuring activities, bidding out projects for private sector participation, identifying risk management measures for strategic projects across multiple regions and states and obtaining the approvals and clearances.

Implementation of the identified project will be taken up by Port/State/Central Govt or Maritime Board through private or PPP mode.

Company will act as a nodal agency for the coordination and monitoring of currently identified projects under Sagarmala as well as other projects from the master plans or other sources.

A detailed master plan will also be prepared for CEZs as part of the National Perspective Plan. SDC will raise funds as debt/equity (long term capital) as per project requirements by leveraging resources provided by government of India and from multilateral and bilateral funding agencies.

About the Sagarmala Programme

Aims to harness:

• 7500 km long coastline
• 14,500 km of potentially navigable waterways
• Strategic location on key international maritime trade routes
• Approved in March 2015 by the Union Cabinet.

Setting up the first Second Generation/2G Ethanol bio-refinery in India is being held on 25^th Dec 2016 at Tarkhanwala Bathinda in Punjab.

Approximate investment of INR 600 crores was incurred in setting up the refinery.

HPCL, a CPSE is setting up the project.

GoI is encouraging production of 2G Ethanol from agricultural residues to provide additional sources of remuneration to farmers, address the growing environmental concerns and support the Ethanol Blended Petrol program for attaining 10% ethanol blending in petrol.

Bathinda biorefinery will be utilising agriculture residues for production of 100 KL per day or 3.20 crore litres per year of ethanol which may be sufficient to meet 26% of the ethanol blending of the state..

The biorefinery will generate employment for 1200-1300 persons in the biomass supply chain and generate additional income of INR 20 crore per annum for farmers through purchase of their agriculture residue.

The project shall also help in reducing CO₂ emissions from the paddy straw which currently is being burnt after harvesting.

A major output of this biorefinery will be a biofertiliser approximating 30,000 tonnes per annum which will be incorporated into the soil for improving soil fertility and overall productivity of farms in Punjab.

Biorefinery will now produce 1 lakh Bio CNG over annum which can cater to transport and clean cooking requirements.

Oil PSUs are planning to set up 12 2G ethanol biorefineries across 11 states namely Punjab, Haryana, UP, MP, Bihar, Odisha, Assam, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and AP.

Estimated investment for 12 biorefineries is INR 10,000 crores.

Bio refineries will produce 35-40 crore litres of ethanol annually contributing towards the EBP program.

In Petrotech 2016, oil PSUs have entered into 6 MoUs with technology licensers and state governments for setting up biorefineries in:

• Dahej(Gujarat)
• Panipat(Haryana)
• Bina (MP)
• Bargah (Odisha)
• Bathinda (Punjab)
• This marks the first step towards achieving 10 percent blending of ethanol in petrol.

What is Ethanol?


• Formula: C₂H₆O
• Boiling point: 78.37 °C
• Density: 789 kg/m^³
• Molar mass: 46.06844 g/mol
• IUPAC ID: ethanol
• Melting point: -114 °C
• Vapor pressure: 5.95 kPa

RCom signed binding agreements with Canada-based Brookfield Infrastructure and institutional partners to sell its tower business for an upfront cash payment of INR 11,000 crore.

RCom will also receive B Class non-voting shares in the tower company, providing 49% future economic upside from the business based on certain conditions, according to the company.

RCom will utilize the cash proceeds solely to reduce debt.

The tower business will be demerged into a separate company, to be 100% owned and independently managed by Brookfield Infrastructure.

The deal represents the largest-ever investment by an overseas financial investor in the infrastructure sector in India.

The ADAG-promoted RCom, and Mukesh Ambani's 4G telecom venture Reliance Jio will continue as major long-term tenants (of the tower company).

RCom said the combination of its wireless business with Aircel and monetization of tower operations will together reduce the company debt by Rs 31,000 crore ($4.6 billion), or nearly 70%.

RCom will continue to hold 50% stake in Aircel JV and 49% upside in tower business to be monetised at an appropriate time to further reduce debt significantly.

About Reliance Communications

• Headquarters: Navi Mumbai
• CEO: Vinod Sawhny (Feb 10, 2014)
• Subsidiaries: Reliance Digital TV, Global Cloud Xchange, Reliance Globalcom Limited, Reliance - Big TV Limited
• Parent organisation: Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group

More than 70% of rural citizens have adopted the methods of e-wallets followed by Unified Payment Interface (UPI) payment option, the Electronics and IT ministry said on 21st Dec.

