Current Affairs on Finance

State Bank of India declared Silchar as its 5th zone in North-East India

1. The SBI has 736 branches across North East together with 3000 ATMs and 3000 customer service points for customer facilitation. However,  State Bank of India (SBI) on 20 October 2016 declared Silchar as its 5th zone in North-East India to cater the banking needs of the people of Mizoram, Tripura and Manipur along with the Barak Valley.
2. The other four zones of SBI in region are located in Guwahati, Shillong, Dibrugarh and Jorhat.
3. SBI also opened its administrative office at Silchar to facilitate banking issues for the customers of the region.

Finance Ministry announced the sixth tranche of sovereign gold bonds

1. The duration of the bond will be for a period of eight years with exit option from the fifth year to be exercised on the interest payment dates.
2. Applications for the bonds will be accepted from October 24 to November 2, 2016 and the bonds will be issued on November 17.

SIDBI Launches ASPIRE Fund

1. SIDBI has launched a Rs 60 crore ASPIRE fund to promote innovation,rural entrepreneurship & agri-industry.
2. The Rs 60 crore ‘fund of funds’ falls under ‘A Scheme for Promotion of Innovation and Rural Entrepreneurship & agro-industry (ASPIRE)’ for supporting various venture capital funds.
3. The government initiative aims at providing the necessary support environment to unleash the potential of MSME

Govt to Launch 6th Tranche of SGB Scheme

1. So fargovt has come out with five tranches of the SGB and now it will launch the sixth tranche of Sovereign Gold Bonds (SGB) scheme on 24th of Oct in which people can buy securities worth up to 500 grams.
2. SGB is an alternative mode of investment to physical gold, was launched in Nov last year.
3. It provides investors a choice to diversify portfolio without the need to buy the metal in physical form.

According to IMF’s Financial Access Survey for 2016, for 2015 India had over 1.2 lakh branches of commercial banks across the country

1. China is seem to be is no better than India with 8 branches for every 100,000 adults when International Monetary Fund (IMF) released the results of the Financial Access Survey for 2016 on 19 October 2016 and focused on Just over 13 commercial bank branches for every 100,000 adults
2. This is higher than the number in the US, China, Brazil, Russia and South Africa. However, this translates to just over 13 commercial bank branches for every 100,000 adults.

State Bank of Patiala gets special award

1. State Bank of Patiala has been conferred “Special Award for Excellence in MSME lending” for its performance in lending to the MSME sector during the year 2013-14 & 2014-15.
2. The price is given for a growth of Rs 2597 crore (annualized 23%) and Rs 994 crore (annualized 7.10%) respectively.

 3.2 million debit cards are being blocked by banks

1. On 20 October 2016 as many as 3.2 million debit cards are being blocked by banks after a major potential security breach was reported.
2. 5 worst-hit card-issuing banks - SBI, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and Axis Bank have asked for either replacing or asking customer to change the security codes. SBI, along with it subsidiary banks, had earlier blocked about 6.25 lakh debit cards of their customers after “suspicious” transactions 
3. Of the debit cards affected, 2.6 million are on Visa and MasterCard platforms, while 600,000 are on the home-grown RuPay platform.