WhatsApp on Wednesday said it expects to facilitate the purchase of "affordable sachet-sized" health insurance through its platform by the end of the year as part of its efforts to provide users in India with greater access to financial solutions. The Facebook-owned company noted that its 'Payments' feature is now available to users across the country (currently up to 20 million users) with support from banking partners - State Bank of India, HDFC, ICICI and Axis Bank.
Mukesh Ambani-owned RIL's JioMart is set to launch a slew of new products including financial services, electronics to airline tickets to take on the competition from upcoming rivals like the Tata Super app and other established players including PayTM, Amazon and Flipkart. This comes at a time when RIL's e-commerce revenues are set to grow by 35 per cent to $15 billion within four years and its core retail revenue is expected to grow at the same pace to $44 billion, as per a forecast by Goldman Sachs. "The Tata vs JioMart war will be the next big corporate battle to watch. "While Tata has an upper hand like in-house products and brands, RIL has the backing of global biggies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft," said head of a rating firm asking not to be quoted.
As if wanting to be an antidote to the coronavirus pandemic, the Indian stock market adorned carnival robes in 2021 with a tsunami of liquidity unleashed by global central banks coupled with supportive domestic policies and the world's largest vaccination drive sparking off a world-beating rally on Dalal Street, despite bouts of uneasiness over fizzy valuations. While the wider economy shuttled between recovery and relapse, dictated by multiple mutations of the virus, equity market benchmarks appeared headed in just one direction -- skywards. The dizzying upward journey has added a whopping Rs 72 lakh crore during 2021 to investors' wealth, measured as the cumulative value of all listed shares in the country, taking it to nearly Rs 260 lakh crore.
A final decision by the team's think-tank will be taken after the final practice session on Friday.
Tata Motors, Maruti, Tata Steel, Vedanta, Bajaj Auto, IndusInd Bank, SBI, Hero MotoCorp, M&M, Asian Paints, Axis Bank, RIL and L&T too jumped up to 10.21 per cent.
Blackstone, KKR, and Bain Capital, among others, are in the race for its general insurance arm, and Bandhan Bank, Bain, and Dabur Investments have shown interest for RCap's 51 per cent stake in the life insurance business.
With the 21 unicorns collectively valued at $73.2 billion, India is the fourth biggest in terms of unicorns, behind the US, China and the UK, as per the Hurun Global Unicorn List.
The final report was to be submitted in March but it got an extension till the second week of the monsoon session that began September 14.
Amid oxygen shortage and a faltering health system in the country, India is seeing over 300,000 cases daily.
Key questions remain about the operational and financial viability of a completely paperless bank such as India Post, says Mayank Jain.
This is the sixth consecutive markdown in the valuation of Flipkart by the US firm.
New entity is likely to get a top-up of $200 million from a Chinese investor
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday unveiled a Rs 39.45 lakh crore Budget with a view to fire up the key engines of the economy to sustain a world-beating recovery from the pandemic. This was Sitharaman's fourth Budget. While the taxpayers were left in the lurch, once again, was she able to cheer Corporate India?
With the arrival of new players such as Amazon Pay, Google Tez and Flipkart's PhonePe, digital money companies are now changing their business pitch.
'For the next three months or so, the market will go down.' 'Traders do not have Rs 100 notes.'
India is currently home to 52 unicorn startups and one of the fastest-growing startup ecosystems.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the policy last month.
Valued at $5 billion, Byju's has seen growth sky rocket in the last two years on the back of mega VC top-ups.
WhatsApp's ambitious payment services' blueprint in India has been caught in a bind over concerns around authentication and its data storage practices.
That's because India does not have a serious venture capital industry with an appetite for risk, observes T N Ninan.
Almost all banks that issue contactless cards provide users with a 100 per cent liability cover.
New Zealand is the latest country after the United Arab Emirates and Sri Lanka which has offered to host the Indian Premier League in case the T20 league can't be held in India due to rising cases of coronavirus. The postponement announcement of the T20 World Cup scheduled to be held in October-November in Australia, is imminent, creating a window for the 13th edition of IPL.
Not displaying the mandatory information, including country of origin, on products sold on their platforms in India, draws government's attention.
Flipkart, Amazon & Paytm have raised commissions from sellers.
From small retailers' experiences with e-wallets to digital transaction numbers post demonetisation, Geetanjali Krishna and Karan Choudhury find out where the truth lies.
India suffered another injury blow ahead of the third and final Test against New Zealand, starting in Kolkata on Saturday, after pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar was ruled out with injury.
Unlike many peers in the VC space, LSE grad Juneja doesn't have an entrepreneurial background but is said to be strong in finance skills
WhatsApp on Tuesday said its latest policy update does not affect the privacy of messages as the Facebook-owned company sought to address concerns around security of user data on the platform.
'Sure, we are teenagers who are doing this part time, but we feel we are making some sort of an impact.'
While BlackRock is an existing investor in Byju's, T Rowe joined as a new investor.
India opener Murali Vijay was, on Saturday ruled out of the second cricket Test against Australia which begin at the Chinnaswamy stadium, due to a shoulder injury sustained in the first match at Pune.
The second One-day International to be played between India and Windies will now be held at Visakhapatnam, the BCCI announced on Wednesday.
'The competition between the two is definitely going to be of great interest to the Indian market.'
The content discovery platform designed to help you discover content and services in the language of your choice recently turned profitable. It has delivered 1 billion application installs and updates in the past 12 months, says Samreen Ahmad.
Chinese e-commerce giant planning to enter India this year, will take on global e-retailer
The final policy may be out only after formation of the new government, according to sources
Currently, only three have completed more than six months of operation in the space - Fino Payments Bank, Airtel Payments Bank and Paytm
Who will make the most of the disruptions of 2016 this year? Mihir Sharma's list of probables.
Chinese bicycle sharing giant Ofo launches service in seven Indian cities.
In about a year, top e-commerce companies are expected to raise as much funds as the three sector leaders raised in about five years.
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