Current Affairs on Finance

Current affairs on 14 February 2017

Task force set up to check tax evasion

In the latest move to curb tax evasion, the government has set up a task force to monitor actions of deviant shell companies.
The setting of the task force is done under the co-chairmanship of revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia and corporate affairs secretary Tapan Ray.
force is constituted to review the functioning of shell companies to prevent their misuse for money laundering and tax-evasion, especially post-demonetisation.

RBI's Monetory Policy February 2017 : Keeps repo rate unchanged at 6.25%

RBI governor Urjit Patel led Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) kept the key repo rate unchanged at 6.25% in the first monetary policy review of 2017 and after Budget 2017.
9.92 lakh crore new notes infused into market as on January 27, 2017.Inflation seen at 4-4.5% for April-September,2017. For January-March, 2017 CPI stay below 5%

Policy rates:
Repo Rate- 6.25%
Reverse Repo Rate- 5.75%
Marginal Standing Facility Rate- 6.75%
Bank Rate- 6.75%

Reserve Ratio:
CRR- 4%
SLR- 20.50%

Posted on: 10th February 2017 Read complete Article →

ICICI Securities partners with Saxo Bank

ICICI Securities, a subsidiary of ICICI Bank, has entered into a strategic partnership with Saxo Bank, an online multi-asset trading and investment specialist.
This partnership will offer Saxo's trading and investment capabilities via a digital platform to ICICI Securities' 4 million clients of ICICIdirect.com to diversify their investments outside of the domestic Indian market and access multi-asset investment opportunities on 36 stock exchanges across 24 countries, through SaxoTraderGo.
Clients opting for these services to invest outside India will gain access to third party research with Tradingfloor.com.

India and Austria signs protocol

India and Austria signed a Protocol amending the existing Convention between the two countries for Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with respect to Taxes on Income.
The Protocol will help curb tax evasion and tax avoidance between the two countries.

Posted on: 08th February 2017 Read complete Article →

‘Operation Clean Money’ (‘Swachh Dhan Abhiyan’) laucnhed by the IT Department

The Income Tax Department on 31 January 2017 launched the massive operation ‘Operation Clean Money’ (‘Swachh Dhan Abhiyan’) to unearth unaccounted money by scrutinizing around 18 lakh persons around the country and department is scrutinising these accounts and have asked taxpayers to revert to their queries in 10 days.
Operation Clean Money is basically a programming software which will be used to get answers on all the deposits made and after preliminary answers from the people. Then only, if need be, the IT Department will take legal action against those people.

Posted on: 07th February 2017 Read complete Article →

Ujjivan Small Finance Bank launched

Ujjivan Small Finance Bank small banking entity became the newest entrant in India’s banking sector by soft launching with five branches in Bengaluru as a pilot project on 6 February 2017.
Ujjivan is planning to become a leading mass market retail bank over the next five years by catering to the un-served and under-served customers.
As per announcement made by the bank, it will offer interest rates of 4% on savings accounts and on fixed deposit and recurring deposit interest rates will be in range of 5.5-8%.
The bank, backed by the UK’s CDC Group, will roll out its branch network across the country from next fiscal (2017-18).

Lakshmi Vilas Bank Partners with Fisdom

Lakshmi Vilas Bank has tied up with Fisdom,a Bangalore-based fin-tech startup,to launch financial planning and wealth management services based on robo-advisory platform.It is called Mission FINFIT.
This would make the bank a one-stop shop providing all the banking products and services that would be provided are KYC,investment etc.

Posted on: 02nd February 2017 Read complete Article →

Finance Minister to aid Rail safety plan

The Union Finance Ministry has agreed to contribute partially to a new dedicated railway safety fund named as ‘Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh’ in the upcoming budget session.
It is likely to grant a fresh infusion of only Rs 5000 crore in the upcoming financial year out of the initial proposed corpus of Rs 20000 crore.

Posted on: 01st February 2017 Read complete Article →

FGII ties up with Bank of Maharashtra

Future Generali India Insurance Company announced an agency tie-up with Bank of Maharashtra for bancassurance.
Currently bancassurance accounts for 5% of Future Generali’s total business.It has tie-up with over 100 banks across the country.

GAAR will be effective April 1, 2017

The Union Finance Ministry has announced that the General Anti Avoidance Rule (GAAR) will be effective from the 1 April, 2017.
India will be the 17th nation in the world to have laws that aim to close tax loopholes. At present, GAAR is in force in nations like Australia, Singapore, China and the UK.
In this regard Income Tax (IT) department has issued a slew of clarifications on implementation of GAAR, seeking to address concerns of foreign investors over implementation of the anti-evasion measure.
GAAR seeks to prevent companies from routing transactions through other countries to avoid taxes. The rules are framed mainly to minimize and check avoidance of tax.

Posted on: 31st January 2017 Read complete Article →