Digital Financial News

Beijing is getting bullish about the cross-border use of the digital yuan – with Chinese experts now talking about BRI/“new Silk Road” CBDC integration.

NavIC, the minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Thursday. The devices can either provide support for NavIC-powered chips or use NavIC chipsets, he added. While 5G phones will need to provide mandatory support for NavIC by January 1, 2025, all other phones operating in the L1 band that currently use the Global Positioning System (GPS) will need to provide mandatory NavIC support by December 2025, he said.

Digital Personal Data Protection Law, a senior government official said. Under the graded plan, while bigger companies such as Meta, Google and others may be given a shorter time for the implementation of the rules, the time for other entities including startups, micro, small, and medium enterprises, central government departments and state governments may be more, the official said.

Capgemini and a solid base for it to service clients globally, Capgemini global CEO Aiman Ezzat told ET. The company has more than half of its 360,000 employee base in India. In an interview with Romita Majumdar, the chief of the $23-billion IT company, during his ongoing India visit, said that he is hopeful of the demand situation improving over the next two-to-four quarters but is waiting for an inflection point. Ezzat added that generative AI's impact on productivity gains will be much higher than pricing gains in the long run. Edited excerpts:How do you see technology spending in the current macroeconomic situation? It is pretty mixed at present. There is softness in some places but not everything is doomed. The reality is that our pipelines are huge and that shows the appetite for technology and transformation.

SAP Labs India, the local R&D arm of the world’s biggest enterprise resource planning (ERP) software company, will look to double by next year its artificial intelligence talent base, stretching its repertoire of services beyond bespoke ERP solutions.SAP Labs India, which has more than 12,000 employees across the country, did not give an absolute number for its AI talent but said India is the only location globally where each of its products and services is worked and developed upon.

The crypto space is no stranger to meteoric rises and surprising dark horses. As QUBE, the native token of the promising InQubeta platform, surpasses the $3 million mark in its ongoing presale, the crypto community is buzzing with anticipation. But as the dust settles and investors crunch the numbers, a bold question emerges: Can QUBE eventually surpass the popularity of top altcoins like XRP?

Binance are leaving at a time when the crypto giant is grappling with regulatory pressures, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Krishna Juvvadi, head of legal, and Sidney Majalya, chief risk officer, are leaving Binance.US, the report said.

Disney has held initial talks on the sale of its ABC network to U.S. local TV station owner Nexstar Media, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing sources. Shares of the media giant rose 1%, while Nexstar stock jumped nearly 6%.

Wholesale inflation declined for the fifth consecutive month in August to 0.52% from 1.4% in July providing further comfort to the Reserve Bank of India to hold rates ahead of the RBI's Monetary Policy Committee in early October, experts said. «With fall in commodity prices driving deflation in core WPI on YoY basis (which implies lower input costs for producers), currently there is limited pressure on consumer prices, resulting in broadly stable CPI core inflation. This is likely to comfort the RBI,» said Rahul Bajoria, head of EM Asia (ex-China) economics, Barclays. RBI last raised policy rates to 6.5% in February and has not instituted a rate hike since.

NEW DELHI : French beauty products giant L’Oréal plans to double its India business over three to five years, growing at twice the pace of the local personal care market, expecting higher disposable incomes to spur demand for hair colours, skin care creams and fragrances. L’Oréal, which entered India in 1994, sells a range of beauty, personal care and coloured cosmetic products under brands such as Garnier, Maybelline New York, L’Oréal Paris and Kiehl’s. Garnier, its mass market brand for hair colours, shampoos and skin care products, is the company’s largest brand in the country.

NEW DELHI : The ministry of information and broadcasting is considering introducing a new bill to regulate broadcasting services, including over-the-top (OTT) apps and direct-to-home services, two people aware of the development said. The bill, currently in its initial stages, is likely to be taken up only after the general elections next year. It will focus on the regulation of OTT services that are engaged in broadcasting, while the one-to-one or direct messaging OTTs will be taken up for regulation in the Indian Telecommunications Bill.

manufacturing and agriculture, along with policy reforms, could be a significant driver of growth and job creation over the medium term, an HSBC Global Research report said on Thursday. «India needs to create a whopping 70 million new jobs in the next decade.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office says he will meet billionaire businessman Elon Musk during a trip to the United States next week

NEW DELHI : The central government is planning a “graded" transition regarding compliance with rules under the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, an official of the plans said. Under this approach, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) will get longer time frames to comply, while larger corporations will get less. “We may do this at graded levels, where the vast majority of Big Tech, as well as companies, can transition quicker.

Marketers paying to programmatically advertise on websites and apps with minority, LGBTQ and women owners should be able to find enough space to meet their diverse-owned media spending goals, which have been on the rise in recent years as brands up their commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.But marketers should also be wary of who they work with to place those ads, to avoid having ads end up running in unwanted places, including sites that buy much of their traffic, according to a new report from Jounce Media. The report by the digital marketing consultancy examined data across the advertising supply chain on over a million websites, nearly 800,000 mobile apps and more than 30,000 connected TV apps, focusing on lists marketers use to ascertain the ownership of media sites and apps.

NEW DELHI : The government is set to push for a better Logistics Performance Index (LPI) with plans to brief the World Bank about recent reforms and measures taken to improve logistics efficiency through schemes such as PM Gati Shaki, an official said on Thursday. Special secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Sumita Dawra said there was a need for greater emphasis on an objective methodology for LPI scoring whereas the World Bank’s methodology was based on perception surveys. India aims to break into the top 25 countries in the index ranking by 2030.

When shares of Arm, the British chip designer, began trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange Thursday in the year's biggest initial public offering, investors, tech executives, bankers and startup founders were watching closely for how it performed.

Vedanta Resources financial policy regarding debt transactions may result in a potential downgrade of its current 'B-' rating to 'CCC' or 'CC,' as detailed in their credit FAQ addressing the implications of a liability management exercise for Vedanta Resources' credit rating. This rating action will happen if Vedanta tries a debt deal without enough compensation or buys back debt at a lower price than its face value in secondary markets. If Vedanta goes through with such a deal, S&P would probably lower Vedanta's rating to 'SD' and the bond ratings affected by this would drop to ‘D'.

Belgium said on Thursday it would review potential health risks linked to Apple's iPhone 12, raising the prospect that more European countries might ban the model after France ordered a halt to sales due to breaches of radiation exposure limits. However, there seemed to be no immediate prospect of an EU-wide ban as the European Commission said it would wait for feedback from other EU countries before deciding on any action.

Karnataka IT Minister Priyank Kharge on Thursday announced a framework for the proposed fact-checking unit in the state. The unit includes an oversight committee, a review Single Point of Contact (SPOC), and nodal officers.

Commerce (ONDC) has expanded its reach into the international business-to-business marketplace by partnering with the Singapore-based B2B network Proxtera. With this move, ONDC, an initiative of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), aims to establish connections between small and medium enterprises (SMEs), logistics services and payment transfers, facilitating seamless export opportunities for Indian businesses.