General Awarness & GK for Bank Po and Clerk Exam: 8/7/11

Canara Bank gets new executive director:The Government of India has appointed Mr Ashok Kumar Gupta, General Manager of Punjab National Bank, as the Executive Director of Canara Bank. He succeeds Mr Jagdish Pai K.L., who retired on June 30. According to a press release from Canara Bank, Mr Gupta assumed office on Thursday. He started his career as management trainee in Punjab National Bank in 1976. He also served as the Managing Director of PNB GILTs, a subsidiary of PNB. Before his elevation to the post of Executive Director of Canara Bank, Mr Gupta was in Chandigarh as Field General Manager for Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Union Territory of Chandigarh. (BL dt. 30.07.2011 p. 6)

PNB to accept 'cash' from door steps:Punjab National Bank said it would start accepting cash up to the value of Rs.2 crore from the premises of its customers, facilitating high value cash collection at their door steps. "We will soon start our new initiative in Chandigarh, where we will be accepting high amount of cash from customers' premises," GM Rohtash Kumar said. The minimum amount of cash to be collected from customers' premises would be Rs 1 Lakh, with maximum ceiling of Rs 2 crore without any charge. A dedicated team of bank officials will be set up which will look after door step banking services. The bank would also allow making payments to customers as per their requirement but within ceiling of Rs 2 crore. (DH dt 26.07.2011 p.15)

Canara Bank may hire 3,000 personnel this year:Canara Bank is likely to fill-up 3000 vacancies in various categories during this year, according to its Executive Director, Ms Archana S Bhargava. Speaking to newspersons on Friday, Ms Bhargava said apart from clerks, probationary officers, and agricultural officers, specialist positions in areas such as information technology would also be filled-up. “We have significant retirements which are to be replaced and branch expansion programme during the current year,’’ she said. Over 250 branches were likely to be added before March 2012 to the present network of 3,350 branches, she added. As part of its focus on microfinance and Self Help Group (SHG) linkage, three new microfinance branches would be opened in Andhra Pradesh. (BL dt. 23.07.2011 p. 15)

Canara Bank to open branches in 7 nations:Aiming to expand its overseas footprint, Canara Bank said on Thursday that it plans to open offices in seven countries, including Germany and US soon. The bank had already received the permission to open a branch in Germany, while in other countries including US, Brazil, South Africa, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and Australia, the process of getting permission has started, the bank’s ED Smt. Archana S Bhargava told reporters. Currently, the Bank has overseas branches in the UK, Hong Kong and China. It also has a joint venture with SBI in Moscow. The Bank, which has around 3,300 branches at present in the country, is also planning to add another 300 by end of this fiscal, she said adding that most of the new branches will be opened in rural and semi urban areas. She also said that the Bank has its presence in 452 districts of the total 644 districts in the country. As corporate social responsibility, bank has opened four computer training centres to impart free computer training to poor unemployed youth. Earlier, bank’s first specialised Government Business branch was opened at National Archives of India (NAI) office premises on Thursday. (DH dt. 22.07.2011 p. 17)

State Bank of Mysore, National Insurance join hands:State Bank of Mysore has announced three deposit schemes with free accident death insurance cover for savings bank and term deposit accounts. The bank has tied up with National Insurance Company. “This is an additional service we are offering for our customers. This will be on a trial basis, and we hope to come up with more such products in the future,” said Mr Dilip Mavinkurve, Managing Director, State Bank of Mysore. The schemes will offer insurance cover initially for one year and will be subject to review at the end of one year. These new products - MyBank Suraksha Savings account, MyBank Suraksha Savings Plus account and MyBank Suraksha Deposit account will be offered through the group insurance model to individuals, excluding NRI customers. (BL dt. 22.07.2011 p. 23)

Snag in your ATM? If unresolved, get Rs 100 a day:Ever thought that you could get paid by an ATM? Well, that is now a distinct possibility, thanks to RBI’s decision. If an ATM-related complaint isn’t redressed within seven days, it can potentially earn you Rs 100 a day. The Reserve Bank of India has reduced the mandatory time for resolving complaints related to ATM transactions to a week from the earlier 12 days, starting July 1. Complaints include wrong debits, non-receipt of cash and receipt of a lesser amount than specified in a withdrawal. It is important that one should immediately register his/her complaint with the bank, as the mandatory compensation after seven days is not applicable if the complaint is not brought to the notice of the bank within 30 days. (BL dt. 17.07.2011 p. 1)

