Pilot project for end-to-end digitalisation of Kisan Credit Card (KCC) lending
The pilot will commence in September 2022 in select districts of Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu with Union Bank of India and Federal Bank, respectively, as partner banks and with active cooperation of the state governments.
RBI notifies guidelines on Digital Lending.
REs shall communicate to the borrower, at the time of sanctioning of the loan and also at the time of passing on the recovery responsibilities to an Lending Service Provider (LSP) or change in the LSP responsible for recovery, the details of the LSP acting as recovery agent who is authorised to approach the borrower for recovery.
RBI re-issues Master Direction on Liberalized Remittance Scheme
The Master Direction provides that the received/realized/unspent/unused foreign exchange, unless reinvested, shall be repatriated and surrendered to an authorized person within a period of 180 days from the date of such receipt/ realization/purchase/acquisition or date of return to India, as the case may be.
RBI notifies Foreign Exchange Management (Overseas Investment) Regulations, 2022.
An Indian entity may lend or invest in any debt instruments issued by a foreign entity subject to the condition that such loans are duly backed by a loan agreement where the rate of interest shall be charged on an arm’s length basis.
Reserve Bank of India releases Discussion Paper on Charges in Payment Systems.
The discussion paper covers all aspects relating to charges in payment systems [such as Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) system, Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system and Unified Payments Interface (UPI)] and various payment instruments [such as debit cards, credit cards and Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs)], etc. The feedback received would be used to guide policies and intervention strategies.
Cabinet approves enhancement in the corpus of Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme for increasing the limit of admissible guarantees.
The ECLGS was launched by the Government of India as a special scheme in view of COVID-19 crisis, to provide 100% guarantee coverage to banks and NBFCs to enable them to extend emergency credit facilities to business enterprises/MSMEs to meet their additional term loan/additional working capital requirements.
Cabinet approves Interest subvention of 1.5% per annum on Short Term Agriculture Loan upto Rupees Three lakh.
An increase in Interest Subvention will ensure sustainability of credit flow in the agriculture sector as well as ensure financial health and viability of the lending institutions especially Regional Rural Banks & Cooperative Banks, ensuring adequate agriculture credit in rural economy.
RBI notifies responsibilities of regulated entities employing recovery agents
The extant guidelines on permissible hours for calling borrowers on phone for recovery purpose are currently specified in respect of Housing Finance Companies and REs extending microfinance loans.
RBI amends Gold Monetization Scheme, 2015
Guidelines for Renewal/Redemption of Medium- and Long-Term Government Deposit (MLTGD) are included. It clearly lays down that premature redemption of MLTGD shall only be in INR, while redemption of principal at maturity shall, at the option of the depositor, be either in Indian Rupee equivalent of the value of deposited gold at the time of redemption, or in gold.
RBI notifies amendments to Prudential Guidelines on Bilateral netting of qualified financial contracts.
For Credit Default Swaps where the bank is the protection seller and that are outside netting and margin agreements, the exposure may be capped to the amount of premium unpaid. Banks have the option to remove such credit derivatives from their legal netting sets in order to apply the cap.
