Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan become the interim PM of Thailand

1.    Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan become the interim PM of Thailand

i. Thailand’s caretaker Cabinet has appointed a new acting Prime Minister after acourt removed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra from office.

ii. Ms. Yingluck and nine Cabinet members were forced from power on Wednesday by the Constitutional Court, which found her guilty of abuse of power.

iii. Shortly after the ruling, her remaining Cabinet announced that Deputy Prime Minister Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan would become the interim leader

iv. The judgment marks the latest twist in Thailand’s long-running political crisis. But it does little to resolve the turmoil as it leaves the country in limbo and primed for more violence.

2.    RBI allowed the minors of age above 10 years to open Savings bank accounts

i. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued the guidelines to allow the minors of age above 10 years to independently open and operate savings bank accounts and use other facilities like ATM and cheque books.

ii. Till now, banks allowed minors to operate bank accounts only along with a parent or a guardian. All children and teenagers below the age of 18 are considered minors under current rules.
iii. RBI took this initiative to promote the objective of financial inclusion and also to bring uniformity among banks in opening and operating minors’ accounts.

Highlights of the guidelines:
• All minors can now open a savings/fixed/recurring bank deposit account through either his/her natural guardian or legally appointed guardian.
• Banks may keeping in view their risk management systems, fix limits in terms of age and amount up to which minors may be allowed to operate the deposit accounts independently.
• The banks can also decide on the minimum documents which are required for opening of accounts by minors.
• Banks are free to offer additional banking facilities like Internet banking, ATM/debit card, cheque book facility, etc, subject to the safeguards that minor accounts are not allowed to be overdrawn and that these always remain in credit.

3.    RBI scraps pre-payment charges on floating rate loans

i. Now you can pre-pay your home loans with that extra money in your hands without doing complex calculations on what your bank might charge you as penalty because you eat into their potential interest earnings.

ii. The RBI has told banks that they can longer charge any pre-payment charges to customers on floating rate term loans.

iii. Customers tend to pre-pay (foreclose) their loans when they find that the interest rates on their term loans have risen. Some customers foreclose their loans with existing banks by switching to banks who offer loans at lower rates.

iv. Some banks charge as much as two per cent of the outstanding amount as penalty for foreclosure.