No penalty till 3 days after credit card's due date: RBI
- Reserve Bank of India has said that henceforth banks can levy a penalty on a credit cardholder only if they fail to receive payment for three days after the due date. The directive will benefit those whose payment or transfer gets delayed due to a bank holiday or for any other reason.
- Besides not charging penalty, RBI has said that banks should also report delayed payment to credit information companies like Cibil only when a credit card account remains 'past due' for more than three days. At present all banks state that late payment charges are applied if payment is not made by due date. The late payment charges vary between Rs 100 to Rs 700 depending on the total payment due.
Paytm asks RBI to raise cash limit for mobile wallets to Rs 25k from Rs 10k
- One97 Communications, owner of Paytm, the country's largest mobile wallet, has asked Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to hike the limit on money that can be kept in a mobile wallet to Rs 25,000 from Rs 10,000, people with knowledge of the development said.
- Credit and debit cards issued by all banks saw 150 million transactions in March 2015 (the latest month for which these figures are available). The comparable figures for the same month for Paytm were 75 million, founder and chairman Vijay Shekhar Sharma said, confirming the request made to the RBI.
- Under the existing RBI norms, only a minimum know your customer (KYC) of the mobile number and e-mail id verification is sufficient to hold Rs 10,000 in a mobile wallet. For anything higher, a full KYC, similar to what is required for opening of a bank account, is mandatory.
RBI, Central Bank of Sri Lanka ink currency swap agreement
- The Reserve Bank signed a special currency swap agreement with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka that will allow the latter to draw up to $1.1 billion.
- Under the arrangement, the Sri Lankan bank can draw up to $1.1 billion for a maximum period of six months.
- This special arrangement is in addition to the existing Framework on Currency Swap Arrangement for the Saarc member countries. In March, RBI had signed a Currency Swap Agreement with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka for $400 million under the existing Saarc Currency Swap Framework within the overall limit of $2 billion.
- The proposal to extend the additional currency swap facility of $1.1 billion for a limited period was decided by the government in April based on the recommendation of RBI.
Andromeda acquires apnapaisa.com
- Andromeda, one of the country's largest loan distributors, has acquired the apnapaisa.com, an online loan solutions space in a stock and cash deal.
Forex reserves down by $156.9 million to $354.360 billion
- The country's foreign exchange reserves declined marginally by $156.9 million to $354.360 billion in the week to July 10, due to fall in foreign currency assets, according to the RBI weekly data.
- In the previous reporting week, the reserves had dipped by $704 million to $354.517 billion. It had touched a lifetime high of $355.46 billion in the fortnight ended June 19.
- Foreign currency assets (FCAs), a major component of overall reserves, dipped by $177.4 million to $329.913 billion in the week, the data showed
- The country's gold reserves remained unchanged at $19.074 billion.
- The special drawing rights with the International Monetary Fund were up by $15.5 million to $4.058 billion in the week under review, while India's reserve position with the Fund increased by $5 million to $1.315 billion, the apex bank said.
