Page 26 - Banking Finance June 2020

PRESS RELEASE

PhonePe partners with ICICI Bank on UPI Multi-Bank

PhonePe, India’s leading digital payments platform, today announced that it has partnered with ICICI Bank on UPI multi-
bank model giving its users the option to create and use multiple UPI IDs with ICICI Bank’s “@ibl” handle and YES Bank’s
‘@ybl’ handle on the PhonePe app. This addition, in partnership with ICICI Bank, enables quick and contactless payments
to over 200 million registered PhonePe users. For PhonePe, this is in line with the company’s philosophy of offering users and
merchant partners a seamless transaction flow. Collaborating with two banking partners will further strengthen the overall
service reliability and uptime of PhonePe's market leading UPI offering.

Commenting on the announcement, Hemant Gala, Vice President, Financial Services & Payments, PhonePe said, “At PhonePe
our effort has always been to give customers more choice while making their transaction experience seamless. Offering the
‘@ibl’ handle to the users on our platform further solidifies PhonePe’s already fruitful association with ICICI Bank. With
customers now being able to choose between multiple handles for their UPI IDs, we have achieved another key milestone
in our journey towards making payments easy, secure and accessible to all.”

Talking about the partnership, Bijith Bhaskar, Head- Digital Channels & Partnership, ICICI Bank said, “With increase in adoption
of digital payments, ICICI Bank remains committed to extend its robust, reliable and scalable ICICI stack for wider use to the
customers and partners. In further deepening of its collaborative ecosystem, ICICI Bank is partnering with PhonePe for
extending UPI services. We believe that with this partnership both ICICI Bank and PhonePe would be able to capitalise on
their immense domain strengths for empowering customers to a seamless and simple digital payment experience.” The
new version of the app to add or create ICICI Bank’s UPI ID will be gradually rolled out to the users in the coming weeks.

HUDCO Posts Robust Financial Results in 2019-2020

Shri M. Nagaraj, CMD, HUDCO, shared the highlights of HUDCO's robust performance in 2019-2020, wherein the company
has recorded Outstanding financial results in its Golden Jubilee Year witnessing a 45% growth in Net Profit that has touched
an all-time high of Rs 1708.42crore in 2019-2020, from Rs 1180.15 crore in 2018-2019. HUDCO has seen a 13% growth in
its net worth that has reached Rs 12343.49 crore in 2019-20, from Rs 10955.77 crore in 2018-2019. The net total income
also witnessed a quantum jump of 35% to Rs 7571.64 crore in 2019-2020, from Rs 5591.22 crore in 2018-2019.
Further, Shri D. Guhan, Director (Finance), has shared that HUDCO Board has also approved an all-time high dividend of Rs
3.10 per share subject to approval by the shareholders. The above includes interim dividend of Rs 0.75 per share paid in
March, 2020. The total dividend recommended by the Company is Rs 620.59 croreas against Rs 165.16 crore in the previous
year.
Further, HUDCO's Net NPA is 0.19%, which is among the lowest in the sector.During the year 2019-2020, HUDCO's emphasis
was on sanction of projects pertaining to Housing-PMAY(U), Expressways and Water Supply projects.

Bank of Maharashtra Reduces RLLR by 40 bps & MCLR by 20 bps

Bank of Maharashtra (BoM), a premier public sector bank in the country, has slashed its Repo Linked Lending Rate (RLLR)
by 40 bps w.e.f June 8, 2020. RLLR has been reduced to 7.05%. Now all Retail loans (housing, education, vehicle), loans
to MSME, which are linked to RLLR, will be available at cheaper rates. This will further benefit the Retail & MSME
borrowers.
Bank has also consecutively reduced its Marginal Cost of Funds based Lending Rates (MCLR) for the 3rd Month. MCLR
rate has been reduced by 20 bps below the existing levels across all tenors w.e.f 8 th June, 2020. Bank’s overnight, one
month & three months MCLR have been reduced to 7.20% (from 7.40%), 7.30% (from 7.50%) & 7.40% (from 7.60%) in
these tenors. For six months, MCLR rates has been revised to 7.50% (down from 7.70%) and one year MCLR to 7.70%
(down from 7.90%). The reduction in Bank’s MCLR is aimed to support economic growth and industrial development and
ensure rate transmission.

26 | 2020 | JUNE | BANKING FINANCE