Do not shop around for loans immediately after getting a secured credit card. Such loan enquiries can also pull down credit score, as they are treated as a sign of credit-hungry behaviour.
Price Waterhouse Chartered Accountants (PwC India) has resigned as the auditor of Paytm Payments Services, the fintech major said in a regulatory filing on Monday. "...we wish to inform you that M/s. Price Waterhouse Chartered Accountants LLP ... statutory auditors of material subsidiary i.e. Paytm Payments Services Limited (PPSL) have resigned with effect from August 7, 2023," the company added. Paytm said that the statutory auditors had not raised any concerns or issues and that the company had noted PwC's resignation.
Paytm, the country's leading fintech player which had to shut its payment bank business following regulatory action, is revisiting its business strategy including partnership with lenders. Also, the company's founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Vijay Shekhar Sharma has decided to oversee the day-to-day operations with all the major verticals reporting directly to him now. "The thing on top of everyone's agenda is getting the core businesses back on track," a person in the know said.
The income tax department on Wednesday conducted a survey operation at Hinduja Global Solutions, an entity of the Hinduja Group, in Mumbai and some other cities, official sources said.
Market chatter suggests that the BJP could win fewer than 300.
India's internet economy is estimated to reach $1 trillion by 2030, primarily due to e-commerce, which is expected to be worth $325 billion and rank third globally, according to industry experts. Last year marked a crucial turning point for India's e-commerce sector, with notable changes in consumer trends, technology, and regulations. InGovern Research Services, a leading corporate governance advisory firm, hosted a virtual roundtable to deliberate on the notable developments in India's e-commerce sector in 2023, with a particular focus on the essential role of customer trust in fueling its ongoing expansion.
US-based chipmaker Micron Technology is expecting demand for semiconductors to rise significantly in the next few years, globally and in India, as memory consumption is going up, largely driven by the widespread adoption of technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). "Memory consumption is expected to double by the end of the decade and the biggest driver in this is AI. "While it's natural to talk about compute and GPUs (graphics processing units) in the context of AI, it is not to be forgotten that the true enabler for AI is memory ... in all the AI engines that we talk about, there is a lot of need to access memory quickly," Anand Ramamoorthy, managing director, Micron Technology India, told Business Standard.
Private equity (PE) investments in India have fallen to a 6-year low at $24.2 billion in the financial year ending March 2024. Investments via PE deals are down 47 per cent compared to FY23, when private equity deals worth $45.8 billion were signed. According to data sourced from Bloomberg, PE firms had signed record deals worth $80 billion in the financial year ending March 2022.
'Corporations that were recruiting 15 or 20 [students] have reduced the number to two or three.'
Sources close to the development told Business Standard the company was exploring different ways to save on its employee costs and had laid off a few employees on "performance" grounds. "We will see a similar development for the next few months. "The company is fine-tuning its hiring policies and implement rigourous measures to look into employee performance," a source said.
The top 100 companies have accounted for 63% of the gains (Rs 51 trillion out of Rs 81 trillion), while firms beyond the top 100 have contributed 37 per cent (Rs 30 trillion).
'A credit line on UPI is going to make banks think about credit fundamentally as they digitise the credit process entirely.'
At the heart of Paytm's slide lies the abject failure of its Super App strategy, notes Indrajit Gupta.
Fintech firm One97 Communications -- owner of the brand Paytm -- has shifted its nodal account to Axis Bank from Paytm Payments Bank. The move will allow continuity of Paytm QR, Soundbox, card machine after the March 15 set by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as per a regulatory filing. The RBI has advised customers and merchants of Paytm Payments Bank Ltd (PPBL) to shift their accounts to other banks by March 15, giving 15 more days to the beleaguered entity to close most of its operations, including deposit and credit transactions.
'Like every Budget, this time, too, there is chatter around tinkering with the long-term capital gains tax.' 'Investors may not want to jump into the markets until there is clarity on this front.'
