IRDAI – to Set up Hubs on Motor, Property Insurances and Sets Norms for Surety Cover

Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has decided to set up two hubs, one on motor insurance at ‘Institute of Insurance and Risk Management (IIRM), the other on property insurance at ‘National Insurance Academy (NIA)’ to promote loss prevention measures in the general insurance industry. IRDAI also decided to form an advisory committee under the chairmanship of the NIA director to create a repository of past risk inspection reports and develop standard survey/inspection report formats.

• In exercise of the powers conferred under section 14 (2) (i) of IRDA Act, 1999, IRDAI has issued the following guidelines to regulate and develop Surety Insurance business named ‘IRDAI (Surety Insurance Contracts) Guidelines, 2022’.

LIC, GIC, New India Assurance Continue to be Identified as D-SIIs for 2021-22: IRDAI

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC) and New India Assurance continued to be identified by Insurance Regulator and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) as Domestic Systemically Important Insurers (D-SIIs) for 2021-22.

• They were also consequently subject to enhanced regulatory supervision and IRDAI has asked the three insurers to raise the level of corporate governance, identify all relevant risks and promote a sound risk management culture.

LIC Inaugurated “Digi Zone” To Enhance its Digital Footprint

Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India has inaugurated “Digi Zone”, at Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai, Maharashtra, as part of its effort to enhance its digital footprint. LIC’s Digi Zone can be used by the customers to purchase policies online, pay the premium and avail of other services.

Government Retains the Interest Rate of Small Savings Schemes for Q4 of FY22

Ministry of Finance, Department of Economic Affairs (Budget Division), has maintained the status quo and retained the Interest Rate of Small Savings Scheme unchanged for the 4th Quarter (Q4) for the Financial Year 2021-22 (FY22) (i.e. from January 2022 to March 2022) same as Q3 FY22, due to the rising cases of COVID-19 variant Omicron and elevated level of inflation.

The interest rates on various small savings instruments such as Public Provident Fund (PPF), National Savings Certificate (NSC), term deposits in post offices, etc remain unchanged from Q2 FY21 (around 7 quarters). Click here for Interest Rates on Small Savings Instruments for Q4 FY22.

Fullerton India and One97 Communications tie up to Provide Lending Products

Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) Fullerton India and One97 Communications, parent company of Paytm, have joined hands to provide lending products to merchant partners and consumers.Under this partnership, Paytm Postpaid/buy-now-pay-later or innovative merchant loan products will be offered to consumers on the Paytm platform while utilising Fullerton’s risk assessment capabilities, and understanding of the segment.

India offers USD 500mn LOC to Sri Lanka for Purchase of Petroleum Products

Indian Government offered a USD 500 million Line of Credit (LOC) to help Sri Lanka for purchase of petroleum products as it is struggling with fuel and energy crisis.This support is extended through a letter by Union Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to the Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka, Prof. Gamini Lakshman Peiris.

• Recently, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) also extended over US$ 900 million loan to Sri Lanka utilized that are being utilized by the latter to build up its depleted foreign reserves and for food imports.

Nippon India MF launches India’s first Auto Exchange Traded Fund

In January 2022, Nippon Life India Asset Management Limited (NAM India), the asset manager of Nippon India Mutual Fund (NIMF) launched a New Fund Offer (NFO) for Nippon India Nifty Auto Exchange Traded Fund (ETF). It is India’s First Auto sector ETF.

• The scheme will provide exposure to top 15 companies of auto sectors such as automobiles 4 wheelers, automobiles 2 & 3 wheelers, auto ancillaries, and tyres.

NBBL Launches UPMS to Simplify Recurring Bill Payments

NPCI Bharat BillPay Limited (NBBL), the wholly-owned subsidiary of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), launched a Unified Presentment Management System (UPMS), which will enable users to set up standing instructions on their recurring bill payments across all modes of digital payments.

The bills will be automatically fetched from the billers and presented to customers for their action, in terms of auto-debit and bill payment management.

Reliance Jio Introduces UPI Autopay in Collaboration with NPCI

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Reliance Jio collaborated to announce the introduction of Unified Payment Interface (UPI) Autopay for the telecom industry.Through this collaboration, Reliance Jio has become the 1st telecom company to launch a UPI autopay facility for both prepaid and postpaid subscribers.

• Jio customers can now autopay for their tariff plans on the MyJio app and avail touch-free auto- recharge and bill payments facility.

NPCI sets standardized limits for cash withdrawals and mini statements on AePS transactions In order to make Aadhaar enabled Payments Systems (AePS) more standardized, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has introduced limits for cash withdrawals and mini statements which needs to implement by the acquiring banks by January 15, 2022. As per the guidelines, the acquiring banks will have to implement a maximum limit of five approved cash withdrawal transactions per customer per terminal per day.

SJVN Got Category I Licence for Inter State Power Trading

Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVN) got the Category I licence for inter-state trading in electricity in India, which was granted by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC). SJVN has a portfolio of more than 16,000 megawatt (MW), out of which 2,016.5 MW is under operation.

An entity or person applying for a Category `I` trading licence should have net worth of Rs 50 crore and should have maintained minimum current ratio and liquidity ratio of 1:1.

NBFC Shrinithi Capital Raises Rs 300 Crores Co-Lending Facility

Shrinithi Capital Private (Pvt) Limited (Ltd), a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) which primarily focuses on commercial vehicle & two-wheeler loans, tied-up with IndoStar Capital Finance Ltd to focus on co-lending facilities.

