Bhartiya Mahila Bank:

Although initially reported as a bank exclusively for women, the bank allows deposits to flow from everyone, but lending will be predominantly for women. It has been decided to merge Bhatiya Mahila Bank with State Bank of India. Some salient features of Bhartiya Mahila Bank are:

♤ Bank will offer 4.5% interest on saving deposits

♤ It will not insist on collateral since most title deeds are in name of male family members.

♤ It will lend to micro businesses like catering, crèches & for upgrading kitchens in households

♤ The bank aims to have Rs. 60,000 crore business and 775 branches by 2020.

♤ It will provide loans primarily to women, and will give low-cost education loans for girls.

♤ Key positions, including treasury head and security head, held by women.

SARFAESI Act 2002: Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act (Sarfaesi Act) is the most potent tool in the hands of banks for recovering bad loans (NPAs). The SARFAESI Act empowers banks and financial institutions to recover their non-performing assets without intervention of courts.

The Act provides three alternative methods for recovery of non-performing assets — securitisation, asset reconstruction and enforcement of security — without the intervention of courts. According to the RBI’s Report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India, 2012-13, banks have recovered Rs 18,500 crore through the SARFAESI route. Also, in terms of efficiency, the Act has proved to be more effective than the debt recovery tribunals (DRTs) or mediation by Lok Adalats.

Lead bank Scheme: Till 1960s, the Banking needs of the rural areas in general and backward in particular were not taken care of by the Commercial Banks. Lead Bank Scheme (LBS) was introduced in 1969, based on the recommendations of the Gadgil Study Group.

The basic idea was to have an “area approach” for targeted and focused banking.

It refers to scheme under which, one of the commercial banks(like SBI, Axis, ICICI) act as a lead bank and coordinates the activities of another financial institutions like cooperatives banks for efficient functioning and rapid development at district level.

A high level committee chaired by RBI Deputy Governor Usha Thorat was constituted to review and revitalize this scheme. The Opinion of this committee is that full financial inclusion is possible only if it makes a facility of opening of no frill accounts backed by other specialized services.

Banking Ombudsman: Banking Ombudsman is a quasi-judicial authority functioning under India’s Banking Ombudsman Scheme 2006, and the authority was created pursuant to a decision by the Government of India to enable resolution of complaints of customers of banks relating to certain services rendered by the banks. From 2002 until 2006, around 36,000 complaints have been dealt by the Banking Ombudsmen.

Banking Ombudsman provides a forum to bank customers to seek redressal of their most common complaints against banks, including those relating to credit cards, service charges, promises given by the sales agents of banks, but not kept by banks, as also, delays in delivery of bank services. The bank customers would now be able to complain about non-payment or any inordinate delay in payments or collection of cheques towards bills or remittances by banks, as also non-acceptance of small denomination notes and coins or charging of commission for acceptance of small denomination notes and coins by banks.

DOMESTIC SYSTEMICALLY IMPORTANT BANKS (D-SIBS): The Reserve bank of India (RBI) has

identified State Bank of India (SBI), ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank as domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs). SIBs are perceived as certain big banks in the country. They enjoy a huge customer base are perceived as ‘Too Big to Fail (TBTF)’. As they command such a huge consumer base as well have NBFC subsidiary therefore they have expectation of government support at the time of distress.

EXIM BANK: Export-Import Bank of India is a wholly owned Govt. of India entity setup in 1982 for financing, facilitating and promoting foreign trade of India. The EXIM bank extends Line of Credit (loC) to overseas financial institutions, regional development banks, sovereign governments and other entities abroad. Thus, the EXIM Banks enables buyers in those countries to import developmental and infrastructure, equipment’s, goods and services from India on deferred credit terms. The bank also facilitates investment by Indian companies abroad for setting up joint ventures, subsidiaries or overseas acquisitions.

INSOLVENCY AND BANKRUPTCY BOARD: The Centre has constituted a four-member Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The main activity of IBBI would be to regulate the functioning of insolvency professionals, insolvency professional agencies and information utilities under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016.

PRIORITY SECTOR LENDING CERTIFICATES (PSLCS): RBI has permitting the issue and trading of PSL certificates, whereby banks can buy and sell such credits to manage their priority sector lending requirements