Shipments from Russia rose nearly 33 per cent to $1.1 billion in March from $831.17 million in the previous month, which was when the country mounted aggression on Ukraine and faced sanctions from Western nations, the data accessed by Business Standard shows. Growth in imports was largely on account of oil, people aware of the matter said. The Department of Commerce is learnt to have written to the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG), seeking details of imports, including the payment mechanism, which India has not made public.
'We are also conducting ongoing training and grooming at the branch level to pre-empt such cyberattacks.'
The next government in these states may find it tough to push economic growth through long-term reforms, which would be necessary.
The government on Thursday tweaked curbs on imports of laptops and computers as it allowed importers to bring in shipments of IT hardware from overseas on a mere 'authorisation' upon detailing quantity and value. The new 'import management system' is aimed at monitoring shipments of laptops, tablets and computers into the country without hurting market supply or creating a cumbersome licensing regime. The announcement is likely to provide relief to companies in the IT hardware segment in India as they had flagged concerns over the imposition of a strict licensing regime for importers.
An analysis for the first eight months of CY18 shows that the value of RuPay and UPI transactions constitute 65.2 per cent of all transactions done through debit and credit cards, in value terms, across retail outlets by the end of August.
By the end of December 2021, India had 389 million users who did not have access to mobile Internet, while there were 765.8 million mobile Internet users in the country.
The Union government's finances witnessed significant improvement in August after a stressful first four months of the current fiscal year. India's gross tax revenue, comprising both direct and indirect taxes, for the first five months of 2023-24 surged 16.5 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to Rs 11.8 trillion. During the April-July period, gross tax revenue increased by a mere 2.8 per cent compared to the Budget Estimate of 12.1 per cent growth for FY24.
Cos ask US treasury to discuss data localisation norms with Indian officials at all platforms the two countries would meet, including G-20, US-India Strategic Dialogue, and IMF Annual Meet.
Nearly 665 million Indians or 45 per cent of the rural population did not have access to the internet as of 2023. Difficulty in understanding internet procedures, insufficient awareness of its benefits, and a lack of interest have emerged as the top reasons for a gap in internet penetration in rural India, according to a joint report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Kantar. "The proficiency of English in rural India is very low. While we have content in Hindi, the internet is English-heavy.
Don't recharge your phone at public outlets -- carry a power bank instead. Avoid clicking on links sent by 'friends'. If you get into an online sexual encounter with a stranger and get blackmailed, refuse to pay up.
The liquidity in the banking system could ease in the coming week due to an increase in government spending - a development that would be the key for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to decide whether to extend the incremental cash reserve ratio (I-CRR) mandate for banks. There are signs of improvement in the liquidity scenario as banks parked Rs 25, 833 crore with the RBI on Thursday. Market participants expect liquidity to gradually improve by the end of the month or during the first week of September, aided by government spending.
Recently, Slice, a payment app, acquired a 5 per cent stake in North East Small Finance (NESF) for $3.42 million - the first such deal by a fintech in a small finance bank. Slice (valued at $1.5 billion, and backed by Tiger Global, Blume Ventures and Axis Bank) will technically get a toehold in a scheduled commercial bank if NESF were to get a licence to morph into one down the line Such a transition is well within the banking regulator's declared framework. The transaction has to be seen in a larger context.
The Reserve Bank has restricted American Express Banking Corp and Diners Club International Ltd from on-boarding new domestic customers onto their card networks from May 1 for violating data storage norms. The order will not impact the existing customers of these two entities, the central bank said in a statement on Friday.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is likely to step up efforts to boost consumption and rural economy while keeping inflation under check when she presents her sixth straight Budget on February 1. Experts said one way to boost consumption is to put more money in the hands of people, and one of the possible ways of doing it is by reducing the tax burden through tinkering with tax slabs or increasing the standard deduction. Another proposal is related to increasing the funds under the rural employment guarantee scheme MGNREGA and higher payout for farmers.
Which entrepreneur would willingly part with her or his hard-earned money for grasping, self-serving politicians? asks Debashis Basu.
Prime Minister Modi also made a veiled reference to China, saying the global order is based on the respect for the principles of the UN Charter, peaceful resolution of disputes, and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) new rules for credit and debit cards came into effect from October 1. These include tokenisation, one-time password (OTP) for activation after 30 days, written permission for enhancement of credit limit, and greater clarity on interest calculation.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday asked private sector companies to clear dues to small businesses within 45 days and admitted that the central departments and enterprises are also not making payments to them on time. She conceded that the Centre, states and state-owned enterprises too have outstanding dues to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The minister said that at a meeting with big businesses here two days ago, she had appealed to them to ensure that the dues of small businesses, who are the backbone of the economy, are cleared on time.
Liquidity in the banking system has slipped into a deficit for the first time in three weeks, prompting banks to borrow the largest quantum of funds from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in around a month and a half. The key catalyst for the sudden tightening in liquidity was due to outflows on account of advance tax payments, which occur towards the end of a quarter. Analysts also cited other factors such as a currency leakage and possible interventions by the RBI in the foreign exchange market, which contributed to the tighter liquidity conditions.
