Page 5 - Banking Finance May 2022
P. 5

BANK UPDATE




         Banking





                                                                                       News












         Regional rural banks may           cial entities in the public sector, has  India. The final appointments will be
                                            identified managing directors for four  notified by the government based on
         be allowed to graduate as
                                            lenders - Union Bank of India, Indian  these recommendations.
         SFBs                               Overseas Bank, Punjab & Sind Bank and

         Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) should be  State Bank of India.           Central Banks should
         given the option to graduate into  The board has shortlisted A regulate cryptos
         small finance banks (SFBs) in line with  Manimekhalai for MD & CEO of Union  Central banks across the world should
         cooperative banks or be granted on-  Bank of India, Ajay Kumar Srivastava for  look at bringing cryptocurrencies in the
         tap licenses to become SFBs, State  the position of MD & CEO of Indian  regulated space though non-fungible
         Bank of India (SBI) Research said in its  Overseas Bank and Swaroop Kumar  tokens (NFT) or stable coins will not
         report. "In keeping with the fast-paced
         changes in the banking space and to  Saha for Punjab & Sind Bank. Alok Kumar  replace fiat currency, said DBS Bank
         facilitate growth, a scheme for volun-  Choudhary has been recommended for  Group CEO Piyush Gupta during an in-
         tary transition of Urban Co-operative  the position of MD in the State Bank of  teraction.
         Banks (UCBs) into SFBs was introduced  UPI lite announced for offline transactions
         in September 2018.
                                             The National Payment Corporation of India's (NPCI) Unified Payment Inter-
         RRBs may also be permitted to gradu-  face (UPI) has become one of the most widely accepted digital payment mode
         ate into SFB in line with Cooperative  because of its ease and convenience. UPI apps such as GooglePay, Phonepe,
         banks or granted on-tap license to  Paytm, are now ruling the online payment industry. However, NPCI now wants
         RRBs to become SFBs", the report said.  to make small value transactions through UPI offline. This is called 'UPI lite -
         In fact, some of the large regional ru-
         ral banks are bigger than the SFBs op-  On-Device wallet'.
         erating the market. India's largest RRB  It should be noted that NPCI has not revealed any specific date for the launch
         in terms of size of business - Baroda U.P.  of UPI Lite. "UPI Lite will be initially launched as a pilot with multiple banks
         Bank (Rs. 72,015 crore) is bigger than  and app providers, and after a due comfort is achieved, the full scale com-
         the largest SFB (AU SFB) - which has  mercial launch with compliance timeliness for on-boarding for the issuers and
         business (deposits + advances) size of  app providers will be declared," NPCI added.
         Rs. 70,588 crore as of March 2021.
                                             According to NPCI, India processes one billion UPI transaction every day, and
                                             to facilitate these growing transactions, banks have to upgrade their infra-
         Bank board picks MDs for            structure and this requires better technical grip and huge investments. The
         four banks                          NPCI took charge of this problem and has designed the 'UPI lite functionality
         The Banks Board Bureau, the body    for UPI users. This means you can now send payments exactly how you used
         which selects chief executives for finan-  to do but the only difference payments under this will work offline.

            BANKING FINANCE |                                                                   MAY | 2022 | 5
   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10