The finance minister said easy access and efficiency in providing banking services will help in revival of businesses which are restarting operations after the lockdown.
Country's third-largest software services firm Wipro has said it has been chosen as the official digital and IT partner for Chelsea Football Club.
The Union Budget on Wednesday outlined several initiatives to drive India's technology agenda and boost digital infrastructure, including new centres of excellence for artificial intelligence, National Data Governance Policy, and Entity DigiLocker.
Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 9 per cent rise in its December quarter net profit as a planned maintenance-induced weakness in oil business earnings was offset by stability in retail and telecom verticals. The oil-to-retail-to-telecom conglomerate's consolidated net profit of Rs 17,265 crore, or Rs 25.52 per share, in October-December - the third quarter of the current 2023-24 fiscal - was 9.3 per cent higher than Rs 15,792 crore, or Rs 23.19 a share, earning a year back, according to a company statement. Quarter-on-quarter, the profit was lower when compared to Rs 17,394 crore earnings in the preceding three months ended September 30.
The Reserve Bank on Thursday said it will come out with a framework allowing borrowers to switch to fixed interest rate from floating interest rate, a move that would provide relief to borrowers of home, auto and other loans reeling under the impact of high interest rate. Unveiling the bi-monthly monetary policy, Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das said under the framework, to be put in place shortly, the lenders will have to clearly communicate with the borrowers about tenor and EMI. "The supervisory reviews undertaken by the Reserve Bank and the feedback and references from members of public have revealed several instances of unreasonable elongation of tenor of floating rate loans by lenders without proper consent and communication to the borrowers," he said.
From Covid-19 essentials, such as Vitamin C supplements and thermometers, to bicycles, laptops, and personal weighing scales, demand for certain items galloped during last financial year as the pandemic altered what Indians used on a day-to-day basis. Imports of outdoor sports equipment, handbags for women, and dentures, among others, plummeted. With outdoor activities coming to a halt last year and schools functioning virtually, imports of sports goods witnessed a decline, while inbound shipments of laptops and battery chargers saw a sharp uptick, according to the import data for the financial year 2020-21.
'Given the inherent volatility, investors should take at least a three to five-year view.'
The tailwind of low price erosion in the US generics market, seen by domestic pharmaceutical companies in calendar year 2023 (CY23), may be reversing slowly, caution analysts. According to the latest data from US-based Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS), price erosion in calendar year 2024 (CY24) on a year-to-date (YTD) basis stood at a high of 15 per cent in the oral solid dosage (OSD) segment compared to a low of 1 per cent in CY23. This erosion, according to a report by Antique Stock Broking, was the highest in the last three years.
'The last year's growth is a foretaste of things to come in the retail credit market.'
The year 2014-15 could well go as one of long-pending financial sector reforms, expected to have a lasting impact.
According to experts in human resources, even joining of new graduates is likely to be staggered as companies are expected to onboard staffers after gauging the demand scenario.
'Just the amount of work which is there just to become more and more successful in banking. For this to happen you need to have leaders who understand technology.'
Bill Gates specifically complimented India's Aadhaar identity system and the country's performance in the financial services and pharma sectors.
Wipro is betting on artificial intelligence (AI) and Cloud computing to earn more from its biggest contributor - the banking, financial services & insurance (BFSI) sector - which brought in 35 per cent of the revenue in FY23. The Bengaluru-headquartered firm also expects its consultancy arm Capco to aid in its vision. "Over the past few years, we have made significant investments in the BFSI sector and have improved our talent, capabilities, and processes in this space - both through organic investments and with the addition of Capco," Suzanne Dann, Wipro's chief executive officer for Americas 2 said.
The Bharat Interface For Money app was launched on the iOS platform earlier this month. It is also available on the more popular Android platform. There have been over 17 million downloads of the BHIM app so far.
