PwC Financial News

Some Canadian companies are contemplating moving their operations to the United States as a long-term solution to get around Donald Trump‘s tariff threats and protect the viability of their businesses, according to a new survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Canada.

When Raunak Bhinge first approached institutional investors seeking funding for Infinite Uptime, the pitch was straightforward: much of India’s factory equipment was still analogue, and digitising it could help manufacturers improve output. Over time, the venture pivoted from being seen as a software startup to proving it was an artificial intelligence (AI)-backed business built on proprietary industrial data and models refined over years of deployments.“Investor due diligence has become deeper over the years as we raised funding,” said Bhinge, whose venture has raised over $60 million since inception.

Consulting and auditing companies in India are clamping down on hiring or letting people go on the back of the impact of artificial intelligence and a poor pipeline of work from clients because of the domino effect of the West Asia war.Goliaths of the business—Bain & Co., Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey & Co., Accenture and Kearney, along with auditing giants PwC, EY, KPMG and Deloitte—have held meetings on the war and how it would affect the India headcount.“Over the last two weeks, we had meetings with senior partners and the impact of the war on business was discussed. Lateral hiring has stopped for us, unless critical, and we have been told that cost cuts are on the anvil,” said a senior partner in the consulting team of a Big Four firm.“While strategic consultants are not impacted yet, those who worked in the research teams and production services will be impacted.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. As India seeks to deepen health insurance adoption, a few companies are combining treatment and care with medical coverage, promising improved outcomes and lower premiums. Non-life insurance premiums, including health coverage, are expected to grow at an annual average rate of 13–15% in the medium, according to PwC.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Despite the government’s stated policy goal of increasing the share of natural gas in India’s energy basket, consumption of the environmentally friendly fuel fell 8.6% annually in the April-October period of FY26, according to data from the petroleum planning and analysis cell (PPAC). In absolute terms, consumption declined to 40,068 million metric standard cubic metres (mmscm) during the first seven months of FY26, compared to 43,583 mmscm over the same period in FY25.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Artificial intelligence (AI) is causing an upheaval in the global advertising industry, and the ripples of layoffs and cost cuts are being felt in India as well. AI tools now enable clients to develop content, and they are outsourcing less and less work to advertising agencies.

Tata Motors has announced that it will convene a meeting of its equity shareholders on May 6, to vote on a proposed Composite Scheme of Arrangement involving the reorganization of its commercial and passenger vehicle businesses. “We hereby wish to inform that pursuant to the Order dated March 25, 2025, (“Order”) the Hon’ble National Company Law Tribunal, Mumbai Bench (“NCLT”) in the Company Scheme Application No. C.A.(CAA)/61/MB/2025, Meeting of the Equity Shareholders of Tata Motors Limited (“the Company”) is scheduled to be held on Tuesday, May 6, 2025 at 3.00 p.m (IST),” Tata Motors said in an exchange filing.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: As the US has announced about 27% tariff on imports from India, petroleum products exports to the country are set to witness a major impact going ahead, said sector experts. A bulk of the petroleum exports to the US from India comprises of petrol or gasoline.

If any Mickey Mouse accounting goes on for years in the treasury, it would, however, be with the knowledge of the mid-office that monitors — or, is supposed to monitor — the risks and reports any breach to the treasurer and chief risk officer. In the sequence and hierarchy of these divisions that witness millions of bond, currency and derivative deals, the front office 'creates' the risk to make money, the mid office 'keeps tabs' of positions, and the back office records and reconciles. In some ways, a treasury is a bank within a bank. Among this cast of characters, some (directly reporting to the kingpin) would be typically aware of sharp practice; many lower in the ranks would blindly do what's told to them; and some would look the other way while letting the music go on. The army of auditors scrutinising the books, and probably call records and chats of IndusInd Bank officials, will have to ferret out exact quantum of losses, gaps in processes, and why the funny divergent accounting — booking profits while deferring losses of mirror derivative transactions — went on since 2016. It would hint who knew what, whether conflicted reporting arrangements fuelled the folly, and whether someone from the back office had ever raised a red flag.

IndusInd Bank shares will be in focus on Wednesday after Ashok Hinduja, chairman of IndusInd International Holdings Ltd (IIHL), said that the bank has not sought fresh capital from its promoters, despite a hit to its net worth due to an accounting discrepancy. IIHL, the investment arm of the Hinduja Group, recently received the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) in-principle approval to increase its stake in IndusInd Bank from 16% to 26%.

