SEBI issues new norms for public issuance of debt securities

1.    SEBI issues new norms for public issuance of debt securities

i. Market regulator SEBI has issued new norms for public issuance of debt securities under which such offers have to be of minimum Rs 100 crore, while issuers would need to make additional disclosures and attain atleast 75 per cent subscription. 

ii. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said that the entities coming out with public issue of NCDs would have to provide granular disclosures in their offer document, with regards to the "object of the issue".

iii. Also, an entity has to make additional disclosures in the offer document about details of money utilised from the previous issues of the issuer as well as the group companies. 
iv. The new norms would be applicable for the draft offer document for issuance of debt securities filed with the stock exchanges on or after July 16.

2.    Subhalakshmi Panse joins Federal Bank board

i. Subhalakshmi Panse, former CMD of Allahabad Bank, has joined the board of Federal Bank as an Independent Director.

ii. Panse had earlier served as Executive Director of Vijaya Bank for two-and-a-half years, overseeing all major portfolios of that bank.

iii. A post-graduate in Science, Panse has a Diploma in Business Management and Masters in Management Sciences from Pune University. She also holds an MBA from Drexel University, USA.

Note: Panse was a member of the RBI appointed committee on Corporate Governance and Chairman of the IBA committee on Cheque Truncation System - National Archive. At present, she is the Chairman of the Quality Review Board of the Indian Institute of Actuaries.

3.    Mobile money services to soon come within common man's reach

i. Mobile money services are set to become popular among the aam admi (common man) with NPCI signing agreements with seven telecom companies, A.P.Hota, Managing Director & CEO, NPCI.

ii. The seven telecom companies that have signed agreements with NPCI are Airtel, Idea, Tata Communications, Aircel, Uninor, Videocon and Quadrant.

iii. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has convinced these seven telecom companies to provide access to their unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) channel to all bank accounts, Hota said.

iv. NPCI is the umbrella organisation of all retail payment systems in India,

4.    Facebook releases messaging app Slingshot

i. Social media giant Facebook announced the release on Tuesday of its latest messaging app Slingshot.

ii. Slingshot lets users share selfies and other short-lived videos and pictures, but friends have to share something before they are able to see images from others, according to the announcement.

iii. Slingshot is an attempt to take users away from the popular messaging app Snapchat.