AAP to expand network in Saudi Arabia, other Gulf countries

Bengaluru, May 19: Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) has begun booking of tickets from May 18. Ticket counters have been opened after implementation of new guidelines for the fourth phase of COVID-19 nationwide lockdown.

People seeking to travel can book the tickets through KSRTC booking counters, authorised franchises booking counters and online, mobile booking, according to a release.

The advanced booking has started for Bengaluru-Shivamogga, Bengaluru-Mysuru, Bengaluru-Mangaluru routes, among others.

Bookings can be made upto 30 days in advance, as per the release.

Amid COVID-19, Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation has restricted the operation services of the bus between 7 AM to 7 PM, said the release.

Passengers are permitted to travel with social distancing measures while the transport corporation will follow the standard operating procedure issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The MHA had issued updated guidelines after the implementation of the fourth phase of nationwide lockdown on May 17th.

Mangaluru, Mar 8: The Saraswat Co-operative Bank Ltd., celebrated International Women’s Day with a special seminar on Financial Planning for the banks’ women customers. The programme was held on Friday, March 6, 2020 from 4.00 to 6.00 p.m. at Hotel Ocean Pearl Inn, Bejai, Mangalore. Dr. Sukanya Rao, academician and financial planner, was the chief guest and resource person for the seminar. Mr. Srinivas C., Karnataka State Head, Future Generali India Insurance Company Ltd., was the guest of honour.  Mrs. Vimala Anchan, Senior Manager and Branch Head of M. G. Road Branch of Saraswat Bank presided over the function.

In her chief guest’s address, Dr. Sukanya Rao defined empowerment of women as the ability of take one’s own decisions and utilize resources. Quoting global rankings, she said India enjoys a high ranking of being 9th in the world in political empowerment of women, whereas in other sectors we stand abysmally low. In social empowerment of women, India ranks at 120th, in economic empowerment at 124th and health and survival at 135th.

She suggested that the best tool for enhancing these empowerment rankings is education, which will lead to earning potential and result in enhancing social status. “Every year spent in school boosts girl’s wages by 10-20%,” she said “When a girl receives 7+ years of education, marriage gets postponed by four years and she has 2.2 less children.” She advised women to learn to take one’s own decisions. “Learn to take decisions, especially financial decisions, on your own instead of depending on significant others to do the decision making,” she said.

She followed up her talk with an interactive session on personal financial planning. She enlightened the audience on factors influencing our financial decision making and gave different perspectives on prioritizing savings, spending and investment. 

Srinivas C., Karnataka State Head, Future Generali India Insurance Company Ltd., along with Deepak enlightened the women regarding financial safeguards available under Married Women's Property Act (1874).

Established in 1918, Saraswat Bank was the first co-operative bank to provide merchant banking services after it was recognized as a scheduled bank by RBI in 1988. The bank enjoys high proportion of women employees (nearly 75%) and it is a recipient of Best Cooperative Bank Award in 2016.

Fun games were conducted and prizes were distributed to the winners. Bhavanthi Street Branch Head Karthik Shetty welcomed the gathering. Prithvi Pai and Aishwarya rendered the invocation. Naina Shenoy expressed the bank’s Women’s Day greetings. Chilimbi Branch Head Kishore Shetty gave a vote of thanks. Mahesh Nayak compered the programme. Past Branch Head Mamtha Rao was present.

Bengaluru, Jan 16: Amping up the online payment experience for consumers, Razorpay, the leading full-stack financial services company, today launched a new product, Instant Refunds for businesses.

This new feature activates refunds and credits the customer's source account across payment methods such as credit card, net banking, and UPI within a minute of initiation.

India is one of the fastest-growing online retail markets today. About 71 per cent of internet users in the country purchase products online. Today, the refund process has two major pain points for both the end customer and the business.

First, a delay of five-seven business days for the customer in receiving the money because of multiple intermediaries like the acquiring bank, issuing bank and the networks (VISA/MasterCard/Rupay).

Second, the lack of transparency during the entire refund process for both the customer and the business. This long cycle of processing refunds is a significant problem with every popular payment method in the industry.

By issuing refunds instantly, Razorpay will help businesses retain their customers, build trust through an improved hassle-free payment experience and provide complete transparency on refunds to both the business and the end-user.

This new feature will also reduce the dependence on manpower as every refund issue on an average leads to ten service emails or calls from customer support teams.

"Instant Refunds are the new normal and central to great customer experience. A lot of consumers fail to use online payment methods as they feel getting refunds through an online platform is a very time-consuming task; hence they prefer CoD as the best alternative. Given the technological advancements being made in the fin-tech ecosystem, its fair for customers to expect refunds as fast as possible. A solution like Instant Refunds will not only help build consumer confidence in digital payments but also reduce losses for e-commerce companies where CoD has become an expensive option with more than 50 per cent online transactions made through cash", said Shashank Kumar, CTO & Co-founder of Razorpay.

"Our Instant Refunds feature ensures that the refund is processed at a 3600x faster pace than the normal expected time of five-seven business days. The team is focused on creating new technologies designed to make the entire payment lifecycle hassle-free. We believe this new feature will make customers experience a notch higher, help brands create a competitive advantage, and even make them more profitable", he added.

Razorpay's growth has been uphill, particularly in the last two years. With a 500 per cent growth in 2019, the company has been witnessing a healthy growth rate of 35 per cent month-on-month.

The company also recently launched its corporate credit cards for its partner businesses, RazorpayX current accounts, support for freelancers and homepreneurs, and acquired Opfin, a payroll and HR management software company.

Currently powering payments for over 800,000 businesses including the likes of Indigo, BSE, Thomas Cook, Reliance, SpiceJet, Aditya Birla, Sony, and Oyo, the team plans to increase this count to 1,400,000 by this year. The full-stack financial solutions company expects a 4x growth in its revenue by the end of the next fiscal year.

This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article.