A higher-than-expected consumer price inflation (CPI) print for March in the US has dashed hopes of an interest rate cut by the US Federal Reserve (US Fed) in June. Analysts now expect the US central bank to start cutting rates in September, provided inflation remains in check and oil prices remain supportive. The markets, analysts believe, partially factored in this possibility.
Market players attribute the rally in small and midcaps to flows from retail investors and domestic institutions.
In mid-March this year, the finance ministry asked state-run banks to review their gold loan portfolio for the two-year period between January 1, 2022, and January 31, 2024. This business had grown at a fast clip. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data has it that it grew 15 per cent to Rs 1 trillion in FY24. Now, in recent times, any kind of exuberance in financial services has seen the authorities swoop down - be it pushing the lines on governance or unsecured credit.
The Reserve Bank on Monday barred IIFL Finance Ltd from disbursing gold loans, with immediate effect following multiple supervisory concerns, including serious deviations in assaying and certifying the purity of the yellow metal. A leading financial services provider, IIFL Finance offers a range of loans and mortgages. The latest directions from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) pertain to only the gold loan business.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday asked banks and other financial institutions to ensure that their customers must update nominees to help resolve the problem of unclaimed money in future. "I want the banking system, the financial ecosystem including the mutual funds, stock markets to keep in mind that when someone deals with his (customer's) money, the organisations will have to think about the future and ensure that customers nominate their heirs, give the name and address," Sitharaman said speaking at the Global Fintech Fest (GFF) in Mumbai. According to a report, the banking system alone has more than Rs 35,000 crore of unclaimed deposits, while the overall quantum of the unclaimed money is said to be more than Rs 1 lakh crore.
Stocks of new-age companies have seen a mixed performance thus far in calendar year 2023 (CY23). While those of One97 Communications (parent company of Paytm), PB Fintech and Zomato have surged up to 63 per cent year-to-date (YTD), FSN e-commerce, the parent company of Nykaa, however, has dropped 14 per cent YTD. By comparison, Nifty50 and Nifty 500 indices have advanced 7 per cent and 8.7 per cent, respectively, during the period, ACE Equity data show.
In 2024 so far, 20 startups have already visited the campus with 80 placements.
The growth in personal loans for fintech major Paytm may remain muted in the future and not replicate a three-digit year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth that it recorded in the previous years, a person familiar with the matter said. Sources said the personal loans book may grow in the range of 30 to 40 per cent Y-o-Y on its current base. On a quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) basis, the number of personal loans the Noida-based fintech company disbursed has dropped 20 per cent from 0.3 million in the first quarter of this financial year (Q1FY24) to 0.24 million in Q2FY24, according to regulatory filings.
For Lori Beer, chief information officer, JPMorgan Chase & Co, largest banker in the US, India is a big part of the organisation's global technology footprint and is core to its products and services. This is evident from the fact that in less than two months since JPMorgan & Chase chief executive officer Jamie Dimon visited India, Beer has come here to see the recently opened centres in Mumbai and Bengaluru. "What is different for me this year are our new centres and to be able to come and see the vibrancy, and connectedness is great.
'The success of one or two IPOs does not dictate whether the upcoming IPOs will be successful or not, but it certainly indicates that the markets and investors are enthusiastic about startup IPOs.'
Fintech firm One97 Communications, which owns the Paytm brand, on Wednesday said its loss in the fourth quarter of the financial year 2023-24 has widened to Rs 550 crore following the ban imposed by the RBI on transactions related to its payments bank. The company had posted a loss of Rs 167.5 crore in the same period a year ago, the company said in a regulatory filing. "Our fourth quarter FY24 results were impacted by temporary disruption on account of UPI transition etc. and permanent disruption because of the PPBL embargo.
