Digital Financial News

HDFC Bank on Thursday said it has onboarded over 1 lakh customers and 1.7 lakh merchants under the Central Bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot programme. The bank also announced the launch of UPI QR code interoperable with India's sovereign digital currency. With this, HDFC Bank has become one of the first banks in the country to complete the integration process.

Filing ITR on crypto gains: The Union government imposed a 30% tax on crypto profits in Union Budget 2022. A 1% TDS on sales was also introduced.

FMCG retail distribution company, marking its foray into food and grocery retail market. The company did not disclose the financial details of the deal. Avendus Capital was the sole financial advisor to LYNK and its shareholders on this transaction.

The Russian Central Bank could begin “real-world” tests on the digital ruble next month after parliament approved a key piece of CBDC legislation.

SUV has been teased on BMW's social media platforms, and it will come with several cosmetic and feature enhancements compared to the previous model. With the arrival of the facelift, it is anticipated that there will also be a price increase. The global unveiling of the 2023 BMW X5 and X6 facelifts took place in February of this year.

₹3,534 crore. Sequentially, the net profit declined by 11.27% as compared to ₹3,983 crore in the March quarter. HCL Technologies’ consolidated revenue grew 12.06% to ₹26,296 crore during the quarter under review from ₹23,464 crore in Q1 of FY23.

Prime Day two-day shopping event saw U.S. online sales rise nearly 6% to $6.4 billion from a year ago on its first day, as heavy discounts lured bargain-hunting customers who splurged on appliances and toys, Adobe Analytics data on Wednesday showed. U.S.

Zomato has temporarily stopped inducting new users on the Unified Payments Interface-based payments application that it launched as a third-party provider in May. The sign-up option for Zomato UPI has been disabled for the past 3-4 weeks, people in the know said. The Gurgaon-based company, which has partnered with ICICI Bank to offer the service, confirmed that Zomato UPI suspended onboarding new users, but said it is available to existing users.

The last time we spoke to Nikita Fadeev, he seemed a potential poster boy for premature burnout. Aged only 26, Fadeev was running Fasanara Digital, a quant crypto hedge fund with 13 employees and $150m of crypto assets under management and in doing so he was working all day and all night. One year later, the assets under management and employee numbers have shrunk (they’re down to $80m and 12 respectively) and so has Fadeev’s risk of burning out.

If you live in Singapore, then Temasek, the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund with US$280bn in assets under management, is a pretty good place to work. It doesn't pay badly and for the past few years, it has hired relentlessly. But today'spoor set of results may give pause for thought.

Take Google and Facebook. The two aggregate and distribute news and content that others create, and directly or indirectly monetise the resulting traffic, while the publisher gets little or inadequate share. This lopsided system has sparked a debate worldwide on whether and how revenue should be shared between the original producers and distributors of content.

New Delhi: G20 finance ministers and central bank governors will be presented a global framework for regulation and supervision of crypto assets as part of policy dialogue that will take place in Gujarat later this month, department of economic affairs secretary Ajay Seth said. In a recorded video message shared by the finance ministry, Seth said that the G20 finance and central bank governors will also be presented the first volume of the report of an independent committee set up by the G20 to strengthen multilateral development institutions.

Bharti Airtel has bought an additional 20.6% stake in Bengaluru-based technology startup Lavelle Networks, taking its holding to 45.6%. The company did not share financial details of the deal. In January last year, Airtel acquired around 25% equity stake in Lavelle Networks. «Agreement has been entered for acquisition of additional 20.6% stake on the basis of price determined by the valuation report. The said valuation has not been disclosed due to the reasons of confidentiality,» Airtel said in a regulatory filing Wednesday. Founded in 2015, Lavelle Networks is a networking software startup that delivers next generation cloud powered technology to optimize, secure and manage enterprise branch networks. Airtel, through its startup accelerator program, aims to support growth of early-stage Indian tech startups and partner with them in building significant scale to achieve its vision.

diamonds, there is a growing whisper among traders in Surat that one of the oldest makers of lab-grown stones has defaulted. The deal that the firm had cut with many wealthy individuals, including professionals, real estate players, and a few farmers in the region to raise money has backfired amid a fall in the price of lab grown diamonds. The outstanding dues would be in the region of Rs 500 crore, three persons in the diamond market told ET. Under a back-to-back financing arrangement, funds were raised from several individuals to install machines that are used to manufacture man-made or lab-grown stones. The scheme, similar to a startup fundraising deal and different from regular institutional lending, rests on trust and a promise of a certain level of production and future price forecast. “With the price of lab-grown diamonds falling, particularly at the trade level more than the retail level, the firm in question is refusing to pay back…Though this is probably the first time the lab grown diamond business is facing such a situation, I don’t think it would have any repercussions on the overall market for lab-grown diamonds. In fact, it could stabilise the price a little,” said an industry person.

The price of Bitcoin is steady at around $30,600, reflecting a nearly 0.50% increase on Wednesday. 

Food Price Index (CFPI), which accounts for nearly half of the overall consumer price basket, rose to 4.49% in June 2023 against 2.96% (revised) in May 2023. During June 2022, CFPI stood at 7.75%. Economists said inflation could cross 5% in the next two months on a continued rise in prices of vegetables, pulses and cereals.

New Delhi: Telecom and information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw called on the telecom industry to scale up telecom manufacturing efforts tenfold from existing level of ₹18000 crore, with policy support from the government under the production linked incentive or PLI scheme. " ₹18000 crore telecom manufacturing has already happened under the PLI scheme. Time to scale up to 4x, 5x, 10x and you're getting policy support from the government.

retailers are exploring entering the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), with around 50 of them looking to open storefronts on the government-backed ecommerce network that they expect will help them reduce cost and reach more consumers. A pan-India retailer association met top ONDC officials to understand how the platform works, and how they could be a part of it. Discussions are still in the early stages.

GST Council's decision to levy a 28% tax on online gaming is a huge blow to India's goal to become a USD 1 trillion digital economy by 2025, industry body IAMAI said on Wednesday. The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), which represents internet based companies, said that the net effect of 28% GST (Goods and Services Tax) levy will result into around 1,000% increase in tax on the industry, cause irreversible damage to the USD 2.5 billion investments in the Indian online gaming startup ecosystem, and lead to a complete halt on any prospective foreign direct investment (FDI).

The failed ‘mutiny’ by the private military Wagner Group in Russia has generated a debate on the rise of private armies in modern warfare. Tony Barber in Financial Times pointed to a mercenary tradition in Russia that dates back to at least the times of Leo Tolstoy. But the practice was widespread.

The year 2023 marks an important and significant milestone for Indo-French relations as both countries celebrate the 25th anniversary of their strategic partnership, which was signed in 1998. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit France on 14 July, where he will be the Guest of Honour at the Bastille Day parade. France rarely invites a partner country on Bastille Day, making this visit particularly exceptional.