An overview of the current data available with the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY) shows that more than 70% rural citizens have adopted the methods of e-wallets.

Another 16% opted for Unified Payment Interface (UPI).

Rest of the people looked at Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), Adhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) & Cards or Point of Sale(PoS).

Similarly, more than 85% of the merchants have adopted the e-wallet system and 13% have opted for UPI.

Under its Digital Payments awareness and training programme, the ministry said that Common Service Centre (CSC) network, which provides government service in rural area, has enrolled over 25 lakh rural citizens for digital payments.

Achieving the 25 lakh mark in such a short time is an indication of the pace at which digital adoption is gaining momentum among rural citizens.

Over 55,000 merchants have started offering digital payment options to rural customers across various districts and blocks in India," the statement said.

DigiDhan Abhiyan

• Reached over 1 crore rural citizens.
• Program aims to cover 2 lakh CSCs in rural and semi-urban areas.
• It will also reach out to 2.5 lakh gram panchayats across the country.
• Centres will cover one in every household and cater to 40 houses in catchment area.

Union Ministry of Finance on 19th Dec 2016 announced numerous measures to improve ease of doing business in the country. These decisions include the following:

eBiz portal will be in place for starting a business which shall include three services of Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Registration for PAN, TAN, EPFO and ESIC.

Ministry of Corporate Affairs and Ministry of Labour and Employment will also work for lowering the number of procedures to start a business to 4 and number of days to start a business to 4 as well.

Shram Suvidha portal will be the only portal for filing returns, challan and making online payments for EPFO, ESIC contributions and other filings and payments.

Department of Revenue plus Ministry of Shipping will work towards increasing the number of direct delivery consignments to 40% by the close of the month.

Departments shall ensure cost and time to export and import gets reduced substantially to bring India within top 50.

Ministry of Corporate Affairs will also work with the concerned stakeholders so provisions under insolvency and bankruptcy code are implemented.

To improve the nation’s rank in the indicator, Getting Credit, Department of Financial Servics and Ministry of Corporate Affairs will integrate CERSAI database with ROC Registry of Charges to create single assets registry.

eCourts will be expedited for electronic filing of complaints, summons and payments.

Union Commerce and Industry Ministry shall work to ensure India’s rank (172) on enforcing contracts improved.

On Construction Permit, the Urban Development ministry mentioned the procedures should be brought down to 8 and completed within 60 days.

Ease of Doing Business

Ease of Doing Business Index created by World Bank. Economies are ranked on their ease of doing business, from 1–190.

The rankings are determined by sorting the aggregate distance to frontier scores on 10 topics, each consisting of several indicators.

Higher rankings mean:

• Better regulations for businesses.
• Stronger protections of property rights

IBM and Germany-based electronics company Siemens have collaborated to integrate IBM Watson Analytics and other tools into MindSphere.

Mind sphere is the cloud-based Siemens operating system for the Internet of Things (IoT).

An open cloud platform from Siemens and a centrepiece of a powerful IoT operating system with data analytics and connectivity capabilities, tools for developers, applications and services, it will integrate Watson analytics and other tools.

This will boost operational performance and reduces downtime by bringing intelligence to production equipment.

Secondly, it will use data from connected machines helps to predict anomalies and failure patterns and to initiate corrective measures.

It will also help to improve product quality and yield using quality analytics

IBM Watson

• Supercomputer named after IBM founder Thomas J Watson
• Combines artificial intelligence and analytical software.
• Aims for optimal performance as a "question answering" machine.
• Thinks like a human.

The Union Finance Ministry on 17th Dec clarified that there are provisions in the Income Tax Act to scrutinise the accounts of political parties.

He said news that parties registered with Election Commission cannot be scrutinised with regard to deposit of demonetised currency notes, was incorrect.

Exemption from Income Tax is given to only registered political parties subject to conditions like
maintenance of books and other documents to enable the assessing officer to deduce the their income.

Political parties have to maintain record of voluntary contributions made by persons in excess of Rs 20,000 including the names and addresses of the donors.

