Digital Financial News

Berkshire Hathaway’s Vice Chairman, Charlie Munger, recently reiterated his harsh critique of Bitcoin, labeling it as a threat to traditional finance in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

India's tech landscape, the Indian government has ordered all smartphone companies to start supporting NavIC, India's navigation satellite system. The announcement, made in September 2023, makes it mandatory for 5G smartphones to support NavIC, short for Navigation with Indian Constellation, by 1 January 2025, and other phones by December 2025. The new rule comes after Apple's groundbreaking decision to incorporate NavIC support in some of its latest iPhone 15 models.

Poornima Damodaran, Partner, Deloitte with members consisting of Kumar Nitesh, CEO Trend Footwear & Ajio Business, Reliance Retail, Dr. Amit Malik, CEO, Amaha Healthcare, Mithun Appaiah, CEO, Wow Momos, Sudhir Samal, CEO, UB International Trading Ltd., and Anupa Rongala, Director & CEO, Invensis. Kumar Nitesh mentioned, “It is important for the management to have healthy communication within the organization to build the values together".

Protean eGov Technologies IPO: The initial public offering (IPO) of Protean eGov Technologies Limited has hit primary market today and it will remain available for bidding till 8th November 2023. The book build issue has been offered at a price band of ₹752 to ₹792 per equity share. The company aims to raise ₹490.33 crore from its public offer, which is completely offer for sale (OFS) in nature.

Anurag Singh, Managing Partner, Ansid Capital, “we are very cautious on emerging markets. India is an exception, we will talk about it but outside India, for the rest of the emerging markets, look at the MSCI 10 year returns. They have been sub 3%. China, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea have produced some phenomenal companies, but market wise they have not produced great returns.” Singh also says: “China in a big way benefited out of an export-led economy. Now exports and trade as a percentage of global GDP is dropping. It peaked out about 8 to 10 years back and now it is the time where India empowers the domestic economy and looks at the domestic facing sectors.” Friday's rally is triggered by what is happening in the world. Are you comfortable with yields coming down all of that or are you still cautious? It is good to be back in India right now. I will continue to be cautious right now. We will discuss those four or five macro trends that I am going to pull out. We would observe that there is going to be a constant pressure on the 10-year yield of the US.

“With the election buzz around the corner, steering clear of volatile stocks, especially in the smallcap realm, would be smart,” says Sonam Srivastava, Founder and Fund Manager at Wright Research, PMS. In an interview with ETMarkets, Srivastava said: “Considering the delayed festive season, placing bets on the consumption narrative, commodity and energy sectors, sizable banking and financial entities, and IT stocks, which have caught the eye of FIIs, could be a strategic approach to capitalize on the present dip” Edited excerpts: We have seen markets coming down from highs in both Sensex and Nifty. What is fueling the fall – is it the combination of a rise in US Yields and geopolitical concerns? The Sensex and Nifty have seen a notable correction lately, which seems a bit out of place considering India's strong growth narrative.

The inclusion of India into the JPMorgan Global bond index and expectations of rate cuts from the first half of FY25 is set to put a cap on bond yields in the domestic market over the medium term. A downward shift in India’s yield curve will thereby make the bond market attractive, and pave the way for increased allocation towards debt in the portfolio, believes Jayesh Faria, director — regional head — west at Motilal Oswal Private Wealth. “We are requesting our clients to participate 65-70% of their debt portfolio in high quality roll down strategies with 7-12 years average maturity. The remaining 35-40% through high yields NCD or private credit or REITs & InVITs,” Faria said in an interview with ETMarkets. Edited excerpts: The equity market has lost some momentum, but would you still say that India is in a stage of a strong bull market phase? We feel that India is in a structural bull market due to improvement in earnings of our companies. For three consecutive years now, Nifty 50 earnings have grown by double digits. For FY24, estimates for Nifty earnings are of 22% growth. Therefore, we feel earnings growth is expected to remain steady over the next few years.

Pashupati Advani, Founder & Chairman, Global Foray, says “I unfortunately bailed out of Paytm a little early, so I am kind of watching it go up and missing it. Zomato is okay and with the World Cup, definitely the numbers have been good and the stickiness is also going to be there. So it is the way India is moving and it is new patterns that are coming up and we actually have to predict those to make money.” How is your portfolio shaping up? What have you been busy analysing and adding in your portfolios? I am a little bit reluctant to add aggressively simply because we are not at highs. But there is a lot of turmoil. I find it very difficult to believe that even though people are slaughtering each other in Israel and Gaza and in Ukraine and Russia, markets continue to trade up sort of quite interestingly. But there obviously seems to be money around. But I am a little surprised at where things are going. I have actually not been so aggressive.