SBI, ICICI Securities among four to manage PF corpus:State Bank of India, ICICI Securities Primary Dealership, Reliance Capital and HSBC Asset Management will manage the Rs 3.5 lakh crore-retirement corpus for three years, beginning September 1, 2011. The decision was announced on Thursday by the Central Board of Trustees, the tripartite decision-making body of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). The selection was done after evaluating the bids on both financial and technical grounds. Eighty per cent weightage was given to technical qualifications and 20 per cent to financial quotations, an official release said. Expressing hope of getting good returns for close to 5 crore provident fund depositors this year, the Union Labour Minister, Mr Mallikarjun Kharge said, “We will see their performance for one year, and based on that, an appropriate decision will be taken by the trustees for extensions.” Sources said ICICI Securities had quoted the lowest rate of 3 paise annually for managing Rs 10,000. Reliance Capital quoted a rate of 4 paise, HSBC AMC 36 paise and SBI Re 1. (BL dt. 15.07.2011 p. 9)

BoB to open 10-12 overseas branches:Public sector lender Bank of Baroda plans to open 10 to 12 overseas branches in the current fiscal. “We have plans to open another 10 to 12 branches in the current financial year in our various overseas territories. That would take our branch and office network abroad to around 100 by March, 2012, Bank of Baroda C&MD Mr M D Mallya said. (BS dt. 11.07.2011 p. 2)

Cost of convenience:ATM Charges Changes Walking into any bank's ATM and checking your account balance will come at a cost now. From July 1, banks have clubbed together all the services, some which were being offered free earlier, and started charging from the sixth service. So whether you withdraw cash, go for balance enquiry or take a mini statement, there will be a cost.
• Cash withdrawal: Allows cash withdrawals up to specified limit. Maximum charge is Rs.20/-
• Balance enquiry: Check the existing balance on ATM screen or get a printout, maximum charge is Rs.8.50/-
• Mini Statement: Some banks list out the previous six or ten transactions in the account, Maximum charge is Rs.8.50/-
• Pin change: Change the pin number for one ATM card, maximum charge is Rs.8.50/-
(BS dt 08.07.2011 p.5)
State Bank of India pushing ahead with green channel counters:SBI has started over 5,000 green channel counters (GCCs) at its branches across the country, according to the Chairman, Mr Pratip Chaudhuri. The GCC aims at providing customers with a simple, secure and quick way of executing banking transactions without carry passbooks or filling in pay-in-slips/withdrawal forms, or drawing cheques. All that is needed is the ATM-cum-Debit-Card and PIN for identifying the customer and his account. Cash deposits, cash withdrawals and funds transfers to the tune of Rs 40,000 per transaction are enabled through GCC. Registration of mobile numbers for the bank’s Mobile Banking Service will be introduced shortly through GCCs. In the last one year, 16 lakh transactions have been routed through GCCs, said the SBI chief. (BL dt. 02.07.2011 p. 6)

Gurgaon fraud: Citi fined R25 lakh:The Reserve Bank of India has fined Citibank a sum of Rs 25 lakh under Section 47(A)(1)(b) of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, which deals with the contravention of guidelines and instructions relating to know-your-customer (KYC) and anti money laundering (AML) regulations. In a statement on Monday, Reserve Bank of India said the bank’s failure to follow the KYC/AML guidelines, while opening accounts, led to the perpetration of a fraud at its Gurgaon branch. The Reserve Bank of India had issued a show cause notice to the bank on April 21st in response to which the bank submitted a reply dated May 6, 2011. After considering the facts and the bank’s reply, Reserve Bank of India concluded that the violations were substantiated and warranted imposition of the penalty.In December last year Citibank discovered a fraud at it's Gurgaon branch, perpetrated by an employee estimated at over Rs 400 crore. (FE dt. 05.07.2011 p. 18)

Post offices to offer core banking solution by next year:In its exercise to boost its profitability, the Department of Posts (DoP) plans to introduce core banking solution besides setting up India Post ATMs and debit cards for its customers. “We have set a target of bringing in core banking solution by 2012. It will ensure smooth online transactions. We are giving some e-payment services, but they are fragmented,” a DoP official said. He said the work for setting up 1,000 India Post ATMs was in advanced stage and DoP had held parleys with vendors on this front. “We will also issue debit cards to our existing savings account-holders,” the source added. (FE dt. 05.07.2011 p. 18)

19 banks to hold common exam for officers’ posts in Sept:The Institute of Banking Personal Selection (IBPS) has notified the Common Written Examination on behalf of the participating banks on Wednesday. Except SBI, almost all other major banks have come together for conducting the exam. SBI has its own set up for recruitment which is also being handled by IBPS. A score in the IBPS exam is now mandatory for selection of probationary officers/management trainees, as per the IBPS notification. (BL Dt. 07.07.2011 p.6)

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