Page 7 - BANKING FINANCE MARCH 2024

BANK UPDATE

Bank of India, recently, directed Paytm persist since 2002 onwards. There was a company - SBI Payments - which of-
Payments Bank to stop accepting new a set of employees in the bank who fers PoS terminals and QR codes. They
deposits in its accounts or digital wal- were entitled to a pension of 40 per are already in the market all this while
lets from March, citing supervisory cent and a set of employees who were and now we are also reaching out to
concerns and non-compliance with entitled to a pension of 50 per cent," merchants so that they do not face any
rules. SBI Chairman Dinesh Khara said. "The disruption," Khara said.
matter was pending before a court of
The EPFO, which has a corpus of over
law. A settlement is almost in the off-
18 trillion rupees ($216.89 billion) cov- Banks facing disruption in
ing and we have got approvals from
ering nearly 300 million workers, had UPI services, says NPCI
allowed Paytm Payments Bank to the government as well as the RBI but
settle claims in November 2023. are still awaiting the formal notifica- Some of the banks experienced Unified
tion," Khara said. Payment System (UPI) connectivity dis-

Pension liability of Rs. "Nevertheless, since we were in the ruptions due to internal technical is-
position to have a very clear visibility, sues, National Payments Corporation
7,100 crore brings down we have provided for this additional Rs of India (NPCI) said.
SBI profits by 35.5% in Dec 5,400 crore on account of this increase NPCI, the umbrella organisation for
quarter in pension for all employees. Second, operating retail payments and settle-
there was another obligation on dear- ment systems in the country, said it
State Bank of India (SBI), India's larg- ness relief neutralisation for the pre- was working with such lenders to re-
est bank, has reported a 35.5 year-on- 2002 retirees which was to the tune of solve the issue.
year decline in standalone net profit at Rs 1,700 crore," Khara said at a me-
Rs 9,163.96 crore for the quarter dia conference. "Regret inconvenience on UPI connec-
ended December 2023 as against Rs tivity as few of the banks are having
14,205.34 crore in the same quarter of On credit offtake, Khara said, "we are some internal technical issues. NPCI
last year. Pension liability of Rs 7,100 observing that credit growth has been systems are working fine and we are
very broad based. We are seeing a working with these banks to ensure
crore dented the profits for the quar-
ter, the bank said. health trend and are quite hopeful it quick resolution," NPCI wrote on the
will continue going forward as well." site X.
Total income during the quarter rose
to Rs 118,192 crore as against Rs SBI Chairman: Paytm cus- "We experienced some difficulties on
98,083 crore a year ago. Net interest UPI which seems to be part of a larger
income (NII), the difference between tomers are welcome ecosystem. We are back in operations

interest earned and interest ex- State Bank of India (SBI) Chairman now and regret any inconvenience
pended, for the third quarter rose 4.5 Dinesh Khara said the bank is ready to faced," HDFC Bank said on X.
per cent on-year to Rs 39,815.73 absorb Paytm customers to its fold. UPI, the real-time payment system,
crore, compared to Rs 38,068.8 crore "We are ready for them. If at all they powers multiple bank accounts into a
in the corresponding quarter of last are willing to come, we are more than single mobile application (of any par-
year. happy to lap them up," Khara said. ticipating bank), merging several bank-
"We absorbed additional liability to "We are reaching out to all the mer- ing features, seamless fund routing
the tune of Rs 7100 crore on account chants and would be happy to wel- and merchant payments into one
of anomaly in pension which used to come them into our fold. We have got hood.

No. of GST return filers up 65% in 5 years

The number of GST return filers rose about 65% to 1.1 crore in 5 years till April 2023 as compliance by taxpayers improved,
the finance ministry said. Also, the number of active taxpayers registered under GST increased from a little over 1 crore
as of April 2018, to 1.4 crore. As per data shared by the ministry, 90% of eligible taxpayers are filing GSTR-3B returns by
the end of the filing month in the current fiscal year, up from 68% in 2017-18. "Simplification in rules and procedure in GST
has resulted in increase in return filing percentage by eligible taxpayers," the ministry said in a post on X.

BANKING FINANCE | MARCH | 2024 | 7