The political parties have to submit a report to Election Commission about donations received within the prescribed timeframe.

The accounts of each such political party is to be audited by a chartered accountant, the ministry said.

Exports rose for the third straight month in November, recording a growth of 2.29 per cent, though the trade deficit shot up to about two-year high of USD 13 billion mainly due to increase in gold imports.

Exports of engineering products rose by 14.10 per cent, petroleum by 5.73 cent and chemicals by 8.3 per cent compared to the same month last year, according to official data released on 16th Dec.

Imports too increased by 10.44 per cent to USD 33 billion. Rise in gold imports by 23.24 per cent to USD 4.36 billion in November pushed the trade deficit to a two-year high of USD 13 billion as against USD 10.33 billion in the same month last year.

It was in November 2014 when trade deficit hit a high of USD 16.86 billion.

Exporters body FIEO said that although growth is encouraging, uncertain global conditions still remains a challenge.

Inflation at the wholesale level slowed in November due to subdued prices, with the Wholesale Price Index registering a growth of 3.15 per cent, its slowest rate since June 2016.

WPI registered a growth rate of 3.4 per cent in October, and the index has now witnessed a slowing growth rate for the third consecutive month as of November.

The easing in wholesale prices comes at a time when even retail price inflation has been cooling off, with the Consumer Price Index witnessing a two-year low growth rate of 3.6 per cent in November.

What is WPI?

• The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) is the price of a representative basket of wholesale goods.
• Some countries use WPI changes as a central measure of inflation. But now India has adopted new CPI to measure inflation. However, United States now report a producer price index instead.
• WPI monitors price movements that reflect supply and demand in industry, manufacturing and construction.
• This helps in analysing both macroeconomic and microeconomic factors.

Digital payments platform Paytm has inked a partnership with major NHAI toll concessionaires like Reliance Infra, Sadhbav, IRB, MEP, L&T and GMR to enable cashless payments at state, national and city toll plazas.

With the partnership, commuters across the country can now pay their toll charges instantly with Paytm by scanning the QR code placed at toll payment counters, using Paytm app.

The company will cover 5 lakh vehicles per day by 2016 end.

Users can pay toll tax using Paytm across 6000 plus lanes in the country.

Over a million offline merchants across India now accept Paytm as preferred payment mode.

Know About Paytm

• Indian e-commerce website
• Launched: 2010
• Headquarters: Noida, India
• Owned by: One97 Communications
• Offers: Mobile recharging, bill payment and e-commerce, booking bus travel, movie ticket booking.

Former Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry was voted out as director in Tata Consultancy Services.

He had skipped TCS’ Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM), even as shareholders cast votes to remove him from the post.

Holders of 86.71 per cent share of the company voted. Of this, about 93.11 per cent voted in favour of the resolution to remove Mr. Mistry. The total number of votes for the resolution stood at 2,450, while those against numbered 1,222.

Tata Sons, which holds more than 73 per cent stake in TCS, had moved the resolution to oust Mr. Mistry.

Acting chairman Ishaat Hussain had recused himself to avoid conflict of interest as he is a nominee of Tata Sons.

Out of 40 speakers, at the shareholder’s meet only four spoke in his support.

India on 13th Dec 2016 signed a grant agreement of USD 5.19 million with International Bank for Reconstruction and Development for Additional Financing for Financing Energy Efficiency at MSMEs Project- Programmatic Framework for Energy Efficiency.

IBRD is acting as an implementing agency of the global environment facility.
The additional financing will be used to scale up initiatives taken under parent project.

It will bridge the gap in understanding among different stakeholders mainly energy professionals or technology suppliers, banks and financial institutions.

It will be implemented by a three pronged approach- capacity building, direct involvement to augment EE investments at MSME level and escalation of the EE Knowledge base to scale up and replicate the project initiatives such as by establishing KPIs.

FEEMP- Financing Energy Efficiency at MSME Project

• Initiated in: Sept 2010.
• Grant amount: USD 11.3 million
• Objective: Increase energy efficiency investments in MSME clusters.
• Attained satisfactory rating of Project Development Objective and implementation performance.

Facebook’s 32-year-old Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, with a net worth of $50 billion, has topped Forbes’ list of America’s Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40 years of age for 2016.

