Daily GK Update [27th June 2015]

1. BRICS bank to be operational by end of 2015: South Africa

i. The emerging market BRICS nations will have their own development bank by the end of the year.

ii. "The New Development Bank is expected to be operational by end of 2015," the South African finance ministry said in a statement that announced the nomination of South African banker Leslie Maasdorp as vice president of the bank and parliamentary ratification of two treaties concerning the lender.

iii. The BRICS nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - which represent 40 per cent of the world's population and a quarter of its economic output, decided in 2013 to create their own development bank to step up lending for the infrastructure projects needed to close the gap with the industrialised world.

The bank, which will be headquartered in Shanghai, is expected to have up to $100 billion in capital. 

iv. The inaugural meeting of the board of governors of the New Development Bank will be held in the Russian city of Ufa on July 7 to confirm the appointment of the management of the lender. 

2. India ranked best for investment

i. A ranking of destinations for attractiveness to foreign investors has placed India at the top among 110 countries. China has secured the 65th position and the U.S. is at the 50th. In the 2014 index, India was at the sixth position and Hong Kong was number one.

ii. The ranking is based on an index for baseline profitability that assumes that three factors affect the ultimate success of a foreign investment: how much the value of an asset grows; the preservation of that value while the asset is owned; and the ease of repatriation of proceeds from selling the asset.

iv. The index combines measures for each of these factors into a summary statistic that conveys a country’s basic attractiveness for investment.

3. Govt to infuse additional Rs 11,500 cr in PSU banks in FY16

i. Government is likely to infuse additional USD 1.8 billion (about Rs 11,500 crore) in public sector banks this fiscal over and above USD 1.2 billion earmarked in the Budget, Finance Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi said on Friday. 

ii. The government has earmarked Rs 7,940 crore in the Budget for recapitalisation of PSU banks for the current fiscal. 

iii. The government has already started assessment of capital requirement of public sector banks. It has already received presentation of 14 public sector banks. 

iv. According to an estimate, public sector banks would need an additional capital of Rs 2.40 lakh crore by 2018 to meet the Basel III capital adequacy norms. 

4. Mboweni heads for Brics bank

i. Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene announced on Friday that former Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni has been appointed as the non-executive director to the board the Brics New Development Bank (NDB).

ii. He added that Cabinet had endorsed the nomination of Leslie Maasdorp for vice-president of the NDB. Maasdorp recently parted ways with AdvTech where he was chief executive. He was previously the president of Merrill Lynch for southern Africa.

iii. The management of the NDBs will be appointed at the board of governors inaugural meeting on July 7‚ Nene said. The NDB is expected to be up and running by the end of the year.

5. Link Intime launches apps to give investors real-time info

i. To give real-time information, securities registry service provider Link Intime India Pvt Ltd has launched two unique mobile applications, one for investors and the other for client companies.

ii. The bLink app provides the latest information across all client companies serviced by Link Intime to investors. The app will provide information about IPO allotments, details of shareholder meetings, dividends declared and book closure period, undelivered articles, failure of credits of dividend/ interests, and failure of credit of shares/ bonds into investors’ accounts, among others.

iii. An investor can add up to 10 DP accounts under one login. The InSta Link app, for authorised corporate clients of Link Intime, gives an overview of the latest available holdings of shareholders of the company under various categories and changes thereof in the immediate past seven days.

6. HDFC Securities mobile trading app available in 11 languages 

i. HDFC Securities, a subsidiary of HDFC BankBSE -0.23 % has launched its mobile trading app in 11 different regional languages. 

ii. Language arriers or lack of research and advice should not be reasons for not investing in the future. Apart from English the app will be available in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Assamese, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Oriya.

iii. HDFC Securities has had a call centre running which services customers in eight different languages. The mobile apps in multiple languages along with call centres will give lot of comfort to investors. 

7. ICC amends rules in a bid to restore balance in ODIs

i. In a bid to restore the balance between bat and ball, the ICC today decided to scrap the batting Powerplays and allow five fielders outside the 30-yard circle in the last ten overs of an innings in one-dayers.

ii. The rule changes will come into effect for series starting on or after July 5, the ICC said in a media release issued today.

iii. The ICC Board during its Annual Conference here adopted these recommendations which were made by the ICC’s cricket committee headed by the former India captain Anil Kumble in Mumbai this May.

iv. The ICC Board also reviewed and adopted the Integrity Working Party’s recommendations to allow a greater role for a central Anti-Corruption Unit and pave the way for greater coordination of preventative and investigative activity around the world with a unified vision to ‘keep cricket clean’.