Platform Financial News

Digital lenders, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), and banks have collectively disbursed an impressive Rs 74,500 crore through the Account Aggregator (AA) framework in the first half of the current fiscal year, according to a report by Sahamati, the industry alliance supporting the AA ecosystem. Among these, the top eight lending institutions, which account for 62% of the consents, reported a total disbursement of Rs 46,200 crore. Since its inception in September 2021, the AA framework has enabled total disbursements of Rs 1.3 lakh crore, with the top lending institutions contributing Rs 88,700 crore of this amount, the report showed. In the first half of fiscal year 2025, lenders utilized the Account Aggregator framework to facilitate 5.47 million loans, bringing the total to 9.70 million loans since the launch of the ecosystem.

BEIJING — Chinese videostreaming platform iQiyi announced Thursday it plans later this year to open its first full-fledged theme park in China based on characters from its own shows.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. For years, South Indian cinema has thrived on a theatrical-first model, with a fiercely loyal audience that made the big screen the ultimate platform for stardom. Unlike Bollywood, where actors transitioned seamlessly between films and over-the-top (OTT), the South Indian star system remained firmly anchored in the theatrical experience.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Mumbai: 3one4 Capital, a homegrown venture capital firm, has successfully returned its first fund to investors with a performance of more than 1.0 DPI (distributed to paid-in capital). The firm is sitting on unrealized gains of around 4x in the portfolio companies of this fund, said Pranav Pai, founding partner and chief investment officer of 3one4 Capital, in an interview with Mint.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India's judiciary is grappling with the unintended consequences of live-streamed court cases as short, often out-of-context, clips go viral on social media, fuelling misinformation. And that has reignited the debate whether the proceedings should be shared live online at all.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Tata Motors Ltd, India’s largest electric car maker, is considering new petrol and diesel models, besides extending the life of existing fossil fuel-driven variants, as the adoption of battery-powered mobility slows in key markets, including the US and UK. The country's third largest carmaker, in its interaction with analysts on Tuesday, also acknowledged that competition has increased in the EV segment, especially from JSW Group’s MG Windsor in India.

YouTube as part of its strategy to curb subscriber migration from linear TV to free digital streaming, sources familiar with the matter told ET. The company may implement this from May 1 but it has not yet taken a final decision, they added. This will be the second significant decision by the company, which was formed through the merger of Disney's Star India with Reliance Industries' Viacom18. The move follows the company's decision to place content behind a paywall on JioHotstar after offering premium content, including sports, for free for two years prior to the merger-a strategy that had impacted both pay-TV and subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services.

RPG Group chairman Harsh Goenka recently shared a post on microblogging platform X (formerly Twitter) featuring Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani’s perspective on success. The post included a video of Ambani quoting a message from Swami Vivekananda, stressing the importance of focusing on a single idea.

Zolve has secured $251 million in a debt-equity mix funding round led by Creaegis. The startup offers credit facilities to students and professionals moving to the United States from other countries. Out of the total funds, $51 million is an equity infusion and the rest is debt. Other than Creaegis the round saw participation by HSBC, SBI Investment, GMO Venture Partners, DG Daiwa Ventures, and existing investors Accel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sparta Group, and DST Global. Accel, DST Global, and others had participated in the platform's first institutional funding round of around $40 million, which took place in October 2021.

Software Development Engineer at the quick commerce platform, Blinkit, has ignited discussions online after a user shared screenshots revealing its astonishing response. The Bengaluru-based opening attracted an overwhelming 13,451 applications within just 24 hours, highlighting the intense competition in the tech job market. The viral screenshots, originally posted on X (formerly Twitter), quickly gained traction, with many users expressing their thoughts on the situation. The data revealed that the majority of applicants—74%—were entry-level professionals, while 13% had senior-level experience. Additionally, 86% of those who applied held a bachelor’s degree, whereas 12% had a master’s degree.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: American trade negotiators are pushing for a level playing field for US-based e-commerce companies such as Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart with Indian firms such as Reliance, two people aware of the matter said.