Zuckerberg is followed by another Facebook Co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.

Uber Co-founder Garrett Camp. Snapchat Co-founder Evan Spiegel and Instagram Co-founder Kevin Systrom also came on to the list.

Other inclusions are Collison brothers, John and Patrick, who together created online payment outfit Stripe.

John Collison, Stripe’s president is the world’s youngest self-made billionaire.

Among these ranks, only 24-year-old Palmer Luckey, who sold his virtual reality equipment company Oculus to Facebook at age 21, is younger.

About Mark Zuckerberg

• Born: May 14, 1984
• American computer programmer and internet entrepreneur.
• Co Founder of FB.
• Also its CEO and Chairman.
• Founded FB with fellow Harvard University students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.

To deal with the world’s worst inflation, Venezuelan Government announced demonetisation of Bolivar Fuerte 100 banknotes.

The demonetisation will be effective in next 72 hours.

President Nicolas Maduro on 11 December 2016 said that the Bolivar 100 banknotes, worth only two US cents on the black money, will be withdrawn from the market on 14 December 2016.

He also gave 10-days time to Venezuelans to exchange the notes at the central bank of the country.

In addition to this demonetisation of the country’s biggest banknotes, Venezuelan President also ordered the closure of the border with Colombia for 72 hours.

This closure would help him in cracking down on currency smuggling by what he has called mafias trying to destabilise the socialist-run economy.

Maduro warned that people would not be allowed to bring back bolivar 100 notes from outside Venezuela to convert them in new bank notes.

Bolivar Notes

• Venezuelan inflation rate is 500% presently.
• Led to shortages in food and medicine in a 30m population.
• More than 6 billion Bolivar 100 notes are in circulation currently.
• Government will be introducing six larger notes and three new coins from 15th Dec.
• The largest will be Bolivar 2000.
• It will be less than USD 5 in the market.

Following shareholders’ vote during an extraordinary general meeting (EGM), Cyrus Mistry was removed as director of Tata Industries on 12 December 2016.

It is the first such instance in which an executive has been ousted from the board since his removal as Chairman of Tata Group.

As per reports, the extraordinary general meeting was called exclusively to remove him from his office.

Tata Industries is a subsidiary of Tata Sons. Several Tata companies namely Tata Motors, Tata Power and Tata Steel holds equity in the company.

Mistry was also sacked as TATA Group chairman on 24th Oct 2016.

He was replaced by Ratan Tata in the interim.

TATA Power has called an EGM on 26th Dec 2016; Mistry is currently Chairman of TATA Power.

The Board of Tata Industries, post the EGM, constitutes K.R.S. Jamwal, R. Bhinge, Ireena Vittal, Ashish Dhawan, N. Srinath, and F.N. Subedar.

Cyrus Pallonji Mistry

• Joined: 2006 (TATA Sons)
• Appointed Chairman of the Board on Dec 2012.
• Irish businessman of Indian origin.
• Sixth chairman of TATA Group.
• Only the second to not bear the surname Tata.

Government is likely to amend the Reserve Bank of India Act to extinguish the validity of INR 500 and 1000 printed before November 9 and a reference to this effect would be made in the upcoming Budget.

As part of the demonetisation process, there would be a law to make these notes invalid and it can be made effective from March 31, sources said.

In 1978, when the currency was banned, the law to annul the validity came ahead.

This time the government acted under 26 (2).

As per RBI Act Section 26 (2), the central government, on the recommendation of the Central Board of RBI, may by notification in the Gazette of India, declare that, with effect from such date as may be specified in the notification, any series of bank notes of any denomination shall cease to be legal tender.

Banks have received Rs. 12 lakh crore demonetised currency notes as against Rs. 15.5 lakh crore. The government expects Rs. 13 lakh crore to come back to banking system.

Higher dividend from the RBI due to cancellation of INR 500/1000 may not be applicable until the RBI law is amended.

RBI has issued currency notes worth over Rs. 4.27 lakh crore to public through banks and ATMs following the demonetisation of old high value bills.

Berlin-based online food takeaway service Delivery Hero, one of Europe's biggest start-ups, will acquire competitor Foodpanda.

This is a sign of further consolidation to fend of new competition in Europe's sought after business of food-delivery.

