Lloyds Gets Final Approval from IRDA
- Lloyd’s, specialist insurance and reinsurance company, has got final regulatory approval from the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (Irda) to set up reinsurance branch in India at Mumbai.
- This will enable Lloyd’s syndicates to offer specialist reinsurance in a variety of classes from a Lloyd’s India branch.
- Lloyd’s will bring expertise and specialist capacity to India’s insurance market and work in partnership with local insurance businesses to develop innovative solutions that meet the unique needs of the growing economy.
Paramount Pictures Gets $1bn Chinese Funding
- US film company Paramount Pictures has secured a $1bn cash injection from two Chinese firms - Shanghai Film Group and Huahua Media will finance about a quarter of all Paramount’s films over the next three years.
- The partnership gives Paramount an entry point into China.The Viacom-owned Paramount deal comes as Viacom tries to revive its fortunes.
Google Buys Mobile App Toolkit Fabric
- Alphabet’s Google unit has agreed to purchase Fabric, a Twitter business that provides a software toolkit for mobile apps but didn’t disclose financial terms.
- Fabric is Twitter’s set of tools that helps mobile app developers to build, distribute and monetize apps.
Twitter Officially Shuts Down Vine App
- Twitter has shut down the Vine app service was founded in June 2012, and Twitter acquired it in October 2012, just before its official launch.
- Now Vine will be revamped into Vine Camera – an app that lets users shoot 6.5 second looping videos that can be uploaded to Twitter.
- The app had over 200 million active monthly users and more than 1.5 billion loops have been viewed since inception.
BSNL Launches Limited Fixed Mobile Telephony
- BSNL has announced the launch of ‘Ditto TV’ & limited fixed mobile telephony.
- The app helps in virtually turning mobiles into cordless phone working in sync with landlines within home premises.
- The latest limited Fixed Mobile Telephony (FMT) service is different from the FMT service it announced last year as new FMT allowed customers on roaming in India & overseas to connect their landlines.
Sony Pictures enters Hindi film music space with Sony ROX HD
- Sony Pictures Networks India has entered the Hindi film music space with the launch of Sony ROX HD and to be positioned as to be a destination of choice for the contemporary music enthusiast.
- Sony ROX HD showcases the latest Hindi film music in high definition visual format of 1080i resolution that is enhanced by Dolby Audio.
BHEL Commissions 500 MW Thermal Unit
- Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd has commissioned another 500 MW unit of Sagardighi Thermal Power Station Phase II in West Bengal by West Bengal Power Development Corporation (WBPDCL).
- The first unit of the 1,000-MW project was commissioned in December, 2015. BHEL has so far contributed 83 per cent of the total coal-based generating capacity of WBPDCL.
Ray-Ban Maker Agrees €46bn Merger
- Luxottica, the world’s biggest glasses maker, has agreed a huge merger with a rival eyewear firm as the Italian eyewear designer, which owns Ray-Ban and Oakley has decided to merge with French lens maker Esillor.
- Thus the combined, the two firms will be worth about €46bn (£40bn; $49bn) and this deal will also help to offer a succession plan for Leonardo Del Vecchio, Luxottica’s 81-year-old founder.
ICICI Bank blocked digital payments app PhonePe
- ICICI Bank on 13 January 2017 blocked transactions on digital payments app PhonePe, accusing it of breaking the UPI guidelines of interoperability.
- PhonePe CEO Sameer Nigam confirmed that ICICI Bank has blocked all their customers from using PhonePe, and even blocked any other bank’s customers from sending money to ICICI Bank’s customers using the app.
- According to ICICI Bank, PhonePe was following restrictive practices allowing users to make payments with only its UPI handle, which is in contravention to the UPI guidelines of interoperability and choice that empowers a customer to choose any app to make payments through UPI.
- Previously, SBI had stopped allowing users from topping up their Paytm wallets using the internet banking feature. The bank claimed it did so because of security concerns.
Airtel Launched Airtel Payments Bank
- In 2015, a total of 11 companies had received an in-principle approval from the RBI to offer payments bank services and thus Airtel became India’s first payment bank after the services of this entity were formally launched across all 29 states with network of 2,50,000 banking points on 12 January 2017.
- These banking points are more than the total number of ATMs in the country.
- Bharti Airtel has 80% stake in the entity, Kotak Mahindra Bank has 20% stake in it.
- On 11 April 2016, Airtel Payments Bank had become the first entity in India to receive a payments bank licence from the RBI. In November 2016, Airtel had rolled out its banking services in Rajasthan and was the first bank to start payment bank services in the country. In December 2016, Airtel extended its footprint to south India by rolling out pilot services in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
- Payment Bank offers all basic banking facilities like account-opening services and cash deposit & withdrawal facilities Thus savings accounts are opened using Aadhaar based e-KYC. The process requires no documents and only the customer’s Aadhaar number is needed to open the account and accepts deposits up to Rs.1 lakh only.
