1. ACCOUNTS WITHOUT “FATCA“CERTIFICATION TO BE BLOCKED FROM MAY 1^st ONWARDS: Bank accounts of individuals and entities who have not submitted self-certification in order to comply with the provisions of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act ( FATCA), by April 30^th will be blocked  as per the directions of CBDT( Central Board of Direct taxes). This means those who have not complied with the said self-certification will not be allowed to transact any business in his/her account.

2.RBI, COMMERCIAL BANKS SPEND Rs. 21,000 CRORE ON CURRENCY MANAGEMENT: NITI AayogCEO has said that the Reserve Bank of India and other commercial banks spend Rs. 21,000 crore every year on currency management operations. This roughly works out to 1.7% of GDP. But since India is moving towards cashless society, as the digital transactions rise in volumes, this cost will come down due to less printing, storing, transporting, verifying and replacing of currency.

3. RBI DEPUTY GOVERNOR Mr.VIRAL ACHARYA CALLS FOR “ALL-OUT” SALE OF SOME WEAK PUBLIC SECTOR BANKS: Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Mr.Viral Acharya has said that the time may have come to “Re-privatise” some of the weak public sector banks, as the Government is taking steps to arrange funds to capitalise bad banks. According to Mr.Acharya, this would reduce the overall burdenof  the government to inject the capital and will help the government to preserve its hard earned fiscal discipline. This remark has raised a storm in the banking industry as most of the Bank Unions have strongly condemned the statement.

4. INCOME TAX NET WIDENS, NUMBER OF TAX PAYERS INCREASE BY NEARLY A CRORE:As the government turns the heat on black money, the number of people who filed tax returns increased by around 95 lakhs. The government has been looking to widen the tax net as barely a little over 3 % of the population is said to pay income tax. But this time around, as the government tightened the noose through demonetization and other measures, as many as 5.28 crore returns were e-filed in FY 16’, a rise of 22% over the preceding year.

5. FINALLY GOVDERNMENT PROPOSES ORDINANCE TO HELP BANKS DRIVE OUT OF NPA NET: Finally the cabinet has cleared the non-performing asset (NPA) resolution package that includes proposing an ordinance to empower the Reserve Bank of India to more effectively deal with bad loans. This move will pave the way for a long awaited initiative aimed at cleaning up the balance sheets of banks burdened with bad loans. This resolution has been sent to the Presidentfor approval and once this is approved the details of the resolution will be shared. Changes will be affected in Section 35A of Banking regulation Act and these changes will empower RBI to give directions to banks to effectively resolve NPA issues.

6. GOVERNMENT KEEN TO MOVE AHEAD WITH MORE PSB CONSOLIDATION: With the recent success of the merger of associate banks with SBI, the government is keen on further consolidation of some of the public sector banks with an aim to create only a few banks of global size and scale. The government will soon undertake the study on further consolidation of Indian Banks and look at various options for merger among the remaining 21 public sector banks.