CHALLENGE PROFESSIONAL STUDIES

Friday, 3 January 2014

Financial Inclusix Index 2013 launched by credit rating agency CRISIL

Indian credit-rating agency CRISIL launched a Financial Inclusix Index 2013 on 2 January 2014. The index showed an improvement in the financial inclusion in India. The index showed an improvement of 2.7 percent in the year 2012. The score was the highest since 2009. The index was based on the data provided by Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The all-India CRISIL Inclusix score of 42.8 on a scale of 100, reflects under-penetration of formal banking in the country. The index measured the financial inclusion in each of the 638 districts of India.

Highlights of the Index are:

Overall 79 million new savings accounts were opened in 2012 which was 12.6 per cent more than in the year 2011.

Agricultural credit accounts grew at 11.1 per cent, the most since fiscal 2009.

The number of bank branches in the bottom 100 districts increased by 6 per cent, faster than the all-India growth of 5.6 per cent.

One in two Indians had a savings account and one in seven has access to bank credit.

The six largest cities in the country have 10 per cent of the bank branches whereas the bottom 50 districts have merely 2 per cent of the bank branches.

The four key elements driving the CRISIL Inclusix Index score up by 2.7 in fiscal 2012 were:

New deposit accounts in three regions – north, south and east. This contributed 42% to the rise in CRISIL Inclusix Index.

The north, by adding 2.4 million new credit accounts, contributed 11% to the index’s increase.

Almost 30% of the 5125 new branches were added in the south, which contributed 9% to the increase.

Credit penetration in the top 50 districts jumped significantly as small-borrower accounts surged.

Thus, the CRISIL recommended:

To speed up inclusion, financial services need to flow beyond the south and the large cities, and

Policy makers need to incentivise expansion of banking services in the districts that have low CRISIL Inclusix scores through an increase in branch network and partnerships with other players.

About CRISIL Inclusix Index

CRISIL Inclusix index is a comprehensive index to measure the progress of financial inclusion in India across 638 districts.

It is a relative index measured on a scale of 0 to 100.

It combines three critical parameters of basic banking services — branch penetration, deposit penetration, and credit penetration —into one metric.

Thursday, 2 January 2014

KERALA PSC Kottayam & Palagat

Latvia on 2 January 2014 became the 18th member of the Euro zone.

Latvia on 2 January 2014 became the 18th member of the Euro zone. The small ex-Soviet state has been preparing for the switch, since European Union finance ministers formally announced in July 2013 that Latvia could adopt the Euro.

Both Standard & Poor’s and Fitch have raised the country’s credit ratings in anticipation of its euro entry.

The economy of Latvia shrank by a quarter during 2008-2010, but then grew at the fastest pace in the EU, expanding by 5.6 percent in 2012, after the government slashed spending and wages and hiked taxes in one of the harshest austerity programs in Europe.

Latvia has recently emerged from the financial crisis to become the EU's fastest-growing economy.

Latvia gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and joined the European Union and NATO in 2004. It has a population of two million -- nearly 30 percent of Russian origin -- and annual gross domestic product of 28 billion dollar.

Latvia became the fourth smallest member of the currency area, ahead of Cyprus, Estonia and Malta. Estonia joined the euro zone in 2011 and Lithuania aims to do so in 2015.