Ans.: The RBI launches the ITES survey during the month of June every year with the previous financial year end-March as the reference date.

Ans. Any person who contravenes any provision of the FEMA, 1999 [except section 3(a)] or contravenes any rule, regulation, notification, direction or order issued in exercise of the powers under this Act or contravenes any condition subject to which an authorization is issued by the Reserve Bank, can apply for compounding to the Reserve Bank. Applications seeking compounding of contraventions under section 3(a) of FEMA, 1999 may be submitted to the Directorate of Enforcement (DOE).

Ans.: The survey is conducted annually.

Banks can pay interest on savings bank accounts at quarterly or longer rests.

Non-competitive bidding means the bidder would be able to participate in the auctions of dated government securities without having to quote the yield or price in the bid. Thus, he will not have to worry about whether his bid will be on or off-the-mark; as long as he bids in accordance with the scheme, he will be allotted securities fully or partially.

The Banking Ombudsman is a senior official appointed by the Reserve Bank of India to redress customer complaints against deficiency in certain banking services covered under the grounds of complaint specified under Clause 8 of the Banking Ombudsman Scheme 2006 (As amended upto July 1, 2017).

Primarily, there are two variants of ECS - ECS Credit and ECS Debit. ECS Credit is used by an institution for affording credit to a large number of beneficiaries (for instance, employees, investors etc.) having accounts with bank branches at various locations within the jurisdiction of a ECS Centre by raising a single debit to the bank account of the user institution. ECS Credit enables payment of amounts towards distribution of dividend, interest, salary, pension, etc., of the user institution. ECS Debit is used by an institution for raising debits to a large number of accounts (for instance, consumers of utility services, borrowers, investors in mutual funds etc.) maintained with bank branches at various locations within the jurisdiction of a ECS Centre for single credit to the bank account of the user institution. ECS Debit is useful for payment of telephone / electricity / water bills, cess / tax collections, loan installment repayments, periodic investments in mutual funds, insurance premium etc., that are periodic or repetitive in nature and payable to the user institution by large number of customers etc.

The availability of non-competitive bidding facility in an auction will be announced along with the respective press release and the information is made available on Reserve Bank’s website.

RBI carries out the general banking business of the governments through its own offices and commercial banks, both public and private, appointed as its agents. Section 45 of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, provides for appointment of scheduled commercial banks as agents at all places or at any place in India, for purposes that it may specify, “having regard to public interest, convenience of banking, banking development and such other factors which in its opinion are relevant in this regard”.

Reserve Bank of India maintains the Principal Accounts of Central as well as State Governments at its Central Accounts Section, Nagpur. It has put in place a well-structured arrangement for revenue collection as well as payments on behalf of Government across the country. A network comprising the Government Banking Divisions of RBI and branches of agency banks appointed under Section 45 of the RBI Act carry out the government transactions. At present all the public sector banks and select private sector banks act as RBI's agents. Only designated branches of agency banks can conduct government banking business.

Ans. Foreign exchange can be purchased from any authorised person, such as an AD Category-I bank and AD Category II. Full-Fledged Money Changers (FFMCs) are also permitted to release exchange for business and private visits.

To widen the access of foreign exchange facilities to residents and tourists while ensuring efficient customer service through competition.

Ans: NEFT offers the following advantages for funds transfer or receipt:

• Round the clock availability on all days of the year.

• Near-real-time funds transfer to the beneficiary account and settlement in a secure manner.

• Pan-India coverage through large network of branches of all types of banks.

• The beneficiary need not visit a bank branch for depositing the paper instruments. Remitter can initiate the remittances from his / her home / place of work using internet banking, if his / her bank offers such service.

• Positive confirmation to the remitter by SMS / e-mail on credit to beneficiary account.

• Penal interest provision for delay in credit or return of transactions.

• No levy of charges by RBI from banks.

• No charges to savings bank account customers for online NEFT transactions.

• The transaction charges have been capped by RBI.

• Besides funds transfer, NEFT system can be used for a variety of transactions including payment of credit card dues to the card issuing banks, payment of loan EMI, inward foreign exchange remittances, etc.

• The transaction has legal backing.

• Available for one-way funds transfers from India to Nepal.

