By: D.K Choudhary
Centre Allocates Rs. 500 crore to India Post Payments Bank for FY18
i. Government has allocated an amount of Rs 500 crore to India Post Payments Bank for the financial year 2017-18 to help it in setting up 650 branches across country by September 2017.
ii. As per Output-Outcome Framework for Schemes 2017-18 for the Department of Posts released on February 13, 2017, out of the allocated amount, Rs. 125 crore has been allocated as “capital infusion into corporate entity for India Post Payments Bank” and Rs 375 crore as “grant in aid to India Post Payments Bank (IPPB)”.
iii. Besides, Rs 110.83 crore has been allocated for establishing e-commerce, parcel booking, international business centres, Rs 73.5 crore for estates management, Rs 32 crore for mail operations and Rs 17.7 crore for equipments and IT infrastructure in rural post offices.
iv. Apart from this, government has allocated Rs 3.8 crore for setting up 246 offices and 200 outlets for providing better access to communication and financial services.
Nomura Projects India’s GDP at 5.7 % in January-March quarter
i. According to the global financial services major Nomura, the GDP growth of India is India’s GDP growth to hike by 7.8% in 2016-17estimated to remain low at 5.7 percent in the January-March quarter due to the effect of demonetization of high value currency.
ii. Nomura expects the economic growth to slow from 7.3 per cent GDP growth in the July-September 2016 to 6 percent in the October-December 2016 quarter and further to 5.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2017 ending March 2017.
iii. However, the growth is also expected to recover after the first quarter of 2017 due to remonetization and wealth redistribution.
World Bank Group, IFC to Conduct Training Programmes for NBFCs
i. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a part of the World Bank Group has partnered with Finance Industry Development Council (FIDC) to conduct training programmes for Non Banking Finance Companies (NBFCs).
ii. For this two engagement letters have been signed between IFC and FIDC on February 13, 2017 in New Delhi between Jun Zhang, IFC India Country Head and Raman Aggarwal, Chairman of FIDC, a representative body for NBFCs, especially those engaged in asset financing.
iii. The training programmes will focus on ‘movable asset financing’ and ‘commercial credit reporting’. It would be held at various centres across the country under the guidance of leading consultants from the World Bank Group.
iv. The training programme is expected to enhance the awareness, expertise and professionalism of NBFCs, especially the large number of small and medium sized NBFCs catering to the credit needs in rural and semi-urban areas.
v .The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution that offers investment, advisory, and asset management services to encourage private sector development in developing countries.
World Bank :
♦ Headquarters: Washington, D.C., United States
♦ CEO: Jim Yong Kim
IDFC Asset Management Company launches Open-Ended Fixed Income Fund
i. IDFC Asset Management Company launched an open-ended fixed income fund named Credit Opportunities Fund on February 13 in Mumbai which is expected to raise the revenue of the company in the range of Rs 300 crore-500 crore within the NFO period itself.
ii. A new fund offer (NFO) is the first time subscription offer for a new scheme launched by the asset management companies (AMCs). A new fund offer is launched in the market to raise capital from the public in order to buy securities like shares, govt. bonds etc. from the market.
iii. The Credit Opportunities Fund will open for subscription on February 14 and close on February 27. It will reopen for continuous sale and repurchase from March 6, 2017.
iv. The new fund scheme aims to optimise the higher risk associated with the credit fund category.
