For those who are sceptical about using debit or credit cards, even when faced with cash crunch, Adhil Shetty, CEO of BankBazaar.com, lists out a few safe cashless options that can be exercised through mobile phones.
Technology is rapidly reshaping industries that have long been rooted in tradition, driving a wave of innovation that is transforming everything from finance, banking, steel to manufacturing.
Isn't there something significant in the UPI example for all of us to learn from and execute to enable world-scale success for our startups?, asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
rediffGURU Vipul Bhavsar answers readers' personal income tax queries.
Cracking down on repeated non-compliance of IT norms, the RBI on Wednesday barred Kotak Mahindra Bank from onboarding new customers through its online and mobile banking channels and issuing fresh credit cards with immediate effect after the regulator found "serious deficiencies" in the lender's IT risk management. These actions, the RBI said, are necessitated based on significant concerns arising out of Reserve Bank's IT examination of the bank for the years 2022 and 2023 and the continued failure on part of the bank to address these concerns in a comprehensive and timely manner.
In 2024, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) approved 20 third-party Unified Payments Interface (UPI) applications, a record since UPI's launch in 2016. This surge reflects growing interest from financial technology (fintech) companies, driven by the integration of credit products like UPI-linked credit cards and pre-approved credit lines.
Ahead of the first due date of advance tax payment on June 15, the government is likely to release guidelines on what will be covered within the ambit of virtual digital assets (VDA). To remove any ambiguity in the recently established tax framework for asset holders, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is currently preparing guidelines, said government officials in the know. The apex direct tax body will define non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and whether or not they fall within the purview of VDA.
'The Digital Rupee will be equal to the Indian rupee in value and backed by the full faith and credit of the RBI/Indian government.'
'The touchstone is reciprocity which will be applied to friends and foes alike.' 'It will be a bitter pill to swallow.'
Call centres, once the engine room of India's BPO exports, are evolving too. Depending on the complexity, 30 to 50 per cent of voice and chat volumes are now handled by conversational AI.
Billionaire Gautam Adani's group on Monday announced its exit from FMCG joint venture Adani Wilmar by selling its entire stake to the Singaporean partner and in the open market for an estimated over $2 billion in a first major deal since the US bribery indictment. In a statement, Adani Enterprises Ltd -- which held 43.94 per cent stake in Fortune brand cooking oil, wheat flour and other food product maker Adani Wilmar Ltd -- said it will sell 31.06 per cent stake to Wilmar International. About 13 per cent will be sold in the open market to meet minimum public shareholding requirements.
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.
the largest transactions of the year include the merger of Quality Care India and Aster DM Healthcare valued at $5.08 billion, followed by Bharti Enterprises' acquisition of a 24.5 per cent stake in the BT Group at $4.08 billion, and a family settlement transaction in the Godrej family at $3.5 billion.
Digital payments across the country registered a growth of nearly 29 per cent in a year through March 2022, as per the RBI's latest index that measures the adoption of online transactions. The newly constituted RBI's digital payment index (RBI-DPI) stood at 349.3 in March 2022 against 304.06 in September 2021 and 270.59 per cent in March 2021. "The RBI-DPI index has demonstrated significant growth, representing the rapid adoption and deepening of digital payments across the country in recent years," the RBI said in a statement on Wednesday.
Fraudsters read your mind, weave convincing stories, earn your trust and then vanish with people's savings. Ramalingam Kalirajan reveals five simple tricks that cons use to steal money from you.
Indian real estate sector saw more land deals in 2024 at over 2,200 acres as developers were looking to expand the business, according to CBRE. Real estate consultant CBRE data showed that land deals of more than 2,200 acres last year as against about 1,900 acres in the preceding year. Out of the total land transactions in 2024, around 2,000 acres were located in the eight major cities -- Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Ahmedabad.
A platform that helps retailers reduce failed transactions while keeping the cost down, Innoviti is all set for India's digital payments revolution.
Global rating agency Moody's on Monday said HDFC Bank's multiple digital outages are credit negative as such recurring incidents could lead to moderation in revenue and flight of customers to other banks. The recurring outages also risk hurting the bank's brand perception among a growing and increasingly digitally savvy customer base, and increases the potential that clients switch to other banks, which would lead to a reduction in revenue and low-cost retail funding, Moody's said in a statement.
Why is the government unwilling to disclose the winners of its DigiDhan Yojana?
Maaza, a desi mango fruit-based drink owned by Coca-Cola, has touched the milestone of becoming a billion-dollar brand in 2024, its Chairman and CEO James Quincey has said.
The pilot project for central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the retail segment went live on Thursday with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issuing Rs 1.71 crore to four participating banks based on their indents. The central bank has identified four banks for the first phase of the pilot - State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank - in four cities, Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar. The highest indent was received from one private sector bank.
India is among the fastest-growing markets for Google in the cloud services segment, a senior executive has said, adding that the tech giant is looking to partner companies in their business transformation through its offerings. Google Cloud India is seeing an "increased adoption" of its offerings across segments from the public sector to small and medium businesses and from startups and digital-native companies, Google Cloud India vice president and country managing director Bikram Singh Bedi told PTI.
