Despite the pandemic which posed a serious threat to remittances to India from countries like the US, UAE and Saudi Arabia, the country received $87 billion in remittances in 2021, becoming the top remittance recipient, according to a World Health Organisation report.

The New Development Bank (NDB) has just approved five new projects totalling USD 875 million for water, sanitation, ecotourism and transport. Investments will support commitments by Brazil, China and India towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

NITI Aayog has released a report that makes a case and offers a template and roadmap for a licensing and regulatory regime for digital banks. It focuses on avoiding any regulatory or policy arbitrage and offers a level playing field to incumbents as well as competitors.

IndusInd Bank said its board has approved a proposal to raise up to Rs 20,000 crore in debt on a private placement basis to fund its business growth. The capital adequacy ratio of the bank stood at 18.42% as on March 31, with tier-I capital being at 16.80% and tier-II capital at 1.62% as percentage of its risk-weighted assets.

The Reserve Bank of India has hiked the minimum capital adequacy ratio (CAR) for Urban Cooperative Banks (UCBs) with deposits above Rs 100 crore to 12 per cent from the earlier floor of 9.0 per cent.It has provided a glide path till March 2026 to meet revised CAR norm in phases for UCBs that don't meet it currently.

The government on July 16 declared the so-called zero-coupon, zero-principal instruments as securities that can be listed on particular exchanges.According to the gazette notification, “zero coupon zero principal instrument” is an instrument issued by a not-for-profit organisation that will be registered with the social stock exchange segment of a recognised stock exchange in accordance with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) regulations.

The Reserve Bank of India said on 17 July said that the share of remittances from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region to India has declined in 2021, reflecting a slower pace of migration and the presence of the Indian diaspora in informal sectors that were hit the most during the pandemic period.

The World Bank approved a 500 million USD credit to help Bangladesh improve disaster preparedness against inland flooding in 14 flood-prone districts benefiting over 1.25 million people.The credit has been approved under the Resilient Infrastructure for Adoption and Vulnerability Reduction (RIVER) project of the World Bank. It will fund the construction of 500 multipurpose flood shelters, access roads, and climate-resilient community infrastructure in the country.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Bank Indonesia (BI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Bali, Indonesia, to improve mutual cooperation between them.With this MoU, RBI and BI committed to deepening relations between the two central banks and strengthening the exchange of information and cooperation in the area of central banking, including payment systems, digital innovation in payments services, and regulatory and supervisory framework for Anti Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML-CFT).

Kotak Mahindra Bank has completed technical integration with the new e-filing portal of the Income Tax department and has become the first private bank to fully integrate with the portal.Its customers can now pay their direct taxes through the e-pay tax tab on the portal using Kotak net banking or by visiting a branch. This will make the tax payment process simple, instant, and convenient for customers, said the bank.

Nasscom Foundation along with Google has set up a call centre 'DigiVaani' in collaboration with a not-for-profit body ISAP to help women farmers scale up their business.The project is being run on a pilot basis to initially reach out to 20,000 rural women entrepreneurs across six states — Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana and Rajasthan.

The IRDAI has formed two task forces to study issues the non-life insurance and life insurance industries face in reinsurance support. The two have to give reports in three weeks.Reinsurance support refers to insurance companies transferring a part of the risk they underwrite to other firms. The task force for the non-life insurance industry has nine members and it will be headed by Bhargav Dasgupta, MD&CEO, ICICI Lombard General Insurance. For the life insurance industry, a seven-member task force has been constituted under the chairmanship of Naveen Tahilyani, MD&CEO, TATA AIA Life Insurance.

SBICAP Ventures Limited (SVL), a subsidiary of the State Bank of India (SBI) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Government of India for establishing the Trilateral Development Cooperation Fund (TDC Fund).The TDC Fund will route India’s commitment of approx. INR 175 Cr to the Global Innovation Development Fund (GIP Fund) – an Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) proposed to be established in partnership with the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) under the India – UK Global Innovation Partnership (GIP).