IndusInd Bank has not sought any fresh capital from its promoters even though it suffered a huge loss in its net worth following an accounting discrepancy, IIHL chairman Ashok Hinduja said on Tuesday. IIHL, the investment arm of Hinduja Group, has recently got RBI's in-principle approval to raise its stake in IndusInd Bank from 16 per cent to 26 per cent. According to Hinduja, IndusInd International Holdings Ltd (IIHL) — the Mauritius-based promoters of the private sector lender — has committed to infuse capital into the bank in case there is a requirement. However, the bank has not sought any fresh infusion as the overall capital adequacy is at a comfortable level of over 15 per cent, he told reporters on the sideline of an event.

IndusInd Bank promoters have reiterated their commitment to the bank saying that the depressed stock value makes it an attractive level to double down their investment in the private sector lender. Though the bank, which has lost half of its value in the last six months, has not yet asked for any fresh fund infusion from parent IndusInd India Holdings Ltd (IIHL), the promoters see this as an opportune time to invest, said Ashok Hinduja, chairman of IIHL. “Their capital adequacy is already more than 15% and they don't need any further capital, because (it is) excess money. Unless there is a plan, is not necessary to provide,” Hinduja said even as IIHL on Tuesday announced the completion of takeover of debt-ridden Reliance Capital more than year year after the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) had approved it.

In Noida’s Sector 18 market, the answer is playing out in real time. Outside a nondescript ‘Cash for Gold’ outlet, Rekha Verma (name changed on request), a middle-aged homemaker from Ghaziabad, clutches a tiny velvet pouch. Inside: a pair of 16-gram, 22-karat earrings. She planned to exchange them for a trendier necklace but, after crunching the numbers, opted to sell instead. “I thought I could swap them, but after all the deductions, cash made more sense,” she laughs. “I’ll buy some jewellery but invest the rest elsewhere.” Rekha isn’t alone. The man behind the counter, quick with his calculator, sees six to seven such customers daily. “People are rethinking gold,” he says. His outlet charges a 3-10% commission, far less than the 4-5% market price cut and 20-25% making charge loss at brand stores.

quick commerce has caused a significant decline in the sale of food, beverages and confectionery in urban centers, as 52 per cent of physical store retailers reported experiencing the drop, according to a report by global consulting firm PwC. The report says that beyond food, personal care (47 per cent) and household cleaning (33 per cent) are also experiencing significant sales reductions. This suggests that quick-delivery models are more disruptive for consumables that consumers frequently purchase in-store.

Following this request, the board has initiated the process of selecting a top firm for conducting forensic audit, said the sources cited above. The private lender, which has faced a 50%-plus market-value erosion in six months, disclosed on March 10 evening certain discrepancies in its derivatives portfolio. These gaps could adversely impact its net worth by 2.35% as of December 2024, with about '1,600 crore of the hit likely to reflect in the March quarter earnings. On Tuesday, the stock lost 27% after the disclosures, the most on record.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Physics Wallah is building small language models (SLMs) to solve questions in physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology, as the edtech major seeks to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) for scale and efficiency. “Our chief technology officer Devesh Mishra has dropped all his other responsibilities to focus on building SLMs for Physics Wallah," company founder and chief executive Alakh Pandey told Mint in an interview.

consulting sector emerged the top recruiter with 201 offers — 37.3% of total offers – at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, as the business school announced the completion of its final placements for its flagship MBA programme’s Class of 2025. Overall, 456 students participated in the final placement process, securing 538 offers rolled out by 196 companies despite challenging market conditions, the institute said. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) emerged as the top recruiter in the management consulting cohort while Accenture Strategy led in the strategy consulting cohort. Other consulting firms that participated were McKinsey, Kearney, Alvarez & Marsal, Arthur D Little, Auctus Advisors, EY-Parthenon, Monitor Deloitte, TCS, KPMG, PwC, and Vector Consulting, amongst others.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In Union Budget 2025-26, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman raised the tax-rebate threshold under Section 87A of the Income Tax Act from ₹7 lakh to ₹12 lakh.

President Donald Trump has already forced Colombia to accept deportees by threatening tariffs and is readying the same move against Canada and Mexico as soon as Saturday

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Banking is at the heart of any nation's growth. When democratised, it becomes a financial engine capable of uplifting the masses on a large scale.

Artificial intelligence (AI) presents a $15-trillion opportunity for India over the next few years with the transformations it can bring to supply chains, vendor management of companies and tackling a wide genre of issues across markets, said Joe Atkinson, chief AI officer at global consultancy PwC.