By: D.K Choudhary
Banks cuts lending rates, home, corporate loans to be cheaper
i. A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an interest subvention for home loans of up to Rs. 12 lakh and asked banks to keep the poor and middle class at the focus of their activities many PSUs and private banks reduced their benchmark lending rate by up to 1.48 percent on January 3, 2017.
ii. The reduction in lending rates may lead to an increase in credit taking frequency which has moderated substantially putting burden on balance sheet of banks. Housing, auto and corporate loans are all set to become cheaper.
iii. The three state-owned banks, State Bank of India (SBI) and Punjab National Bank (PNB) and Union Bank of India on January 1, 2017, reduced the lending rate by a good 0.9 per cent.
iv. While SBI reduced its marginal cost of funds based lending rate (MCLR) by 90 basis points for all maturities, Union Bank of India reduced its MCLR by 65-90 basis points for loans of various tenures while PNB cut its MCLRs by 70 basis points for 1, 2 and 3 year tenures.
v. Following the reduction, lending rate of SBI for a one-year loan, has come down to 8% from 8.90%.
HDFC Ties with Niki.ai to Launch OnChat to make Payments via Facebook’s Messenger
i. HDFC has tied-up with artificial intelligence firm Niki.ai to launch a chatbot
called OnChat on Facebook’s Messenger platform, that will allow users to recharge phones, pay utility bills, book cabs from Ola or Uber etc., through a chat.
ii. The chatbot is available for non-HDFC bank users as well. The chat opens a payment gateway through which transactions can be made using any bank account.
iii. The chatbot is available on Facebook messenger where it can be used for e-commerce transactions like booking a cab, ordering food or making mobile recharges, bill payments for electricity, water, gas, DTH etc.
iv. For payments, the platform prompts users to pay either via Paytm, Freecharge or PayuMoney, using which users can pay via debit/credit cards etc. Thus the chatbot facilitates the transaction via another payment portal.
HDFC Bank
♦ HDFC Bank is an Indian banking and financial services company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It has about 87,555 employees and has a presence in Bahrain, Hong Kong and Dubai.
♦ CEO: Aditya Puri
♦ Headquarters: Mumbai
♦ Founded: August 1994
Coca-Cola India partners the State Bank of India to enable digital transactions
i. Coca-Cola India and its largest bottling partner Hindustan Coca-Cola beverages have partnered the SBI to enable over 2.6 million retailers and 5000 distributors in conducting business transactions digitally.
ii. SBI will educate retailers on digital transactions and will be developed a customized payment solution for retailers and distributors.
iii. They will also be able to access loans and other financial services from the bank