A wide import-export gap led to India's current account deficit rising to $5.4 billion in the third quarter of 2007-08, despite a higher surplus of earnings from software services, tourism and remittances from abroad.A sharp rise in trade deficit due to rise in imports caused the current account deficit to rise by $1.7 billion from $3.7 billion in the corresponding quarter last year, the Balance of Payment Data released by the Reserve Bank showed.
In July, Yahoo was sold to US telecoms giant Verizon for $4.8 billion.
rediffGURU Vivek Lala answers your income tax and personal finance queries.
Stability in currency markets was only restored from September.
Walmart-owned digital payments firm PhonePe has decided to halt its proposed acquisition of Goldman Sachs- and Xiaomi-backed ZestMoney, a Bengaluru-based buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform. The deal, which was poised to fetch anywhere between $150-200 million and $300 million, has hit a snag over lapses in due diligence, disagreements over valuation, sustainability of the business, and shareholding structure of ZestMoney, according to people familiar with the matter. The collapse of the deal is also being attributed to a slowdown in the financial technology (fintech) sector in the midst of a funding winter, difficult regulatory environment, and macroeconomic uncertainty, informed other sources.
For the startup ecosystem in India, the scorecard so far has been a mixed bag, observes Akhil Gupta.
As part of its efforts to strengthen customer protection, Reserve Bank is considering setting up a fraud registry to create a database of fraudulent websites, phones and various modus operandi used for digital fraud. Such a database will help prevent these fraudsters from repeating the fraud as the websites or phone numbers would be blacklisted, RBI executive director Anil Kumar Sharma said on Monday. "There is no definite timeline for setting up of the fraud registry.
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) clocked over 6 billion transactions in July: the highest ever by India's flagship digital payments platform since its inception in 2016. UPI reported 6.28 billion transactions amounting to Rs 10.62 trillion, according to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates the platform. Month-on-month, the volume of transactions was up 7.16 per cent and value increased 4.76 per cent.
'This year's detection of frauds and probable recovery will be mainly driven by several compliance measures put in place, and amendments made to the GST regime to plug revenue leakages particularly in new-edge sectors.'
7 states account for over 80 per cent of the total direct tax collections by the Union government.
India's current account deficit narrowed to $1.3 billion or 0.2 per cent of GDP in the January-March quarter of FY23, mainly due to moderation in the trade deficit and a robust increase in services exports, RBI data showed on Tuesday. However, for the 2022-23 fiscal, the current account balance recorded a deficit of 2 per cent of GDP compared to 1.2 per cent in 2021-22. "India's current account deficit (CAD) decreased to $1.3 billion (0.2 per cent of GDP) in Q4:2022-23 from $16.8 billion (2.0 per cent of GDP) in Q3:2022-231, and $13.4 billion (1.6 per cent of GDP) a year ago [Q4:2021-22]," as per the RBI's 'Developments in India's Balance of Payments during the Fourth Quarter (January-March) of 2022-23'.
Google has said that it is pausing enforcement of Google Play billing system (GPBS) for developers in India. This comes after the Competition Commission of India (CCI) imposed a penalty of Rs 2,275 crore in two cases and an immediate cease-and-desist order of its policies of running the Android Mobile device and Play Store ecosystem. In a statement, the company said, "Following the CCI's recent ruling, we are pausing enforcement of the requirement for developers to use Google Play's billing system for the purchase of digital goods and services for transactions by users in India.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday extended the card-on-file (CoF) tokenisation deadline by three months to September 30, 2022, in view of various representations received from industry bodies. Card-on-file, or CoF, refers to card information stored by payment gateway and merchants to process future transactions. Tokenisation is the process of replacing actual card details with a unique alternate code called 'Token' - thereby enabling more secure transactions.
'If there is an artiste somewhere in India or in the world who wants to express her art, I hoped that this award would inspire them, and add meaning to their journey.'
A court in New Delhi on Friday extended by three days the ED custody of four people arrested in a money laundering case against Chinese smart phone maker Vivo, including the managing director of Lava International mobile company and a Chinese national. The four accused were produced before Additional Sessions Judge Devender Kumar Jangala on completion of their three-day ED custody. On Friday, the agency moved four separate applications seeking extension of their custody by 10 days but the court granted it only three more days for custodial interrogation of the accused.
While India should be concerned about disparities, the fact is that whereas three decades ago about half the people had incomes greater than $2.15 a day, today seven out of eight do, notes T N Ninan.
Six decades and more later, we are now captives of our identities. Every poll is based on elaborate calculations of electability of candidates on the basis of their castes and other narrow definers. That, along with voter promiscuity, is what defines our political culture, which remains stubbornly resistant to any change, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
'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.'
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday allowed payment system providers, prepaid card issuers, card networks and white label ATM operators access to its Centralised Payment Systems (CPS), such as real time gross settlement (RTGS) and National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) systems in the first phase of its plan bring non-banks in the same platform. "Direct access for non-banks to CPS lowers the overall risk in the payments ecosystem.
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.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently said no entity in the card transaction or payment chain, apart from the card issuers and card networks, will be allowed to store sensitive user data from January 1, 2022. Instead, in transactions card data will be converted to tokens.