• Shrinithi Capital Pvt Ltd has raised Rs. 300 crores as co- lending facility from IndoStar Capital Finance Ltd.

Yes Mutual Fund Renamed as White Oak Capital Mutual Fund

Yes Asset Management has been renamed as the White Oak Capital Asset Management with effect from 12th January 2022. In line with this, Yes Mutual Fund has been renamed as White Oak Capital Mutual Fund.In November 2021, the White Oak Capital group announced the completion of the transaction to acquire the mutual fund business of Yes Bank.

Torus Kling Blockchain launches Bitcoin and Ethereum Futures ETF, India’s first crypto backed futures ETF at GIFT City

The Torus Kling Blockchain IFSC, an equal joint venture between Cosmea Financial Holdings and Kling Trading India signed a MoU with India INX to launch the first Bitcoin and Ethereum Futures exchange traded funds (ETFs) in India.

These funds will become India’s first crypto backed futures outside of the United States (US).

• Torus Kling Blockchain is targeting $ 1 billion Assets Under Management (AUM) in the first two years from customers participating in blockchain backed products through ETFs and Discount certificates.
• Under the agreement, Torus Kling Blockchain IFSC also launched Metaverse US-listed large-cap discount certificates.

Marwadi Financial Services partnered with NSDL Payments Bank to offer 3-in-1 Savings Account to Customers

Marwadi Financial Services has joined hands with NSDL Payments Bank to offer 3-in-1 savings bank account with features of savings, demat (Dematerialised Account) and trading accounts to boost its customer experience. This partnership will also allow NSDL Payments Bank to access Marwadi’s clients and expand its customer base.

• NSDL Payments Bank is a subsidiary of NSDL (National Securities Depository Limited), the first nd the largest depository in India.Marwadi Financial Services is a Rajkot, Gujarat based financial service group dealing in equities/commodities/currencies broking and portfolio management services.

Indifi, GPay tie-up to offer Instant Digital Credit to Small Merchants

Indifi Technologies has joined hands with Alphabet’s UPI (Unified Payments Interface)-based payment app, Google Pay (GPay), to offer instant loans to eligible small merchants on the GPay platform.The loans will be in the range of Rs 2.5 to Rs 3 lakh.

• The reason behind this partnership is to serve small Indian businesses that are facing problems in running seamless operations due to lack of access to formal credit.

IIFL Securities Partners with Alphaniti for Stock Market Investors

Alphaniti, a Fintech company, partnered with IIFL Securities to allow investors to invest and trade in stock offerings.

The aim of the partnership is to allow direct investments by offering high-quality products at affordable costs through big data, deep domain expertise and technology for both India and the US markets across multiple asset classes.

Paytm Money Launches Intelligent Messenger ‘Pops’ to invest and track markets

Paytm Money, a wholly owned subsidiary of the digital finance platform ‘Paytm’, has launched India’s first intelligent messenger named ‘’Pop’’ to provide instant updates to track users’ investments in the stock market. “Pop” provides specific information related to their stock, portfolio analysis, market news, and important market movements all in one place and easily available to its users.

Snapdeal, BOB Financial & NPCI Launches Contactless RuPay Credit Card

E-commerce platform Snapdeal has partnered with Bank of Baroda (BOB) Financial Solutions Limited, a subsidiary of BoB, and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to launch a co-branded contactless RuPay credit card.

• Aim – To popularise the adoption and usage of credit cards among the online buyers from India’s smaller cities and towns.

MobiKwik & Bharat BillPay launch ClickPay Services for Bill Payments

MobiKwik, a mobile wallet Fintech company, partnered with NPCI Bharat BillPay Ltd. (NBBL) to launch ‘ClickPay’ service to its customers. With this, the customers of MobiKwik can pay recurring online bills, such as mobile, gas, water, electricity, DTH, insurance and loan EMIs using their mobile phone.

• ClickPay is a two-factor authentication payment feature wherein the billers generate a unique payment link within the bill-pay message and allow customers to make payments directly on the payment page.

NSE Remains World’s Largest Derivatives Market for 3rd Straight Year; NSE Indices launches Nifty India Defence Index

National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) has emerged as the world’s largest derivatives exchange for the third consecutive year in 2021 in terms of the number of contracts traded, based on the statistics maintained by the Futures Industry Association (FIA).As per the statistics maintained by the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) for 2021, the NSE exchange was ranked 4th by the number of trades in cash equities.

Indipaisa Partners with Hitachi Payment to Develop Fintech Platform for MSMEs

Hitachi Payment Services partnered with Indipaisa to develop a new Fintech platform for India’s 63 million Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).The objective of the partnership is to offer a high- quality digital platform for fintech services at affordable prices for the Indian MSME market.

• The partnership helps in financial inclusion for the marginalised MSMEs with technological know-how, centralised infrastructure and expansive network.

Max Life, Policybazaar Partners to Offer Insurance Cover for Homemakers

Max Life Insurance Company Limited (Max Life) has partnered with Policybazaar.com to offer its ‘Max Life Smart Secure Plus Plan’ on Policybazaar platform as an independent Insurance cover to homemakers. At present homemakers in India are allowed for term insurance cover only as an add-on to their earning spouse’s cover.

FAARMS, RGICL Partners to Offer Insurance to Farmers

FAARMS, the Agri-tech start-up, partners with Reliance General Insurance Company Ltd. (RGICL) and introduced customized digital insurance solutions for the rural population especially the farmers. The partnership will enable the farmers and any individual from rural areas to easily access and choose from a range of health and cattle insurance on the FAARMS app through their smartphones.