Delivery Hero was valued at 2.8 billion euros ($2.96 billion) in its latest funding round in June.

It signed a definitive agreement buy Foodpanda, itself a Berlin-based start-up.

Both are backed by German eCommerce firm Rocket Internet, which has invested 800 million euros in Delivery Hero last year and 300 million euros into Foodpanda.

Food Panda focuses on deliveries in eastern Europe, west Asia and Asia.

Acquisition will be funded by issuing new shares, with major shareholder Rocket increasing its stake to 37.7%.

Foodpanda

• Foodpanda CEO: Ralf Wenzel.
• Active international player in online food takeaway business.
• Valued at: 10-15 m USD
• Location: Berlin, Germany.

Canadian mobile company BlackBerry on 9th Dec 2016 launched a Cloud enabled mobile security platform for Enterprise of Things that will address entire businesses from endpoint to endpoint.

Businesses will now be able to reliably transmit sensitive data between endpoints to keep people, information and goods safe.

BlackBerry CEO is currently John Chen.

Platform completes the integration of BlackBerry’s prior acquisition of key technology firms such as:

• Good Technology
• WatchDox
• AtHoc
• Encription

What is Enterprise of Things?


• EoT is a network of intelligent connections and endpoints within the enterprise. These enable products to move from sketch to scale.

It involves anything that can communicate with each other to facilitate smart product development, distribution, marketing and sales.

Collection comprises:


• Devices
• Computers
• Sensors
• Trackers
• Equipments

GoI has announced in the Parliament that it has been decided to print notes on plastic or polymer substrate. The process of procurement has been initiated.

RBI has been planning to launch plastic currency notes after field trials. One billion plastic notes of INR 10 denomination were introduced in a field trial in five cities.

The plastic notes have the following main advantages:

• The average life span of plastic notes is around 5 years.
• These notes are difficult to imitate.
• Currency notes made of plastic are cleaner than paper ones.

These type of notes were first introduced in Australia to guard against counterfeiting.

Quick Response code (QR code) technology is all set to dominate the digital payment system in the country and does not require any additional cost.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) is set to promote it as a seamless mode of transaction.

CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said QR code is the most effective technology in digital payments.

In India, QR code technology is provided by all network providers including

• RuPay,
• MasterCard,
• Visa,
• American Express

RBI's latest move was to develop One India QR code wherein all three payment technology companies namely Mastercard, Visa and RuPay have been asked to develop inter operable QR code solution.

This allows ease of accepting digital payments without the complication of managing multiple or competitive solutions available.
CAIT will be campaigning about the benefits of QR code across the country among the trading community.

Consumers will be able to buy genuine khadi products online from an e-commerce portal to be launched by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC).

Cashing in on fast-growing e-commerce sector and increasing demand for khadi products in the country, the KVIC has submitted a proposal to launch its online portal to the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME).

Khadi & Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has also has entered into agreement with Raymond Ltd to promote Khadi as a fashion garment in India and abroad.

In this first of its kind initiative Raymond would source Khadi fabric from artisans and market the products after value addition.

This PPP initiative is aimed at helping the artisans and boosting income of rural women.

According to the agreement Raymond will use the ‘Khadi Mark’ and sell the range under the brand Khadi by Raymond.

This initiative is conceptualised under KVIC Act.

Raymond Ltd has agreed for a guaranteed minimum procurement of Khadi and Khadi products for a period of 5 years with primary purchases of muslin cotton and silk.

KVIC

• Stands for Khadi and Village Industries Commission.
• Statutory body under Khadi and Village Industries Commission Act of 1956.
• Apex organisation under MSME ministry with regard to Khadi and village industries in India.
• Aim is to plan, promote, facilitate and assist in the establishment of khadi and village industries.
• Chairman: VK Saxena

To promote digital transactions across the country, government has asked banks to install 10 lakh additional Point of sale (PoS) terminals within four months.

Towards this end, banks have already placed orders for 6 lakh PoS machines and another 4 lakh are likely to be ordered in the next few days.

There are about 15 lakh PoS terminals currently across different merchants to facilitate card based payments.

As part of the plan to expand the digital payments ecosystem and facilitate the move towards cashless transactions, the government has decided that an additional one million new PoS terminals should be installed by 31 March.