South by Southwest festival, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber made a quiet but pointed statement wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with the Latin phrase “Mundus sine caesaribus” (“a world without Caesars”). The message was a direct clapback at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who months earlier had sported a similar shirt reading “aut Zuck aut nihil”, a twist on the ancient slogan “aut Caesar aut nihil” (“either a Caesar or nothing”). Graber’s fashion choice wasn’t just a meme; it encapsulated Bluesky’s mission to dismantle the idea of a social media emperor ruling over users. “Our infrastructure shouldn’t be controlled by one CEO,” Bluesky’s Emily Liu told Huffington Post, framing the platform’s decentralized model as a rebellion against Zuckerberg’s—or any billionaire’s dominance.

This should be commensurate with awareness of responsible and ethical use of AI without curbing innovation, they said at the second edition of The Economic Times Digital Transformation Dialogues in Bengaluru, moderated by ET's Beena Parmar. The technology services world is moving towards the platforms and products operating model, which will increasingly rely «not on seniority or experience, but on your ability to deliver on your role,» said Sandhya Arun, chief technology officer at Wipro, which operates in an industry where revenue has traditionally been linked to the headcount. «A role itself has many tasks. If you break it down, some of those tasks will get automated, will get handed off to AI, but the role itself will transform as opposed to the role disappearing if you are doing something relevant such as impacting business value, delivering products ensuring quality and security,» Arun said. Because of this, Wipro is training its next gen, or young associates, to become full stack to work across frontend and backend of technology applications.

Starlink has partnered with Jio Platforms (JPL) to bring high-speed satellite internet services to customers in India, a day after a similar pact with Bharti Airtel. The tie-ups underscore a surprise turnaround in the stance of India's top two telecom operators, led by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Mittal, which had been at odds with the world's leading low-earth orbit satellite constellation operator over spectrum allocation and pricing for the domestic market. Market watchers termed the deals as a win-win for all parties. While Starlink gets a foothold in the world's second-largest telecom market without paying top dollars to buy spectrum in an auction, both telcos get access to more cutting-edge technology while avoiding a bloody battle with a moneyed US giant. Indian consumers will be able to experience the latest technology at potentially affordable rates.

SIA-India) on Wednesday welcomed the strategic partnerships of Elon Musk-led SpaceX with Airtel and Reliance Jio. «These collaborations will accelerate broadband expansion and play a crucial role in enhancing connectivity across industries such as ports, rural enterprises, mining, oilfields, villages, and India's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZs), where satellite technology can deliver substantial value,» Anil Prakash, director general, SIA-india, said. He said by complementing existing terrestrial networks, these partnerships will drive socio-economic growth, foster digital inclusion, and unlock new business opportunities across sectors like education, healthcare, e-governance, and agriculture.

With shows like White Lotus, The Traitors, and Love Is Blind dominating the streaming space, fans of Landman are curious if a new episode is set to drop — and whether Landman Season 2 is on the horizon.

BRISKPE on Wednesday said it has received the RBI's in-principle authorisation to operate as a payment aggregator for cross-border (PA-CB) transactions. The authorisation enables BRISKPE to operate as a dedicated PA-CB for both exports and imports under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, BRISKPE CEO Sanjay Tripathy, said. As one of the first platforms to solely focus exclusively on cross-border payments, BRISKPE aligns with the RBI's updated regulatory framework introduced in October 2023, the company said. «With this approval, BRISKPE is equipped to provide seamless solutions for businesses struggling with inefficient international payment systems,» it added.

Ashwini Vaishnaw welcomed Elon Musk's Starlink on Wednesday, highlighting its potential to benefit railway projects in remote areas. «Starlink, welcome to India! Will be useful for remote area railway projects,» said Vaishnaw in a statement on X. Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Jio Platforms has struck a deal with SpaceX, the aerospace company led by Musk, to bring Starlink's broadband internet services to India, a surprise move that follows months of bickering over how Musk's venture should be granted spectrum rights. The deal with Musk — considered the right-hand-man of US President Donald Trump — came a day after telecom tycoon Sunil Bharti Mittal's Bharti Airtel signed a similar partnership deal with SpaceX.