Reply: During the period April 2007 to December 2009 FIPB considered 1215 proposals.
Egypt 5:
5- Page 131 paragraph 58
In the financial services sector what were the measures that have been adopted to encourage competition from the private sector?
Reply: In order to encourage competition from the private sector, Reserve Bank of India had licensed ten new private sector banks during 1994-1995 and two licences in 2003-2004.
Further, in order to achieve greater competition and ensure financial inclusion, Reserve Bank envisages issuing licences to a few more new banks in the private sector. For the purpose, Reserve Bank had studied the international practices and considered the Indian experience and placed a discussion paper on entry of new banks in the private sector on 11 August 2010. The draft guidelines on licensing of new banks have also been released on 29 August 2011 for comments. On examination of the feedback, and after certain vital amendments to the Banking Regulation Act 1949 are carried out, final guidelines would be issued and the process for granting licences to new bank in the private sector would be initiated.
Also, RBI gives a single class of banking licence to the foreign banks which allows them to carry on both retail and wholesale banking. RBI has on 21 January 2011 issued a "Discussion Paper on Presence of Foreign Banks in India" inviting comments/suggestions from all stakeholders. The Discussion Paper proposes possible autonomous liberalisation for foreign banks, permitting presence in India by way of wholly owned subsidiary (WOS). It may, however, be noted that a final view on the policy based on the Discussion Paper is yet to be taken.
Egypt 6:
6- Page 141 paragraph 65
What are the main objectives of the Self-Help Group-Bank Linkage Programme (SBLP), and how would national projects be eligible for the program?
Reply: A self-help group (SHG) is a registered or unregistered group of borrowers mostly women having homogenous social and economic backgrounds, voluntarily coming together to save regular small sums of money, mutually agreeing to contribute to a common fund and to meet their emergency needs on the basis of mutual help. Also it is a group of people who pool in their resources to become financially stable by taking loans from the money collected by that group and by making everybody of that group self-employed. The group members use social/peer pressure to ensure proper end-use of credit and timely repayment on the joint liability group mode.