To encourage purchase of PoS machines, the excise duty payable on acquisition of PoS machine which was earlier 16.5% has been waived till 31 March.

The special drive has also been undertaken jointly with ministry of labour & employment and states’ administration to open banks accounts for unorganised labour by holding camps at various locations.

Digital payments platform FreeCharge on 7th Dec 2016 partnered with International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of World Bank Group, to help women entrepreneurs sell their products on its parent Snapdeal's website.

The partnership will support startups and early-stage women entrepreneurs to join the e-commerce platform for the first time, a statement from Freecharge said.

FreeCharge and IFC will combine together to promote women entrepreneurship and improve their financial access through technology and digital payments.

The programme will also address their non-financial needs through skills and capacity building, the statement added.

The aim is to boost cashless transactions and a cashless economy.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and the country's biggest phone carrier, China Mobile, announced a partnership on 7th Dec to develop internet-related services as web users migrate to mobile devices.

Chinese internet and telecoms companies are rushing to keep up as activity shifts to mobile phones and tablets.

China has 710 million internet users, more than 90 percent of whom use wireless devices to go online, according to government data.

Alibaba Group and China Mobile Ltd. said they will work on:

• Information infrastructure,
• Cloud computing,
• Smart devices and other technologies.
• Collaboration on e-payment and mobile services is already on.

PSU company MMTC will tie up with State Bank of India to sell government minted Indian gold coin.

The state-run bullion trader which has tied up with half a dozen banks so far, has sold 1 lakh pieces of Indian gold coin and set the target of 5 lakh units in the next few years.

A similar agreement will be entered with the country’s largest lender, adding the coin is also available at 383 outlets of the PSU.

The coin is the first ever sovereign gold offering by India.

It is the only one to be hallmarked by the Bureau of Indian standards for purity.

Coin manufactured by Security Printing and Minting Corp is made from yellow metal collected under Gold Monetisation Scheme of the central government.

About the Coin

• The coin is available in denominations of 5gm, 10gm and 20 gm bar.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the coin on November 5, 2015.
• Govt has tied up with seven banks to sell it. They include:
1. Indian Overseas Bank,
2. Vijaya Bank,
3. Federal Bank,
4. Yes Bank,
5. Andhra Bank,
6. ICICI Bank and
7. HDFC Bank.
• Coin is also being sold to customers through 400 designated branches across the nation.

A Joint Communique was also issued at the conclusion of the two-day BRICS meeting of Revenue heads and Tax experts at Mumbai, India. The meeting was held from 5-6 December 2016.

Its primary objective was to discuss potential areas of cooperation in tax matters. It aimed to initiate an exchange of ideas, opinions, relevant knowledge and experience regarding the same.

All heads vowed to continue their support to all actions and international initiatives taken towards achieving a universally transparent tax system.

They also reasserted their commitment towards actions taken to ensure fairness of the same system, especially in the case of prevention of base erosion, shifting of profits, and exchange of tax information and capacity building of the developing countries.

The leaders expressed extra concern on the process of erosion of the tax base due to aggressive tax practices including incomplete disclosure of information and committed to eliminate the concern by working in solidarity with each other.

They reaffirmed their support for the global Common Reporting Standard for automatic exchange of information and set 2018 as the deadline for its implementation.

The heads jointly declared their continued commitment towards the promotion of closer cooperation on issues of mutual concern and interest.

EU on 6th Dec 2016 approved Microsoft’s USD 26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn. Executive arm of the European Commission stated it was clearing the deal.

The deal has been cleared on the condition that post-merger, Microsoft will allow other professional networking sites access to programming commands for its Office applications for 5 years.

It will also allow cloud-computing services for the next five years.

The EU also said that the Microsoft must also grant computer manufacturers the option not to install the LinkedIn shortcut on desktop devices.

EU approval was the final hurdle after approvals from the US, Canada, Brazil and South Africa.

Microsoft Corporation

• Founder: Bill Gates and Paul Allen
• Date Founded: 4th April 1975
• American multinational technology company.
• Headquarters: Redmond, Washington.
• The company develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and services.
• Best Known Products: Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer

LinkedIn


• A business oriented social networking site.
• Founded on: 14th Dec 2002
• Launched on: 5th May 2003
• Software Giant Microsoft will acquire this company for USD 196 per share.
• LinkedIn will retain its distinct brand, culture and independence.

eCommerce giant Amazon on 5th December 2016 launched the global startup programme named Launchpad in India.

