:
ICICI Bank has announced the launch of country’s first ‘contactless’ debit and credit cards to enable electronic payments without swiping.
It will enable electronic payments by just waving the cards near the merchant terminal in lieu of dipping or swiping them. These cards are based on the Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, which provides customers the improved convenience of speed as these cards require significantly less time than traditional cards to complete a transaction along with enhanced security as they remain in control of the customer, ICICI Bank said in a statement.
At present, the ‘Coral Contactless Credit Card’ and ‘Expressions Wave Debit Card’ of ICICI Bank are powered to provide the contactless or the ‘tap and pay’ facility.
Both the contactless credit and debit cards can be used as regular cards at all MasterCard/Visa enabled merchant terminals, even those which are not enabled for contactless transactions. The facility is enabled through near field communication (NFC) technology.
“The bank has introduced these cards in Gurgaon, Hyderabad and Mumbai to begin with. Over 1,200 EDC machines capable of accepting contactless payments have been set-up across select merchants in these cities. The merchants include quick service restaurants, coffee shops, shopping marts and fuel stations where fast transactions are much required. The bank plans to shortly extend this facility to other cities as well,” the statement added.
Also, the RBI is looking at easing two-factor authentication requirement for small value transactions up to Rs. 3,000. This will further reduce the transaction process to less than a minute.
Rajiv Sabharwal, Executive Director, ICICI Bank said, “…We expect this to be a big game changer in the Indian payment industry. The key advantages of these cards are speed and security. The speed of transactions will add momentum to high value payments. At the same time, it will herald a shift from low value cash payments to cards thereby bringing payments in quick service restaurants and shopping marts too under the formal channel. Also, the level of security is higher since the card doesn’t leave the customer during the transaction process.”
Ari Sarker, Country Corporate Officer and Division President, South Asia, MasterCard said, “The launch of contactless technology marks a milestone in the Indian payment industry as it joins a select group of markets which has access to this unique offering. Increasingly Indians have begun to embrace technology while making banking transactions. We are confident of their positive response to this technology as we keep looking for innovative solutions to meet the progressively sophisticated and digital needs of consumers across the globe.”
Uttam Nayak, Group Country Manager India & South Asia and Global Head Emerging Markets Digital, Visa, said: “payWave provides a faster, more convenient and secure way for consumers to pay for their everyday purchases. Contactless payments are designed to replace the use of cash in busy retail environments where speed and convenience are important, such as supermarkets, convenience stores, and quick-service restaurants. With payWave you no longer need to fumble with change or worry if you have enough cash for your purchases, allowing you to spend less time at the register and more time doing the things that matter most to you.”
RBI directive to co-op banks-HBL
Mumbai, January 7:
The Reserve Bank of India has asked the boards of urban co-operative banks (UCBS) to constitute a special committee for monitoring and following up cases of frauds involving amounts of ₹1 crore and above.
The Audit Committee of the Board (ACB) will continue to monitor all the cases of frauds in general. There are 1,589 UCBs in the country.
Plug loopholes
The special committee will identify the systemic lacunae, if any, that facilitated perpetration of the fraud and put in place measures to plug the same; identify the reasons for delay in detection, if any, reporting to top management of the bank and RBI; monitor progress of CBI / police investigation, and recovery position.
Further, the committee will ensure that staff accountability is examined at all levels in all the cases of frauds and staff side action, if required, is completed quickly without loss of time; review the efficacy of the remedial action taken to prevent recurrence of frauds, such as strengthening of internal controls.
The special committee may be constituted with five members of the Board of Directors.
RBI prunes list of wilful defaulters-Times of India-08.01.2015
MUMBAI: The RBI has asked banks to exclude non-promoter directors from the list of wilful defaulters. The directive comes as an amendment to the central bank's master circular on wilful defaulters, which contains several clarifications on its earlier guidelines.One of the most substantive changes in the amendments is the exclusion of directors. "In view of the limited role of non-promoter/non-whole time directors (nominee and independent directors) in the management of a company's debt contracts, their names shall now be excluded from the list of wilful defaulters, except in the rarest circumstances which also have been specified in the master circular," RBI said in a communication to all banks.
In future, while reporting defaulting companies, the RBI has said that banks should specify nominee directors of banks, financial institution, central and state government's.
In another move, RBI has asked chairmen and directors of cooperative banks to monitor major frauds personally by being part of an audit committee of the board. The directors who are to be part of board must be either chartered accountants or having experience in finance, accounting and audit systems.
Contempt Petition in Court Only Against Vijay Mallya, Say Banks
Contempt petition in the Karnataka High Court has been filed only against liquor baron Vijay Mallya alleging breach of an oral undertaking given before the Debt Recovery Tribunal that they would not alienate unencumbered assets nor deal with them, Counsel for a consortium of banks clarified today.
"The consortium of banks had filed a contempt petition against Dr Vijay Mallya alleging breach of an oral undertaking given before the DRT at Bangalore during the proceedings relating to the Original Application filed by the consortium of banks against Kingfisher Airlines, United Breweries Holdings Limited and Dr Vijay Mallya," according to a written clarification issued by S S Naganand, senior counsel for consortium of banks.
The consortium yesterday had submitted before Justice N K Patil that an undertaking was given before the DRT that neither would the unencumbered assets be alienated nor dealt with but Mallya went ahead and created pledges in violation.
Justice Patil had ordered notice to Mr Mallya and two other companies in contention and posted the matter for another day.
A consortium of 17 banks, which had collectively lent over Rs 7,000 crore to the crisis-ridden airline, have initiated recovery proceedings under the available legal avenues using the underlining securities which they had.
The securities included shares in multiple group companies and real estate.
In February 2013, bankers publicly stated they had lost faith in the management's ability to revive the company.
-
No comments:
Post a Comment