Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams - 27 November, 2013
Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams
27 November 2013
Direction from RBI on charge for SMS alert
- The Reserve Bank of India directed banks on Tuesday to charge customers for transaction SMS alerts on the basis of usage, instead of imposing a fixed fee.
- “Considering the technology available with banks and the telecom service providers, it should be possible for banks to charge customers based on actual usage of SMS alerts,” RBI said in a notification to all banks.
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“With a view to ensuring reasonableness and equity in the charges levied by banks for sending SMS alerts to customers, banks are advised to leverage the technology available with them and the telecom service providers to ensure that such charges are levied on all customers on actual usage basis,” it said.
- In March 2011, the Reserve Bank had set guidelines for banks to send online alerts to customers for all types of transactions, irrespective of the amount.
Foreign banks don’t need to pay tax on converting to WoS
- The Reserve Bank of India has clarified that conversion of existing foreign bank branches into wholly-owned subsidiaries in India will not attract capital gains tax or stamp duty.
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“In this context, it may be indicated that Government of India has inserted, by the Finance Act, 2012, a new Chapter XII-BB titled ‘Special Provisions relating to Conversion of Indian Branch of a foreign bank into a subsidiary company’ in Income Tax Act, 1961, inter alia, exempting capital gains arising from such conversion from capital gains tax, with effect from April 1, 2013,’’ the RBI said in a release.
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On the applicability of stamp duty in the case of conversion of existing branch of a foreign bank into a wholly-owned subsidiary, the RBI pointed out that “a new section ‘8E’ had been inserted in Indian Stamp Act, 1899 vide Banking Laws (Amendment) Act, 2012 notified in Gazette of India Notification dated January 18, 2013, exempting from stamp duty on any conversion of a branch of a foreign bank into wholly-owned subsidiary or transfer of shareholding of a bank to a holding company in terms of the scheme or guidelines of RBI.’’
- This clarification comes in the wake of RBI receiving several queries
from foreign banks on capital gains tax and incidence of stamp duty on
conversion of existing foreign bank branches into wholly-owned subsidiaries.
The RBI issued the ‘Framework for setting up of wholly-owned subsidiaries by foreign banks in India’ on November 6. - The apex bank had said that foreign banks with complex structures and which did not provide adequate disclosures would have to operate in India only through wholly-owned subsidiaries (WoS) in order to regulate and avoid 2008-type crisis.
INS Vikramaditya left the yard’s pier sets sail for India
- Ten days after it was commissioned into the Indian Navy at the North Russian shipyard of Sevmash at Severodvinsk, INS Vikramaditya left the yard’s pier, setting course for its homeport at Karwar in Karnataka on Tuesday.
- Commanded by Captain Suraj Berry, Vikramaditya is at the outer anchorage at the time of filing this report, completing customs clearance formalities and bunkering.
- Resuming its long voyage home possibly on Wednesday morning, the carrier will have a few days’ stop at the Northwest Russian port of Murmansk, some 215 nautical miles away, where it will be joined by the frigate INS Trikhand and fleet tanker INS Deepak.
- The aircraft carrier underwent an issue-ridden reconstruction that lasted eight years at the Russian shipyard.
- INS Vikramaditya is expected to be in Indian waters by the third week of January.
