When Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) was conceived last December, the idea was to reduce the dominance of e-commerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart. It was also to bring in a level-playing field for small merchants in India's fragmented but fast-growing $1-trillion retail market. However, those goals have changed now as large e-commerce players such as Flipkart, Amazon and Ecom Express are in various levels of talks with the ONDC team. They want to form partnerships like integrating with the network as well as providing their expertise to build it, according to the industry sources.
The company has also issued a ban on all non-essential domestic and international business travel, and is encouraging employees who may have returned from international travel to work from home for 14 days.
Flipkart, Jabong-Myntra and PhonePe will operate under this group structure and their CEOs will report to Binny
A slew of Indian firms, including Flipkart, Byju's and Zomato, is building a path to profitability and diversifying into newer business segments ahead of mega-IPO plans.
'Investors with as little as Rs 1 can start investing in digital gold.'
Walmart-owned Flipkart will undertake a buyback employee stock options worth about Rs 600 crore, according to sources Earlier in the day, Flipkart announced raising $3.6 billion (about Rs 26,805.6 crore) in funding from a clutch of investors that valued the e-commerce major at $37.6 billion (about Rs 2.79 lakh crore). In an e-mail to employees, Flipkart group chief executive officer Kalyan Krishnamurthy lauded the critical role played by the staff in reaching this milestone.
National Payments Corporation of India is currently in the process of testing sound-based payments with three companies: PhonePe, ToneTag and UltraCash.
Since its launch in April, helpline 155260 has been able to prevent more than Rs 18.5 million of defrauded money from reaching the hands of fraudsters.
'There will be partnerships between banks and fintech firms, but there will also be areas where they will be direct competitors.'
IIT Roorkee has so far seen the highest domestic salary rise Rs 80 lakh, up by a third from Rs 60 lakh last year.
Make sure you read the policy wording. Some policies cover pre-existing diseases while others don't. Many need a minimum 24-hour hospitalisation, advises Bindisha Sarang.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed how businesses look at payments. Earlier, fintech companies said when they were talking to merchants, they were not interested in digitisation.
India's first home-grown mapping company MapMyIndia is looking to list in the public market by raising around Rs 1,200 crore at a Rs 6,000-crore valuation. Sources said the company is ready with its draft red herring prospectus documents and is likely to file as early as next week. While the money will be used for business expansion, it will also give MapMyIndia's early investors, including Qualcomm, PhonePe, and Japanese mapmaker Zenrin Co., a chance to exit. The Verma family, which founded the company, will continue to remain promoters.
Mutual funds aspirants have the option of snapping up smaller AMCs or applying for a new licence.
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.
WhatsApp's ambitious payment services' blueprint in India has been caught in a bind over concerns around authentication and its data storage practices.
Readying its game plan, the Bengaluru-based e-commerce giant plans to renew talks of investments in various companies such as Swiggy, BookMyShow, Pepperfry, UrbanClap
'There is pent-up demand for cricket after last year when no tournaments were played on Indian soil due to the pandemic.'
Fresh capital will help Flipkart further grow its e-commerce marketplace in India as the world's second-largest internet market begins to recover from the COVID-19 crisis.
But what do banks gain by opening their apps for all? The answer -- rival bank's customers under their fold.
With this round of funding, Flipkart's valuation has reached USD 11.6 billion, and US IT major Microsoft joins the marketplace as a strategic investor.
Yes Bank customers will be able to access full banking services from Wednesday evening, as the moratorium will be lifted earlier. The RBI had on March 5 put a moratorium on Yes Bank restricting withdrawals to Rs 50,000 per depositor till April 3. However, the government in a notification on Saturday said the moratorium will be lifted by 18:00 hrs on March 18.
While most others have not been able to replicate the WeChat model successfully, experts expect Jio to be able to score on its 300 million plus new mobile phone users.
From offering office premises that can be converted into isolation wards to earmarking funds to be used for procuring kits, ventilators as well as personal protective equipment for health care workers, India Inc has put a united front to combat the unprecedented crisis facing the country.
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.
The race to get a New Umbrella Entity (NUE) licence for digital payments may get crowded. As many as six consortiums are said to be in the fray to apply for an NUE licence, which would create a for-profit National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)-like body for retail payments. A consortium led by Financial Software and Systems (FSS), a leading provider of payment products and payment processor, is in talks and may file an application to the RBI for an NUE license, said sources aware of the development. The other constituents of this group include Indian Bank, Central Bank of India, India Post Payments Bank, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), and a few small finance banks.
Education technology, grocery, fashion, food delivery and UPI payments surpassed volumes or revenues of February, in the September-October period.
Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday said India is a very special and important country with a remarkable entrepreneurship culture, as he sought to push deeper the just-launched payments services that allow users to make payments over WhatsApp. Last month, Facebook-owned WhatsApp received approval from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) for rolling out its payments services in India. In 2018, WhatsApp started testing its UPI-based payments services in India -- a global first -- with about a million users.
It is a classic case of extremes: The worst contraction in GDP along with the highest-ever levels of cash in the economy; and a severe dent in consumption together with strong growth in bank deposits and digital payments.
In the past few days, many companies, including fashion e-tailer Nykaa, food delivery platform Zomato, logistics and delivery firm Delhivery, insurance discovery platform PolicyBazaar, eyewear retail chain Lenskart, and edtech and online tutoring firm Byju's, have openly spoken about their IPO plans.
Google is going ahead with a policy revision mandating 30% charge on in-app purchases across all apps on Play Store. This has left developers' community worried about tighter squeeze on their earnings, says Yuvraj Malik.
India's total online shopper base at 30 per cent of its internet population is low when compared with 78 per cent in China and 70-plus per cent in the US.
It could reach more than 530 million viewers on TV and a few hundred million more online. But can it make money for Disney Star?
His decision follows an independent investigation done on behalf of Flipkart and Walmart into an allegation of serious personal misconduct. Bansal, however, denies the allegations.
'If the RBI blesses us with a banking licence, we would like to launch a successful bank.'
"In response to India's payments data circular, we've built a system that stores payments-related data locally in India," WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement.
While Star was expecting around Rs 1,800 crore as ad revenues from the television and digital media, it may end up getting Rs 1,500-1,600 crore now, after factoring in the washouts and India not being able to reach the final.
Data processing compliance is the main reason behind the delay. The government, on several occasions, has made it clear that Indian financial data needs to be stored exclusively onshore and if it is processed outside, it needs to be brought back in 24 hours.
The Walmart chief stated that the values of the two companies were "very much aligned"
Flipkart has not been able to process with its plans of getting into the grocery vertical and is stuck on running pilots in select cities.
