Union Bank of India and Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), according to which Union Bank of India will salary distribution of the KV employees.
At present there are around 56,000 employees working with KVS. This step is aimed at bringing transparency to the salary disbursal of the employees.
The facility developed by Union Bank will consist if several other features also through which KVS will be able to collect and manage funds.
Reserve Bank of India has started issuing Banking licences to the foreign banks and corporate houses to start operating banking operations in the country but former IMF chief economist and honorary advisor to PM, Mr. Raghuram Rajan has opposed the idea.
"I think the old RBI policy of not allowing corporates banking licence was good one. I still stand by that. Whether it will continue with this or not is a different question," he said.
He stressed on giving preference to the NFBCs and MFIs over corporate houses. He said "If corporates are given licence, the regulator needs to ensure there is no inter-company lending, proper risk management processes are followed and there is enough transparency."
Ratnakar Bank has entered in to an agreement with the AGS Transact Technologies. According to the agreement AGS technologies will install ATMs for the lender and will also provide with technology based solutions for banking, retail, petroleum and postal sector.
The Head of Ratnakar Bank (Direct Banking Channels) Mr. Ritesh Rai said "The ATM deployment is a part of our plan towards aggressive expansion in the country. We have been looking for a strategic partner to help us with this objective. AGS' expertise in ATM management will help us in gaining a strong foothold and increasing our network."
President and CEO of AGS Transact technologies Mr. Sunil Udupa said "We have been servicing 10,000-plus ATMs through our state-of-art 24X7 command center that gives confidence to our customers. With this, we believe we can add great value to the bank's initiatives."
The National Payment Corporation (NPCL) has partnered with three banks and has launched Aadhar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) Project. The project is aimed to make banking process easier for the poor and less educated population in the country. The Business Correspondents have a major role to play in the implementation of the project.
Under this project, the customers will be able to withdraw or deposit cash, make balance enquires and they will also be able to transfer funds through Business Correspondents by using their UIDs
NPCL defines this facility as “a bank-led model, enabling online financial inclusion transaction at PoS or point of sale, or the MicroATM, through Business Correspondent (BC) of one bank for customers of another using Aadhar Authentication.”
Through this project NPCL will give a boost to the Financial Inclusion Plan as it will make easy to access their account for the no-frills account holders in the remote areas of the country.
The project is made functional in various districts of Jharkhand, where UIDs have been allotted. The three banks that are involved with this project are ICICI Bank , Union Bank of India and Bank of India.
To encourage the banks to open more and more no-frills accounts and to boost the Financial Inclusion Plan, Finance Minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee during his budget speech proposed to give Rs 140 to the respective bank for every no-frills account opened.
Mr. Mukherjee said "Financial support to the banks for opening 'no frills' accounts under Swabhiman Scheme as part of Financial Inclusion Plan Rs 50 crore (Budget estimate for 2011-12)."
No-frills accounts are meant for the individuals that have very basic banking requirements as such bank account provide very limited services. He also announced the launch of ‘Swabhimaan’, a multimedia campaign to spread awareness and to encourage people to open bank account.
Kotak Mahindra Bank has recently announced its expansion plans. The bank plans to increase the branch count to 500 from 300 by March 2012.
The Executive Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of the bank Mr. Uday Kotak said “We aspire to be national, including wholesale banking. We also want to see how we can get bigger. Inorganic (route) is something that also interests us. That's something on our radar.”
The bank plans to target wide range of customers apart from the high-worth customers. The bank also plans to expand its network overseas and is in talks with local players in the countries in US and Europe.
Kotak Mahindra Bank has planned major expansion plans for nest 12 months. The bank has set a target to raise the number of branches from 300 to 500 in nest 12 months.
The bank intends to target a wide range of customers apart from its high networth customers. The Vice Chairman and Managing Director of the bank Mr. Uday kotak said "It depends on how you define mass affluent. For us, we define mass affluent as anyone who has an annual household income of Rs 5 lakh compared to Rs 4.5 lakh when we started in 2003."
He also said that there are plans of collaborations with local banks in US and Europe in a bid to expand globally.
