Page 5 - Banking Finance September 2020

BANK UPDATE

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IS passes Banking Regula- Sitharaman also made it clear that the Emerging Entrepreneurs Business
Centre was not encroaching into the (EEB) to support the emerging needs
tion (Amendment) Bill, terrain of the States and was only us- of the unbanked and under banked
2020 ing its powers under Items 43 and 45 segment of customers.

The Lok Sabha passed the Banking in the Union List of the Constitution to The vertical will focus on supporting
Regulation (amendment) Bill 2020 that enact this law. this segment of customers in their jour-
seeks to protect the depositors of co- "This Bill is in exercise of the powers ney to becoming entrepreneurs. In
operative banks and empower the vested under the Union List item and addition to micro loans, the vertical will
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to regulate therefore consultation with States is also manage micro home loan, micro
the banking activities of c ooperative not necessary. Consultation with States bazaar loan and micro enterprise loan,
societies. is required only on those in the concur- said a press statement issued by the
Replying to the over two-hour discus- rent list", she added. bank.
sions on the Bill in the lower house, the Sitharaman said that the Centre had to The bank has further appointed Kumar
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman promulgate an ordinance in June as it Ashish as the Executive President and
asserted that the Centre "cannot and was felt that the Covid-19 pandemic Head to spearhead EEB. Ashish has
does not want to undermine the coop- could make the already weak coopera- over 26 years of experience in setting
erative movement" in the country, but tive banks more "fragile" and this had up and managing businesses of signifi-
would want the RBI to effectively regu- to be avoided. cant scale in retail and business bank-
late those ing, rural banking, microfinance, agri
Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman SBI inks MoU with Aus banking and treasury.
cooperative societies if they are under- bank Ashish spent about two decades at
taking banking activities. "For better ICICI Bank, where in his last role, he
governance, we need to have banking State Bank of India (SBI) in Australia has was Senior General Manager & Retail
regulations to apply on them", she inked a memorandum of understanding Business Head for North India. During
said. (MoU) with Australian digital Bank Volt the long stint with ICICI Bank, he also
Bank for serving Indian migrants in the
Sitharaman highlighted that in the last Australian market. led the rural, agri-business and
two decades as many as 430 coopera- microfinance portfolios for the bank.
tive societies have been de-licensed Bandhan Bank's new verti- In his last assignment prior to joining
and liquidated. However, not a single Bandhan Bank, Ashish was Group Di-
commercial bank under RBI supervision cal to help entrepreneurs rector, Airtel Money, in Africa (a divi-
under the Banking Regulation Act had Bandhan Bank, which recently com- sion of Airtel Africa), which runs mobile
gone into liquidation in the last two pleted five years of operations as a money operations across 14 countries
decades, she added. bank, has set up a new vertical called in sub-Saharan Africa.

BANKING FINANCE | SEPTEMBER | 2020 | 5