HDFC Bank has been conscious in not accepting high-cost deposits, which have resulted in slower growth in October-December, said Sashidhar Jagdishan, managing director and chief executive officer, during an interaction with Goldman Sachs recently. He said during times of tight liquidity, short terms hardened, as was the case in October-December. "Not only did we participate, but we also gave up which came up for maturity," he said.
Layoffs, corporate restructuring, governance and most importantly profitability: The 14 Indian startups that plan IPOs this year are pulling out all the stops to ensure successful market debuts.
Going by the RBI directive and the overall narrative, Paytm may have lost the rigour of stress tests, audits and compliance.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), on Thursday issued orders restraining commercial transactions routed through intermediaries by a card network. The central bank, without naming the card network, said the intermediary with an arrangement with the network, did not have the authorisation to function under the Payment and Settlement Systems (PSS) Act. This led the regulator to suspend the arrangement till further notice.
BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain were stopped at the Delhi international airport following a look out circular issued against them in the alleged fraud at the fintech firm, sources said. The couple were to travel to New York late on Thursday for vacation when they were stopped at the airport on the basis of a look out circular issued by the Economic Offences Wing (EoW) of the Delhi police. EoW is investigating complaints of payments being made at BharatPe to fake human resource consultancies allegedly operated by Grover and family. They have also been accused of backdating invoices to use funds.
One97 Communications Ltd (OCL), the parent firm of fintech major Paytm, has denied reports about any investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) into the company, its associates, and its founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Vijay Shekhar Sharma. The company, in an exchange filing on Sunday, said it had cooperated with the authorities when users or merchants on its platform were subject to enquiries in the past. "We would like to set the record straight and deny any involvement in anti-money laundering activities.
An initiative of Nandan Nilekani's EkStep Foundation, people+ai on Tuesday unveiled its vision for the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in India, dubbed 'Adbhut India' (Amazing India). It aims to harness AI as a powerful tool to enhance the lives of all Indians. The event marked the rollout of several initiatives by people+ai that are focused on discovering, demonstrating, and disseminating population-scale AI use cases for India.
While Google has market capitalisation of almost $753 billion and Facebook commands one of $515 billion, it is the wealth of user data they have that one fears
India is expected to be the top recipient of remittances in 2023 as inflows increase 12.4 per cent to $125 billion, said a World Bank report on Tuesday. Mexico will come next by receiving $67 billion and China will follow it at $50 billion. The key drivers for remittance growth in 2023 are a tight labour market in the United States, high employment growth in Europe reflecting extensive leveraging of worker retention programs, and a dampening of inflation in high-income countries. India's growth in remittances is expected to halve to 12.4 per cent in 2023 from a historic peak of 24.4 per cent in 2022.
It's not only the Indian markets that command a valuation premium over their global peers; shares of subsidiaries of India-listed multinational companies (MNCs) also trade at rich valuations compared to their parent companies. An analysis of 12-month forward price-to-earnings (P/E) and price-to-book (P/B) multiples of domestically listed MNCs shows that most quotes have a premium ranging from 2.1x to 6x that of their parent. Similarly, P/B, in most cases, is significantly higher in the domestic market.
The RBI's decision to tighten norms for unsecured personal loans is credit positive because lenders will need to allocate higher capital for such loans, thus improving their loss-absorbing buffers, Moody's Investors Service said on Monday. The Reserve Bank last week raised risk weights on unsecured retail loans, credit cards and lending to non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) by 25 percentage points. Moody's said unsecured loans have been growing rapidly in the past few years, exposing financial institutions to a potential spike in credit costs in case of sudden economic or interest rate shocks.
About 300 fintech firms are under investigation by the ED for allegedly partnering 38 non-banking financial companies for predatory lending practices to charge borrowers high interest rates.
Shekhar Kumar, an HR expert, talent, and client acquisition leader at SEPL offers advice on how to grow professionally.
The edtech major promised a learning revolution, offering hope to millions of under-educated youth. Now, those dreams are shattered, observes Devangshu Datta.