Answer: A ‘Person of Indian Origin (PIO)’ is a person resident outside India who is a citizen of any country other than Bangladesh or Pakistan or such other country as may be specified by the Central Government, satisfying the following conditions:

1. Who was a citizen of India by virtue of the Constitution of India or the Citizenship Act, 1955 (57 of 1955); or

2. Who belonged to a territory that became part of India after the 15th day of August, 1947; or

3. Who is a child or a grandchild or a great grandchild of a citizen of India or of a person referred to in clause (a) or (b); or

4. Who is a spouse of foreign origin of a citizen of India or spouse of foreign origin of a person referred to in clause (a) or (b) or (c)

A PIO will include an ‘Overseas Citizen of India’ cardholder within the meaning of Section 7(A) of the Citizenship Act, 1955. Such an OCI Card holder should also be a person resident outside India.

Ans: The cap is applicable on the total amount disbursed out of the DLG set at any given time (read with answer to Q.1 above). Kindly see illustrations at the end.

Ans: One can remit upto ₹2 lakhs per transaction to the beneficiary residing in Nepal; provided the sender maintains account with any NEFT enabled bank branch in India.

Walk-in / Non-customer can remit upto ₹50,000 per transaction to Nepal residing beneficiary.

Ans. As regards the non-resident counterparty/ overseas entities, AD bank may be guided by the instructions contained in paragraph 2 of the circular.

In CTS, the presenting bank (or its branch) captures the data (on the MICR band) and the images of a cheque using their Capture System (comprising of a scanner, core banking or other application) which is internal to them and meeting the specifications and standards prescribed for data and images under CTS.

To ensure security, safety and non-repudiation of data / images, end-to-end Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) has been implemented in CTS. As part of the requirement, the collecting bank (presenting bank) sends the data and captured images duly signed digitally and encrypted to the central processing location (Clearing House) for onward transmission to the paying bank (destination or drawee bank). For participating in the clearing process under CTS, the presenting and paying banks use either the Clearing House Interface (CHI) or Data Exchange Module (DEM) that enables them to connect and transmit data and images in a secure and safe manner to the Centralised Clearing House (CCH).

The Clearing House processes the data, arrives at the settlement, and routes the images and requisite data to the paying banks. This is called presentation clearing. The paying banks through their CHI / DEM receive the images and data from the CCH for further processing.

The paying bank’s CHI / DEM also generates the return file for unpaid instruments, if any. The return file / data sent by the paying banks are processed by the Clearing House in the return clearing session in the same way as presentation clearing and return data is provided to the presenting banks for processing.

The clearing cycle is treated as complete once the presentation clearing and the associated return clearing sessions are successfully processed. The entire essence of CTS technology lies in the use of images of cheques (instead of the physical cheques) for payment processing.

The Government Securities Act, 2006 (G S Act) is an Act to consolidate and amend the laws relating to Government securities and its management by the RBI and for matters connected therewith.

Ans. Conversion of the token back to actual card details is known as de-tokenisation.

All the farm credit exposures of all lending institutions, including NBFCs, of the nature listed in Paragraph 6.1 of Master Direction FIDD.CO.Plan.1/04.09.01/2016-17 dated July 7, 2016 (as updated), except for loans to allied activities, viz., dairy, fishery, animal husbandry, poultry, bee-keeping and sericulture are excluded from the scope of the Resolution Framework. Subject to the above, loans given to farmer households would be eligible for resolution under the Resolution Framework if they do not meet any other conditions for exclusions listed in the Resolution Framework.

Ans. Yes. Under this facility, a cardholder can withdraw cash up to ₹2,000 per transaction within an overall monthly limit of ₹10,000.

As on date, 21 Ombudsman for Digital Transactions have been appointed with their offices located mostly in state capitals. The addresses and contact details of the offices of the Ombudsman for Digital Transactions is provided under Annex I of the Scheme.

Response

No. In supersession of instructions contained in circular RPCD.RF.BC.54/07.38.01/2005-06 dated December 13, 2005 and RPCD.CO.No.RRB.BC.58/03.05.33(F)/2005-06 dated December 27, 2005 on No Frill accounts, banks have now been advised to offer a 'Basic Savings Bank Deposit Account' to all their customers vide RPCD.CO.RRB.RCB.BC.No.24/07.38.01/2012-13 dated August 22, 2012 which will offer minimum common facilities as stated therein. Banks are required to convert the existing 'no-frills' accounts’ into 'Basic Savings Bank Deposit Accounts'.