LIC AAO Banking Awareness Quiz: 19th March

Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation has hiked interest rate on employees’ provident fund to 8.65% from 8.55% for the 2018-19 fiscal year. The announcement was made by Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council met for its 33rd meeting and slashed GST rate on under-construction residential properties and the affordable housing projects. The revised rates will be applicable from April 1, 2019.

Reserve Bank of India and Bank of Japan have signed a Bilateral Swap Arrangement (BSA). The BSA was negotiated between India and Japan during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Tokyo in October 2018. The BSA provides for India to access 75 billion US dollars whereas the earlier BSA had provided for 50 billion dollars.

The Central Board of Trustees (CBT) headed by Labour Minister is the apex decision making body of the EPFO which finalises rate of interest on PF deposits for a financial year.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council met for its 33rd meeting and slashed GST rate on under-construction residential properties and the affordable housing projects. The revised rates will be applicable from April 1, 2019. The decision was based on recommendations of a Ministerial Panel headed by Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to use a new tool for the first time to enhance liquidity in the system using which it will buy $5 billion from the banks in a swap deal that is capable of injecting around Rs. 35,000 crores into the system.

The OECD cut forecasts again for the global economy in 2019 and 2020, following on from previous downgrades in November, as it warned that trade disputes and uncertainty over Brexit would hit world commerce and businesses. The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation & Development forecast in its interim outlook report that the world economy would grow 3.3 percent in 2019 and 3.4 percent in 2020. Those forecasts represented cuts of 0.2 percentage points for 2019 and 0.1 percentage points for 2020, compared to the OECD’s last set of forecasts in November.

Markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) withdrew the 20% limit on investments by Foreign Portfolio Investors in corporate bonds of an entity. The regulator stated that the restriction is being withdrawn in accordance with a circular issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The headquarters of Organisation for Economic Co-Operation & Development (OECD) is in Paris, France.

Foreign portfolio investment (FPI) consists of securities and other financial assets passively held by foreign investors.

Ajay Tyagi is the present Chairperson of SEBI.

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry in an attempt to provide relief to and boost investments into start-ups in India has decided to simplify the process for them to get exemptions under the Income Tax Act, 1961. It will now recognize an entity as a start-up up to 10 years from the date of its incorporation or registration instead of the existing duration of 7 years. It will also recognize an entity as a start-up if its turnover for any of the financial years since its incorporation or registration does not exceed Rs 100 crore unlike the previous amount of Rs 25 crore.

The Ahmedabad bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has approved the Rs 42,000-crore resolution plan submitted by ArcelorMittal for the debt-ridden Essar Steel Ltd. The tribunal’s approval for the mega-deal has come 583 days after it started the insolvency proceedings, instead of the mandated 270 days.

HDFC Bank Ltd crossed the Rs6 trillion market capitalization mark for the first time, making it only the third Indian firm—after Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) and Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL)—to achieve the milestone. RIL is the most valued company in India with a market cap of Rs8.50 trillion, followed by TCS at Rs7.48 trillion.

As per RBI notification, IDBI Bank has been categorized as a private sector lender following the acquisition of majority stake by Life Insurance Corporation. IDBI Bank has been under the prompt corrective action framework of RBI that bans it from corporate lending and branch expansions, salary hikes and other regular activities. In January 2019, LIC completed the process of picking up a controlling 51% stake in the nearly crippled IDBI Bank. IDBI Bank has been categorized as a ‘private sector bank’ with effect from January 21, 2019.