• Here ‘P’ stand for Placements, the expanded form of QIPs is Qualified institutional placements.

• Qualified institutional placement (QIP) is a capital-raising tool, primarily used in India and other parts of southern Asia, whereby a listed company can issue equity shares, fully and partly convertible debentures, or any securities other than warrants which are convertible to equity shares to a qualified institutional buyer (QIB).

• India’s 3rd largest lender, Bank of Baroda will completely digitize its lending operations including home, agriculture, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), personal and auto loans.

• The bank has set up a new vertical, digital lending department at the corporate office, which will have substantial overlap with various credit verticals including Retail, MSME, Agri & service verticals like Analytics centre, Risk Management, Marketing.

• To set up this digital lending department the bank has reached out to the Big Four and some white shoe consultants like McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group.

• The bank has recently completed its merger with Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank.

• ICICI Home Finance Company Limited (HFC) has launched “SARAL” scheme for a special affordable house loan for urban and rural areas.

• The beneficiaries are women, lower, middle-income customers and economically weaker sections, with a maximum household income up to Rs 6 lakh per annum.

• The loan requires compulsory ownership of a woman in the country’s rural areas from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 6 lakh. The maximum limit of the loan is Rs 35 lakh.

• The interest rate of the loan starts from 7.98%. The maximum tenure of the loan is 20 years. Customers with pre-existing loans can also transfer their loans.

• CSB Bank Limited announced that the Board has appointed Mr. Pralay Mondal as the organization’s President (Retail, SME, Operations and IT). Mr. Mondal is expected to join the Bank in September 2020.

• He has around 30 years of banking experience across multiple business and functions including retail assets, retail liabilities, business banking, products and technology. Before joining Axis Bank, Mr. Mondal was the Senior Group President and Head of Retail and Business Banking at Yes Bank.

• He was instrumental in setting up the entire retail franchise in that bank in a short period of time. Prior to that he had a successful 12 years’ stint at HDFC Bank and was earlier associated with Standard Chartered Bank, Wipro InfoTech and Colgate Palmolive.

• According to the payroll data of EPFO the formal employment in India saw an 28.6 % increase at 78.58 lakh in 2019-20 as compared to only 61.12 lakh added in 2018-19.

• The main reason for this is the low withdrawal by EPFO subscribers due to the government’s policy reforms such as implementing GST, allowing fixed income contracts as well as better returns on PF (Provident Fund) deposits.

• Sectors such as Hospitality and Financial Institutions have experienced a 50% growth, while the formalities of the workforce in the textile sector have increased by 20 %.

• In exercise of powers conferred under Section 29A (1) (b) of NHB Act, 1987, RBI proposes to increase the minimum NOF for HFCs from the current requirement of Rs10 crore to Rs 20 crore in order to strengthen their capital base.

• Existing HFCs will get one year to reach the level of Rs 15 crore and two years to increase it to Rs 20 crore.

• Karnataka Bank in partnership with Universal Sompo General Insurance Company has launched a health insurance policy.

• The policy aims to cover the individuals’ COVID-19 pandemic related health expenses.

• The health cover can be availed at a nominal premium(current price without taking inflation or other factors into account) of Rs 399, inclusive of all taxes.

• It will cover-in-patient hospital expenses up to Rs 3 lakh, outpatient treatment expenses of Rs 3000.

• The policy will provide Rs 1000 per day against the expenses incurred towards 14 days of quarantine in a government or military hospital.

• Tata AIA Life Insurance partnered with East Consultancy Services to offer Aadhaar-based paperless offline e-Know Your Customer (KYC) service.

• This tie up helps to service the customer during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

• The e-KYC service will offer uninterrupted service to customers during the online application process for the company’s life insurance solutions.

• It will create Tata AIA Life’s End-to-End Digital Sales System, enabling remote purchase of its life insurance solutions.

● Fitch Ratings on Thursday revised India’s outlook to ‘negative’ from ‘stable’, stating that the coronavirus pandemic has significantly weakened the country’s growth prospects for the year and exposed the challenges associated with a high public-debt burden.

● The move comes after another rating agency Moody’s earlier this month downgraded India’s sovereign rating by a notch to lowest investment grade of ‘Baa2’ for the first time in 22 years.

● “Fitch Ratings has revised the outlook on India’s long-term foreign-currency issuer default rating (IDR) to negative from stable and affirmed the rating at ‘BBB-.

● Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) has collaborated with Karur Vysya Bank to offer simpler and flexible financing plans for new clients.

● Through the association with the bank, the company is trying to offer imminent purchasers exceptional plan of up to 100 per cent on-road funding with six months holiday period on all models, except van EECO, loans for both salaried and self-employed customers and repayment period up to 84 months.