Clarification: PSLCs may be construed in the nature of 'goods' in the course of inter-state trade or commerce, dealing in which has been notified as a permissible activity under section 6(1)(o) of BR Act vide Government of India Notification dated May 4, 2016. GST on PSLCs for the period July 01, 2017 to May 28, 2018 has to be paid by the seller bank on forward charge basis at the rate of 12%. With effect from May 28, 2018, GST has to be paid by the buyer bank under Reverse Charge Mechanism (RCM) at the rate of 18%. Further, IGST is payable on the supply of PSLC traded over e-kuber portal. If a bank which was liable to pay GST had already paid CGST/SGST or CGST/UGST, the bank is not required to pay IGST towards such supply. Further, as per the extant guidelines, no transaction charge/ fees is applicable on the participating banks payable to RBI for usage of the PSLC module on e-Kuber portal.

(The clarification given above is not a legal advice or opinion in the matter and it may not necessarily reflect the most current legal developments. The market participants should seek the advice of the tax experts/consultants/specialists before acting upon any of the information provided above).

Clarification: There are only four eligible categories of PSLCs i.e. PSLC General, PSLC Small and Marginal Farmer, PSLC Agriculture & PSLC Micro Enterprises.

Clarification: 'Export Credit' can form a part of underlying assets against the PSLC - General. However, any bank issuing PSLC-General against 'Export Credit' shall ensure that the underlying 'Export Credit' portfolio is also eligible for priority sector classification by domestic banks.

Clarification: Foreign banks with less than 20 branches are not allowed to buy PSLC General for achieving their 8% target of lending to sectors other than exports. However, such banks are allowed to buy PSLC Agriculture, PSLC Micro Enterprises and PSLC Small and Marginal Farmer for the same.

Clarification: The trade summary of PSLC market is available to the participants through the e-Kuber portal. Any new functionality will be notified to the participants via 'News & Announcements' section under e-Kuber portal.

Clarification: A bank can purchase PSLCs as per its requirements. Further, a bank is permitted to issue PSLCs upto 50 percent of previous year’s PSL achievement without having the underlying in its books. This is applicable category-wise. The net position of PSLCs (PSLC Buy – PSLC Sell) has to be considered while reporting the quarterly and annual priority sector returns. However, with regard to ascertaining the underlying assets, as on March 31st, the bank must have met the priority sector target by way of the sum of outstanding priority sector portfolio and net of PSLCs issued and purchased.

Clarification: The misclassifications, if any, will have to be reduced from the achievement of PSLC seller bank only. There will be no counterparty risk for the PSLC buyer, even if, the underlying asset of the traded PSLC gets misclassified.

Clarification: The premium will be completely market determined. No floor/ ceiling has been prescribed by RBI in this regard.

Clarification: There will be real time settlement of the matched premium and accordingly respective current accounts of the participating banks with RBI will be debited/ credited to the extent of matched premium

Clarification: The order matching will be done on anonymous basis through the portal and the buyer/ seller cannot select the counterparty. Partial matching will happen depending on the matching of premium and availability of category wise PSLC lots for sale and purchase.

Clarification: The normal trading hours shall be from 10 AM to 4:30 PM. The PSLC market operates on all days except Saturdays, Sundays, holidays declared under The Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 by the Government of Maharashtra. and such holidays as RBI may declare from time to time.

Clarification: The nature of PSLC trading has been kept anonymous to maintain most efficient price discovery. There is no provision for settling deals on bilateral basis and reporting on the portal subsequently. RBI has the discretion to cancel any deals which is settled at substantially higher/ lower premiums as compared to the prevailing rates on the portal.

Ans: The survey collects details of portfolio investment assets of domestic residents made in securities issued by unrelated non-residents i.e., securities issued by unrelated non-residents and owned by residents.

11.1 For every transaction entered into by the trading desk, a deal slip should be generated which should contain data relating to nature of the deal, name of the counter-party, whether it is a direct deal or through a broker (if it is through a broker, name of the broker), details of security, amount, price, contract date and time and settlement date. The deal slips should be serially numbered and verified separately to ensure that each deal slip has been properly accounted for. Once the deal is concluded, the deal slip should be immediately passed on to the back office (it should be separate and distinct from the front office) for recording and processing. For each deal, there must be a system of issue of confirmation to the counter-party. The timely receipt of requisite written confirmation from the counter-party, which must include all essential details of the contract, should be monitored by the back office. The need for counterparty confirmation of deals matched on NDS-OM will not arise, as NDS-OM is an anonymous automated order matching system. In case of trades finalized in the OTC market and reported on NDS-OM reported segment, both the buying and selling counter parties report the trade particulars separately on the reporting platform which should match for the trade to be settled.

11.2 Once a deal has been concluded through a broker, there should not be any substitution of the counterparty by the broker. Similarly, the security sold / purchased in a deal should not be substituted by another security under any circumstances.

11.3 On the basis of vouchers passed by the back office (which should be done after verification of actual contract notes received from the broker / counter party and confirmation of the deal by the counter party), the books of account should be independently prepared.

The Reserve Bank has been given the powers under the RBI Act 1934 to register, lay down policy, issue directions, inspect, regulate, supervise and exercise surveillance over NBFCs that meet the 50-50 criteria of principal business. The Reserve Bank can penalize NBFCs for violating the provisions of the RBI Act or the directions or orders issued by RBI under RBI Act. The penal action can also result in RBI cancelling the Certificate of Registration issued to the NBFC, or prohibiting them from accepting deposits and alienating their assets or filing a winding up petition.