The bench gave liberty to Mukerjea to approach the trial court
The Reserve Bank on Tuesday directed digital lending entities to disclose upfront the names of of their empanelled agents authorised to contact borrowers in case of default of loan, and also intimate the details to customers before initiating the recovery process. In August last year, the RBI had tightened norms for digital lending to prevent charging of exorbitant interest rates by certain entities and also check unethical loan recovery practices. Under the new norms, all loan disbursals and repayments are required to be executed only between the bank accounts of borrower and the regulated entities (like banks and NBFCs) without any pass-through/ pool account of the Lending Service Providers (LSPs).
The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigations Team on black money has also proposed that holding more than Rs 15 lakh in cash be made illegal for individuals and for companies, report Tinesh Bhasin and Sanjay Kumar Singh.
Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com travels to Pullampara to discover how it became India's first digital literate village.
'The country is a good test bed for enterprise adoption, but to scale rapidly, companies will need to look outside the country for customers.'
Amazon Pay UPI has crossed 100 million customers, with the online platform used mainly for e-commerce transactions, utility bill payments and mobile recharges, the company announced on Monday.
Flipkart-backed super.money is on an expansion spree and plans to expand its range of offerings in credit and wealth management after launching its operations in July this year. The Bengaluru-based fintech company is on track to roll out credit products such as credit on Unified Payments Interface (UPI), unsecured credit cards, and personal loans within the first half of the next calendar year (2025).
One97 Communications (OCL), the company that operates brand Paytm, received a nod from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to onboard new Unified Payments Interface (UPI) users. This comes nearly nine months after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) placed an embargo on OCL to add new customers.
Indian fintechs and associated entities are hoping that the Union Budget 2024 will provide a boost and empower firms to extend their reach beyond Tier-II regions, with an emphasis on supporting enterprises led by women. The fintech industry, which has witnessed regulatory reforms over the last year, expects the Budget, scheduled to be presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, will further encourage financial inclusion, empower micro-small-medium enterprises (MSMEs) with lending solutions, and push for upskilling initiatives for the country's young workforce.
Tech titan Google on Thursday announced new online safety initiatives in India, including multi-city cybersecurity roadshows to upskill about 100,000 developers and digital safety-focused grants of $2 million from Google.org to community organisations.
The eighth Budget of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman continued to focus on 'GYAN' (Garib, Youth, Annadata, Nari) to maintain a consistent and coherent strategy initiated over the years in pursuing the government's vision for Viksit Bharat. The approach, characterised by incremental yet impactful steps, aims to create a compounding effect over time.
Fifteen companies have launched their initial public offerings (IPOs) in December 2024, making it the best month for public offerings since 1996. Collectively, they have raised Rs 25,425 crore, which also made December the best month in terms of the quantum of funds raised. In December 1996, 33 companies had raised Rs 931 crore.
At Rs 30.88 lakh crore, the currency with the public is 71.84 per cent higher than the level for the fortnight ended November 4, 2016.
'Unsurprisingly, Trump shared Modi's podcast with Fridman on his Truth account.' 'The intentions of Trump, a transactional president, are never easy to tell.' 'We will know in the next fortnight if and when he unfolds reciprocal tariffs on Indian goods, whether Modi's flattering words made any significant difference to Trump's compass,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
DAP does not consider past I-T returns to match a taxpayer's resources with their expenditures or investments, points out Harsh Roongta.
Mobile wallet adoption is surging in India and swiftly becoming a primary payment option, surpassing traditional methods like cash and cards. Over the next few years, payments via mobile wallets in India are likely to surpass the Rs 531.8 trillion mark in 2028, witnessing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.3 per cent between 2024 and 2028, according to GlobalData - a London-based leading data and analytics company. The value of mobile wallet payments in India, as per a GlobalData report, grew at a CAGR of 72.1 per cent between 2019 and 2023 to reach Rs 202.8 trillion ($2.5 trillion) in 2023.
The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday extended the timeline by six months to comply with its guidelines related to recurring online transactions with Additional Factor of Authentication (AFA), but reprimanded players that the non-compliance is a "serious concern". RBI had directed all banks including RRBs, NBFCs, and payment gateways to comply with AFA for automatic recurring payment by March 31, 2021, in order to make digital transaction safe and protect customers from fraudulent transactions. However, some of the players failed to meet the deadline and approached the RBI seeking extension of the deadline.
The digital transformation should not be confined to a small part of the "human race" and its greater benefits will be realised only when digital access becomes "truly inclusive", Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the G-20 summit on Wednesday. Modi also strongly pitched for a pledge by the G-20 leaders to work for bringing digital transformation into the life of every human being in the next 10 years so that no person is deprived of the benefits of the new technologies. In a session on digital transformation, the prime minister also said that principle of "data for development" will be an integral part of the overall theme of India's upcoming G-20 Presidency.
