Saraswat Co-operative Bank, the largest multistate co-operative bank in the country, is likely to acquire financially-troubled Anyonya Co-op Bank (ACBL) soon. The merger of 118-yearold ACBL, which has 10 branches in Gujarat, is estimated to cost Rs 25 crore to Saraswat Bank. At present, Saraswat Bank has 190 branches in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and New Delhi. The bank has done a business of Rs 21,000 crore so far in the current financial year. In the last three years, it has acquired six co-operative banks — Maratha Mandir Coop Bank, Mandvi Co-op Bank (Mumbai), Annasaheb Karale Urban Co-op Bank (Sangli), Murdha Rajendra Co-operative Bank (Meerat), South Indian Bank (Mumbai) and Nashik-based Nashik People's Co-op Bank. In the process it has acquired 700,000 depositors.
What is BHIM? BHIM stands for Bharat Interface for Money , which is an easy way of transferring money from one bank account to an other via a smartphone using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform . It is an instant payments application meant for sending money as well as requesting for payments. How is it different from UPI? BHIM is no different than UPI. But in the case of BHIM, customers don't have to download mobile applications of multiple banks, instead a single BHIM app downloaded from Android Play Store is sufficient. Other than that, payments can be made through a virtual payments ID or through account number and IFS code, same as UPI. What you need to use BHIM? BHIM can be used across an droid smartphones with version 4.0 and above, also it will be made available on iPhones and Windows smartphones very soon. Further, for feature phone users they need to use the USSD feature by dial ing *99#. Why was the need for BHIM felt when UPI is already in place? With various...