The launchpad programme was launched to enable Indian startups to sell their products overseas.

In this regard, Amazon India tied up with:

• Start Up India programme of Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), NASSCOM's 10000 Startups
• Indian Angel Network (IAN)
• NITI Aayog, Governments of Maharashtra, Telangana and TiE.

TIe-ups were made to roll in as many startups as possible.

Helping startups to sell, market and deliver products to gain more visibility, it provides exceptional opportunity for Indian startups to gain access to consumer markets nationally and internationally.

More than 25 Indian start-ups including Witworks, Leaf Wearables, Ducere Technologies, and Seventh Sense Technologies, have already joined the programme, Amazon said.

Any start-up that is interested in participating in Amazon Launchpad can apply online through the application page.

If a start-up is not supported by the current partner network, the application shall be evaluated by Amazon.in for the start-up’s fitment to the programme, the company announced.

About Amazon

• American international electronic commerce company.
• Headquarters: Seattle Washington US
• Founded: 1994
• Founder: Jeff Bezos
• World’s largest online retailer.

Bharti Airtel Limited on 5th December 2016 announced the appointment of Sunil Taldar as the Chief Executive Officer and Director for its DTH business.

Former CEO and Director Shashi Arora moved as Managing Director and CEO of Airtel Payments Bank.

Taldar will be a member of the Airtel Management Board.

He worked with Cadbury as India Sales Director and Mondelez (Indonesia) as Country Head.

Airtel Digital TV

• India DTH broadcast satellite service provider.
• Owned by: Bharti Airtel
• Launched: 2008
• Satellite services transmit TV and audio to Indian households.
• Customers: 12.4 million as per Sept 2016.
• Revenue: 21 percent as per Sept 2016.

Alibaba backed digital payments and commerce platform Paytm is transferring its wallet business to its newly created payments bank.

This is a mandatory step being followed by the company to fulfil the rules laid out by the Reserve Bank of India.

Paytm , which is run by One 97 Communications, has two key businesses -

• payments business and
• commerce marketplace.

Paytm was founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma

It has got an in-principle approval for the country’s central bank for launching the payment bank under the name of Sharma.

Commerce business is now associated with another entity Paytm e-commerce Private Limited.

Paytm allows fund transfer to bank accounts at 1% transaction fee.

Transfer will be complete once payment bank license is obtained.

Paytm

• Largest shareholder: Alibaba
• Holding company: One97 Communications
• 40% stake in parent company.
• Majority stake in payments bank: 51% (owned by Vijay Shekhar Sharma).
• Airtel launched the first payments bank in India, in Rajasthan.

Following demonetisation, to promote digital transactions, an upgraded Unified Payments Interface for banks is about to be launched. It aims to provide a cost effective and secured option, according to the finance ministry.

A single UPI platform is being developed for all banks as against the existing system of individual platform, according to the official.

Currently, about 30 banks including SBI, PNB and Canara Bank have their individual platforms.

The new platform will be easy to use and data secured.

With this new payment method, mobile phones will be used as virtual debit cards and a customer will be able to send or receive money instantly along with other features.

Provided there is a high mobile phone penetration in the country and the government is pushing digital banking, UPI is set to gain traction.

It has the potential to provide tough competition to mobile wallet players.

Post demonetisation of high value currency notes, more people have used e-payment including digital wallets for payments for various transactions.

There are about 40 crore smartphones while e-wallets have risen to 23 crore in less than one and a half years.

UPI

• Indigenously developed platform led by NPCI/ National Payment Corporation of India.
• Set up with support of RBI and IBA.
• NCPI operates Rupay payment infrastructure such as: Visa, MasterCard
• Different banks can interconnect and transfer funds domestically currently.
• UPI based technology solutions help merchants reduce set up costs.
• This will lead to greater reduction in transaction costs for consumers.

Gross revenue of TSPs (Telecom Service Providers) rose by 12.79 percent to INR 73,344 crore in April-June 2016 period as against a year ago.

