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Moneylife Digital Team 24 May 2012
To attract inflows in view of a falling rupee, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised the interest rate ceiling on NRI deposits in foreign currencies by up to 3%. RBI said, “Interest rate ceiling on Foreign Currency Non-Resident FCNR (B) deposits of banks has been raised from 125 basis points...

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Moneylife Digital Team 10 May 2012
State Bank of India (SBI) launched a ‘virtual’ electronic debit card for e-commerce transactions. It can be created by a customer using the SBI’s Internet banking facility. The product allows the user to create a virtual card for any online transaction. The customer is not required to share...

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Moneylife Digital Team 10 May 2012
South Africa-based financial services group, FirstRand Bank said it has entered into retail and commercial banking operations in India by opening of a branch in Mumbai. The Bank hopes to introduce some technology-based products in the country in the near future. It will tie up with various...

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Moneylife Digital Team 10 May 2012
Providing relief to home-loan borrowers, RBI asked banks not to levy any penalty on pre-payment of loans taken on floating rate. “Though many banks have… voluntarily abolished the pre-payment penalties on their floating rate home loans, there is a need for ensuring uniformity across the...

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Moneylife Digital Team 10 May 2012
RBI  has made it mandatory for all banks to print the MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) and IFSC (Indian financial system code) on the passbook and statement of account of the customers. “Currently, the MICR code is available on the cheque leaf along with the IFSC code of the...

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Moneylife Digital Team 10 May 2012
RBI has ‘advised’ all banks to offer all customers a ‘basic savings bank deposit account’ without insistence on a minimum balance. Such an account should offer certain minimum facilities. However, RBI has not guided about the ‘basic savings bank deposit account’. Currently, the minimum...

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Mark Huffman (ConsumerAffairs.com) 09 May 2012
About 2 lakh homeowners from the US could save as much as 30% of their monthly payments under the program ConsumerAffairs.com, in a report said that Bank of America (BoA) has begun contacting some of its mortgage customers who may be eligible for a mortgage balance reduction. The bank is...

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KP had illegally availed of over Rs800 crore from the banks in cahoots with the chairman and his son. Soon after, SEBI passed an order barring KP from the capital market for 14 years. In February 2012, the office of the custodian, appointed under the Special Courts Act of 1992, filed a...

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Moneylife Digital Team 05 April 2012
ICICI Bank has launched a new card for the super affluent segment and the Bank’s wealth management clientele called ICICI Bank Sapphiro. The card is linked to a single card account with a single statement and single fee. It provides access to a host of privileges from American Express and...

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Moneylife Digital Team 05 April 2012
In a move that would help a large number of home loan customers to reduce their interest burden, State Bank of India (SBI) has decided to allow them to re-price their existing loans at lower rates. The switchover will be subject to a small fee 1% of the outstanding loan amount. The move is...

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Moneylife Digital Team 29 March 2012
IDBI Bank launched the country’s first online G-Sec portal ‘Samriddi’ to enable retailers to purchase government bonds and securities. Observing that retail investors’ participation in government bonds and securities was much lower in India than countries like Japan, Mexico and Argentina,...

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Moneylife Digital Team 29 March 2012
SBI Cards and Payment Services Pvt Ltd launched two new initiatives. The first called ‘No Income Documents’ simplifies procedures for existing mortgage and auto loan customers as it eliminates the need to provide income documents while applying for a new card. Kadambi Narahari, CEO, SBI...

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The press and the media have ignored RuPay, which can bring about a revolution in India. But the ordinary bank customer can help spread the good word The press and the financial and business channels have...

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Anil Agashe 27 March 2012
Goldman Sachs executives invariably described their clients as ‘muppets’, a disparaging term equivalent to ‘bakras’ in Hindi. Indian banks seem to have similar attitude to their customers, according to this first-hand account I am a “classic customer” (whatever that means) of HDFC Bank....

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The Banking Ombudsman might be spending more time in rejecting rather than looking into complaints – it rejected 71% of complaints last year We need a proactive Banking Ombudsman Four years ago, when the excesses of the financial sector led to a global financial crisis, India had its...

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Moneylife Digital Team 15 March 2012
For hassle-free income-tax (I-T) collection, RBI has designated 926 computerised branches of public and private sector banks to receive advance tax payments from people residing in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. Of the 926 bank branches, 862 are public sector bank branches, while the rest are...

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Moneylife Digital Team 15 March 2012
Movida, a mobile payments joint venture by Visa and Monitise, has signed an agreement with HDFC Bank to introduce a mobile payment service. The service allows HDFC Bank’s customers to pay bills, top up prepaid airtime and buy tickets. It is designed to operate across all mobile networks using...

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Moneylife Digital Team 15 March 2012
Indian Bank has introduced an account portability feature which allows its customers to retain the account number even if they change the branch. The facility would enable customers to have the freedom of operating his/her account from any branch with just a change in home branch code. Customers...

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Moneylife Digital Team 15 March 2012
Bank customers in India are growing more comfortable with using their debit cards for purchases, according to Visa’s latest Global Payment Tracking Survey 2011. Debit card penetration in India is at 53%, a 4% rise over that in the previous year. This increase can be attributed to Indians’...

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Moneylife Digital Team 06 March 2012
In many cases like wrong reporting to CIBIL, upgrading credit card without consent, mis-selling and blank clause in loan agreement by banks, the Ombudsman has ruled in favour of the customer Banking customers continue to run from pillar to post to resolve their grievances, however, many of...

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