Salaries in India are expected to increase by 9.5 per cent in 2024, slightly lower than the actual increase of 9.7 per cent in 2023, largely in response to market dynamics, according to global professional services firm Aon plc. According to the firm's annual salary increase and turnover survey 2023-24 India, that analysed data across 1,414 companies from almost 45 industries, salary increase in India seems to have stabilised at high single digits, after the post-pandemic high increments in 2022. "The projected increase in salaries in the Indian formal sector indicates a strategic adjustment in response to the evolving economic landscape.
The Indian Navy on Monday unveiled a 15-year plan to boost maritime infrastructure even as Chief of Naval Staff Admiral R Hari Kumar said the force is working with the Army and the IAF to ensure tri-services jointness and integration to meet future challenges.
Hospitality and travel sector players on Tuesday demanded infrastructure status for the hotel industry besides measures such as tax exemption on LTA annually to boost domestic tourism ahead of the Union Budget. They also recommended removal of the current TDS levied on automated bookings for internal or closed user groups such as business travel platforms and reducing the total number of licenses required to establish a hotel. "A full-blown infrastructure status for the hotel sector and further rationalisation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and a Central single window clearance for hotel projects are some of the major expectations from the Budget 2024," Roseate Hotels & Resorts CEO Kush Kapoor said in a statement.
Indian IT giants are outstanding companies with great management teams, but they have been held hostage by their past success.
Apollo HealthCo Ltd (AHL), a subsidiary of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise (AHEL), on Friday entered into a binding agreement to raise equity capital of Rs 2,475 crore from Advent International (Advent), one of the world's largest private equity (PE) players. The transaction will also see the merger of two units under Apollo Healthco - its wholesale pharma distribution unit Keimed Pvt Ltd and online healthcare business Apollo 24'7. The merger will take place in a phased manner over the next 24-30 months.
As it readies for its initial public offering (IPO) later this year, digital payments firm Paytm is honing its strengths to remodel itself from being a payment wallet to becoming a financial services provider, and is working towards narrowing its losses, evident from its most recent Annual Report. Unlike many of its peers, Paytm has started expanding its merchant payment ecosystem. It has realised that though it can take the maximum share of the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) transactions, from a revenue generation point of view it will not have any impact.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India's largest IT services firm, is planning to increase salaries by an average of 7-8 per cent for its offsite employees and 2-4 per cent for its onsite staffers in 2024-25. High performers can expect a raise of 12-15 per cent. The company, which had a headcount of 603,305 as of December 31, 2023, will be closely looking at the promotions and the process may also get pushed to the first quarter of FY25, revealed a source on condition of anonymity, because he is not authorised to speak to the media.
Chief economic advisor V Anantha Nageswaran on Tuesday said Indian economy will grow at over 7 per cent, down from above 8 per cent of growth rate projected in January. He, however, said that the economic momentum and the animal spirits are "unmistakable". "India's own growth rates have come off the projections made in January down to about 7-plus per cent for the current financial year," Nageswaran said speaking at Global Fintech Fest event in Mumbai.
BharatPe co-founder Shashvat Nakrani has accused Ashneer Grover, with whom he had co-founded the payment startup, of creating a false narrative about the company, and said the board acted quickly and decisively in unseating him after receiving finds of a PwC report. BharatPe, which allows shop owners to make digital payments through QR codes, last week stripped Grover of all titles and positions over his alleged "misdeeds" and may take further legal actions, including clawing back of some of his shareholding. In a letter to employees, Nakrani said the Grover episode was an aberration and not the norm at BharatPe, and went on to defend the board who he said were celebrated names in the banking and financial services industry.
The information technology services sector will see a sharp fall in revenue growth to 12-13 per cent in FY23 from 19 per cent in FY22, ratings agency Crisil said on Thursday. However, the current depreciation in the rupee, strong demand for new age technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud computing and Internet of Things will help the over $220-billion sector maintain a double digit growth, it said in a report. The moderation from 19 per cent to 12-13 per cent will be the highest in the last eight years, it said and attributed the decline to expected tightening of IT expenditure by corporates amid the inflationary headwinds in the United States and European Union (EU), which together contribute almost 85 per cent to the sector's revenue.
Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 27 per cent jump in its September quarter net profit as earnings from the oil and gas business rebounded, and a pick-up in fashion and grocery helped boost retail revenues. The oil-to-retail-to-telecom conglomerate's consolidated net profit of Rs 17,394 crore, or Rs 25.71 per share, in July-September - the second quarter of the current 2023-24 fiscal - was 27.3 per cent higher than Rs 13,656 crore, or Rs 19.92 a share, earning a year back, the company said in a statement. The net profit was also higher quarter-on-quarter compared to Rs 16,011 crore earnings in the preceding three months ended June 30.
With the Big Four information technology services players having disappointed the Street, the focus is on mid-cap IT players who seem to have met expectations, according to analyst reports and management commentary on the demand environment.
Business success often involves a combination of planning, implementation, and continuous learning, says rediffGURU Harsh Bharwani.
Why should Reliance Digital position itself as an alternative to Chadhaji's store? It simply doesn't make good business sense, says Sudhir Bisht.
The double-digit growth in itself is eye-popping, given the FMCG sector has seen low single-digit volume growth in recent times.
The Indian IT industry will stage a "strong recovery" in 2021-22 with a revenue growth of up to 11 per cent, ratings agency Crisil said on Wednesday. The recovery will be led by increasing outsourcing and accelerating digital transformation services mainly in sectors such as banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), healthcare, retail and manufacturing, it said. As per Nasscom, the IT services industry grew 2.7 per cent to $99 billion in 2020-21.
India's corporate sector is likely to report a slowdown in revenue growth and earnings for the July-September 2023 period (Q2FY24), according to earnings estimates by brokerages, after the country's top listed companies posted higher than expected profits for the first quarter. The combined net profit of Nifty50 companies, based on brokerage estimates, is expected to have grown by 19.6 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to Rs 1.75 trillion in Q2FY24 - a sharp deceleration from 37.6 per cent Y-o-Y growth in the combined earnings of index companies in the April-June 2023 period. According to estimates, the combined earnings in the second quarter would be down 8.8 per cent on a quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) basis and the lowest in the past three quarters.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor M Rajeshwar Rao on Wednesday defended the central bank's decision of not allowing industrial houses to float banks, and said more deliberations are needed before RBI changes its stance on this issue agreed back in 2001. An internal working group (IWG) of the RBI had recommended allowing industrial groups into banking, but late last month the RBI said it kept on hold the two recommendations of allowing industrial houses and large non-banks to float banks. However, RBI had accepted 21 of the 33 recommendations of the group that submitted its report a year ago.
Analysts tracking Apple said the India results were glimpses of what the company could achieve in emerging markets with a right pricing strategy for its products and local manufacturing.
The Union finance ministry will meet CEOs of public sector banks to discuss issues related to cybersecurity in the wake of the Rs 820 crore (Rs 8.2 billion) fraud that hit Kolkata-based UCO Bank last month.
India is currently home to 52 unicorn startups and one of the fastest-growing startup ecosystems.
The sector seems set for a rally that may be somewhat temporary.
In the backdrop of the crisis brewing at Paytm Payments Bank, major fintech companies are ramping up their workforce and inducting new faces in their leadership teams, industry sources said on Wednesday. Users will not be able to add funds to their Paytm Payments Bank Wallet after February 29, though they will still be able to use the services and the existing balance in the wallets, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) diktat. Industry sources said that competitors to Paytm are investing heavily in offline payments while doubling their salesforce.
Defence exports grew 33 per cent in the calendar year 2023 (CY23) to around Rs 21,083 crore while domestic defence orders serviced by listed companies were Rs 48,000 crore. The sector is poised for steady growth. Budgeted domestic capex is likely to hit Rs 3 trillion per annum, and exports could reach $6 billion by FY29.