Gross revenue and Adjusted Gross Revenue of Telecom Service Sector for the quarter ended June 2016 has been INR 73,334 crore and INR 53383 crore, according to TRAI.

AGR and GR increased by 10.34 and 7.33 percent in the reported quarter as compared to the previous quarter.

YOY growth in GR and AGR over the same Q1 in the previous year INR 65,030.31 crore and 47,134.27 crore respectively.

Access Services contributed to 83.84 percent of the total AGR of telecom services.

In Access Services, GR, AGR, License Fee and SUC rose by 9.2, 12.21, 13.35 and 12.42 percent.

Pass Through charges, which are revenues earned by telecom operators and passed into the account of the other operator such as interconnection charges and roaming revenue fell by 0.67 percent in Q1 2016.

Monthly Average Revenue per User for Telecom services based on AGR rose from INR 126.91 in quarter ending March 2016 to INR 140.88 in the reported quarter.

Prepaid ARPU for GSM service per month rose to INR 108 in reported quarter form INR 107 in Jan-March period and postpaid ARPU per month rose to INR 495 in June quarter from INR 488 in previous quarter.

License fee paid rose to INR 4314 crore during this period; quarterly and YOY growth rates were 11.43 and 14.05 percent.

YES Bank launched digital banking service SIMsePAY where account holders can make money transfers, pay utility bills and offer other mobile banking services without the need for smartphones or the internet.

The private sector bank has launched the service in partnership with the District Cooperative Bank, Dehradun and plans to launch it across the nation.

This will cater to a large section of the Indian population who remain unbanked or underbanked due to lack of smartphones or internet.

Close to 650 million feature phones in use.

The bank will also involve banking correspondents to spread the services further.

About SIMsePAY

• This is a wafer thin sticker pasted on SIM cards of TSPs
• It can be pasted on any SIM- standard, micro or nano.
• Sticker installs SIM Tool Kit based app which can be accessed by the customer on any mobile phone without the requirement of internet connectivity.
• Bank said the sticker would be linked to co-branded prepaid wallet or card which can be loaded to INR 50000.
• It runs through the cooperative bank account of the consumer.

Transactions performed include:


• National electronic funds transfer
• Immediate payment service based fund transfers
• Check balances
• Mini-statements

Mahindra Group and IBM have announced the development of a blockchain solutions that has the potential to reinvent supply chain finance across India.

By enhancing security, transparency and operational processes, this cloud based application is one of the first kind in India outside of traditional banking.

It is set to transform the supplier to manufacturer trade finance transactions through the permission distributed ledger, according to the company.

The blockchain based supply chain finance solution will enable parties involved in the transaction to act on the same shared ledger.

Each party updating only their part of the process, ensuring efficiency, consistency, trust and transparency while safeguarding sensitive information.

Mahindra Group & IBM

• The Mahindra Group pioneered the use of block chain to drive future growth
• Headquarter – Mumbai, India
• CEO: Anand Mahindra
• Main Subsidiaries: Mahindra & Mahindra, Tech Mahindra.

IBM (International Business Machines Corporation)


• Located in: American multinational technology company.
• Headquarters: Armonk, New York
• Operations: 170 countries
• Founded: June 16, 1911
• Revenue: 81.74 billion USD (2015)
• Founder: Charles Flint

Competition Commission of India in Nov 2016 approved the merger of Bhartiya Mahila Bank Ltd with the largest lender of India, SBI.

The combination is through amalgamation whereby BMBL and its assets and liabilities will be acquired by SBI.

While SBI has international presence including offices in 27nations, BMBL is a fledgling bank set up in Nov 2013.

For BMBL, 44231510 shares of SBI will be swapped for every 100 crore shares of face value of INR 10 each.

Post merger, the six entitles added including BMBL, will add INR 8 lakh crore to assets of SBI.

SBI-BBML merger

On 17th May, 2016, SBI informed BSE it was seeking acquisition of 5 subsidiaries and BMBL, namely:

1. State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur
2. State Bank of Hyderabad
3. State Bank of Mysore
4. State Bank of Patiala
5. State Bank of Travancore

• 2008, SBI first merged associate State Bank of Saurashtra
• 2010, State Bank of Indore was merged.
• The SBI board cleared merger with 5 associate banks and BMBL with itself in August 2016.