Ant Group has received Chinese government approval to release products powered by its «Bailing» artificial intelligence (AI) large language model to the public, a spokesperson for the Chinese firm said on Monday. Unlike other countries, China requires companies to submit security assessments and receive clearance before releasing AI products to the public.

Indian market has outperformed the rest of Asia Pacific including China for some of the biggest global consumer goods companies in the past quarter, according to their post-earnings management commentaries. Several of these companies, including Mondelez International, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Pernod Ricard, Colgate-Palmolive, Unilever, Levis Strauss & Co, Yum! Brands, Honeywell International and AO Smith, reported strong growth going up to double digits in their India businesses in the July-September quarter.

annual rollback of time, with their digital devices automatically jumping back an hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday. However, in Hawaii and most of Arizona, it was business as usual with no changes to the clocks. Why did two US states not change the time? Since 1968, Arizona has opted out of daylight saving time, mainly because of the state's intense sunshine. The logic is simple: less daylight at the end of the day equals cooler evenings. The Navajo Nation in Arizona, however, does observe daylight saving time due to its expansive territory extending into states that do change the time. Hawaii's tropical latitude near the equator means its daylight hours don't vary much throughout the year, making daylight saving time unnecessary.

Virat Kohli equalled Sachin Tendulkar's record of 49 ODI hundreds on the field, Disney+ Hotstar too broke a record-with a peak concurrent online viewership of 44 million during the India versus South Africa clash on Sunday. The ongoing ICC Men's Cricket World Cup has seen new peak concurrency records being created as official streamer Disney+ Hotstar is providing the matches for free to mobile users. The India-New Zealand match on October 22 had 43 million peak concurrent viewers, surpassing the India-Pakistan match's peak concurrency of 35 million on October 14. Disney+ Hotstar announced in June that it would provide mobile users with free access to the 2023 Asia Cup and ICC Men's Cricket World Cup after placing cricket behind a paywall for several years. The move seems to be paying rich dividends for the streaming platform, as it has been breaking its own record. Prior to the Cricket World Cup, JioCinema had set a record for peak concurrency, drawing 32 million people to the Indian Premier League (IPL) final between the Chennai Super Kings and Gujarat Titans. Media experts believe that streaming viewership is on the rise since it allows the convenience of watching matches on the go.

Ten of Australia’s most powerful media executives and industry body chiefs have called on the Albanese government to establish new competition laws to stop big tech companies stifling rivals.

Bank of Baroda (BoB) management and its former chief digital officer (CDO) over the weekend around irregularities in signing up customers through its mobile banking app bob World. On 12 October, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) barred BoB from onboarding new customers through the app until its deficiencies were rectified and processes strengthened. Chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD) Debadatta Chand said on Saturday that the bank had terminated the contract of its CDO, Akhil Handa, as part of a wider action against employees both at the branch and corporate office levels.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has recently taken significant steps towards the conceptualization and eventual issuance of a digital euro, a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). This development comes as a response to the increasing digitalization of the economy and financial transactions. Authored by Juan Ayuso, Director General Operations, Markets and Payment Systems, the narrative elucidates the trajectory of the digital euro project, its significance, and the benefits it proposes to offer.

BlockFi, a bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platform, announced its successful emergence from bankruptcy on October 24, 2023, marking a significant turnaround. The announcement followed an arduous 11-month endeavor by the management, advisors, and stakeholders to steer the company back to stability. The company now sets its sights on repaying creditors and returning digital assets to clients, a pivotal step in regaining trust and reaffirming its market position.

Hong Kong FinTech Week 2023

Vodafone's Digital Asset Broker (DAB) and Chainlink (LINK) Labs have unveiled a proof of concept (PoC) in collaboration with Sumitomo Corporation and InnoWave. This initiative aims to tackle the inefficiencies entrenched in the mammoth $32 trillion global trade arena.

A fundamental concept in the technology sector, Moore’s law foretells the exponential rise in computing power over time and is named after Gordon Moore.

Mamaearth's initial public offering (IPO), managed by Honasa Consumer, successfully reached full subscription on the third day following a slow commencement. The firm has seen a surge in investor interest as evidenced by the significant increase in its Grey Market Premium, which now ranges between Rs 20 — 24.

India is among the top five markets for PUBG and Battlegrounds Mobile India maker Krafton, even though the country has less than 10% of its total user-base paying for games, company's India business head Sean Hyunil Sohn said. Krafton India CEO Sohn told PTI that India is among the top three markets for the company in terms of user base and the willingness to pay among the gamers is rising. «India is a long-term play for us. The market goes at least 10 or 15% per year. We want to maintain our position and grow with the market. India is among the top five markets for us and in terms of user base it is within the top three,» Sohn said.