UPS Financial News

Nitish Kumar's JD(U) on Sunday exuded confidence that its national president, who was sworn in as Bihar CM for a record ninth time after forming a new government with the BJP, will win Monday's trust vote. State parliamentary affairs minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, who convened a meeting of the JD(U) legislative party, downplayed the absence of «two or three MLAs,» attributing it to «unavoidable circumstances about which they had given prior information.» He emphasised that the absentees would be present in the assembly during the floor test. «We in the NDA have a total strength of 128 MLAs. In the 243-strong assembly, we are comfortably placed. All our MLAs will be present inside the House where a no-confidence motion against the Speaker will precede the trust vote», said Chaudhary.

life insurance companies met with the chairman and members of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) recently, to express their concerns over a proposed change in the guidelines to calculate the surrender value of prematurely terminated policies. Industry representatives said the changes as proposed could deal a «killer blow» to the sector. Any higher surrender value would lead to a fall in the persistency ratio — which indicates the proportion of policyholders regularly paying premiums — that has been just about 50% for more than five years, they claimed. During the meeting with the regulator, they flagged the potential detrimental effects of the proposed policy on persistency, the chief executive of a company said on the condition of anonymity. «The proposed hike in surrender values could lead to higher lapsation of insurance policies, thereby lower profitability,» he said.

Income Tax Act — whose impact would be felt for the first time this year, a business entity failing to pay its vendors registered as 'micro' or 'small' (MSE) within 45 days of delivery, would not get the deduction of its purchase in the year of the purchase but can claim the deduction only in the year of 'actual payment'. Thus, deduction disallowance for unpaid outstandings would increase the taxable income and tax of companies for FY24. In grappling with the new statute, companies and vendors are trying to escape its impact in different ways — some of which may not later stand the scrutiny of the auditors and tax office.

consumer goods companies including Nestle, Dabur, Coca-Cola, Mondelez and Procter & Gamble have lined up big investments in India to step up capacity and push more premium products despite an ongoing slowdown in demand, particularly for mass products. Some of these firms are investing more than ever before as they are hopeful of a demand revival in the new fiscal. «We are investing 7-8% of our turnover on capex, which is much higher than it ever was,» Nestle chairman Suresh Narayanan said. «Despite stress points in demand, there's a wealth effect phenomenon that is taking place… Stock markets have been booming and those at upper middle class and middle class, they feel good about what they are buying,» he said. «Food inflation is hurting but we are hopeful that once inflation abates, things will be better,» Narayanan said. The maker of Maggi noodles and Nescafe coffee has committed investments of ₹6,500 crore into the India market till 2025, over a five-year window.

Banks such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda, Axis Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank, as well as non-bank lenders and captive financiers of automakers like Mercedes-Benz and BMW are seeing a sharp spike in luxury-car financing, as consumers increasingly use loans to buy high-end vehicles. Outstanding bank loans to individuals for purchasing personal vehicles totalled ₹5.8 lakh crore at the end of December. While separate data weren't available on financing of luxury vehicles, executives in the banking and automotive sectors said that was a fast-growing segment of the car loan portfolios for lenders.

Fintech firm One97 Communications, which owns the Paytm brand, has received support from merchants, and it assured them of continuity of services without any disruption, the company said in a blog on Sunday.The blog post came amid the recent crisis around Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL), an associate company of Paytm, which has been barred by the RBI from accepting deposits or top-ups in customer accounts, wallets, FASTags and other instruments after February 29.Withdrawal or utilisation of balances by its customers from their accounts, including savings bank accounts, current accounts, prepaid instruments, FASTags, and National Common Mobility Cards, are to be permitted without any restrictions up to their available balance.

Large central public-sector entities – companies and undertakings (CPSEs) – achieved 83% of their combined capital expenditure target for FY24 in April-January by spending Rs 6.09 trillion, supporting the public capex-led economic growth revival.

₹2 lakh for every certification to encourage drone manufacturing in India. NTH Ghaziabad has received interest from 12 drone manufacturers for type certification of their models, the first person said, wishing not to be identified. Following the NTH certification, the directorate general of civil aviation will issue licences to drone makers, allowing them to manufacture an unlimited number of drones.

₹5-30 lakh annually are middle class. Analysis based on a decade-old data shows many who loosely describe themselves as middle-class may actually fall in the top 1-5% of the population, meaning that households truly in the “middle" have meagre earnings. The extent can only be known once updated consumer expenditure and Census data is in.

₹9 lakh per annum and above," said Savitha Rani M., training and placement officer at Ramaiah Institute of Technology in Bengaluru. Infosys had hired 51,300 fresh graduates in FY23. However, last year, the Bengaluru twins Infosys and Wipro Ltd, which together hired 208,000 engineering graduates in the last three years, had said they did not plan to go to campuses this year.

A significant proportion of Americans who have gone through a divorce attribute their separation to credit card debt and hidden financial activities, according to a new survey.

Cryptocurrency markets are excited as Dogecoin experiences yet another rally, fueled by the activation of X Payments. Simultaneously, a new player in the market, Rebel Satoshi, is catching the attention of investors with its fresh take on meme coins.

union Home Minister Amit Shah to a debate on the state’s guarantee schemes, saying that if the latter was so sure the schemes were the culprit behind Karnataka’s drained coffers, he should clearly state it. Shah is in Mysuru to participate in the Suttur Jatra Mahotsav, a six-day annual celebration with cultural and folk events. BJP leaders, the CM added, should also discontinue guarantee schemes in the saffron-party ruled states, if they objected to them. “The honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who opposed our guarantee schemes, has now stolen not only our guarantee schemes but also the name 'guarantee' and is advertising under the same name. This shows the anti-poor stance and intellectual bankruptcy of that party,” he said.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Sunday accused the Haryana government of creating a border «between Punjab and India», referring to the concrete blocks, nails and barbed wire placed on some roads to scuttle the farmers' proposed 'Delhi Chalo' march. He said the Manohar Khattar-led Haryana government has placed as much barbed wire at the state's borders with Punjab as there is at the country's border with Pakistan. Khattar, however, justified the steps taken by his government to seal the state's borders and stop Punjab farmers from marching towards the national capital, saying the arrangements are aimed at maintaining law and order. Haryana authorities have sealed the state's border with Punjab at Shambhu near Ambala district, placing concrete blocks, sandbags, barbed wire and anti-riot vehicles on the roads going towards Delhi. Elaborate arrangements have been made at the state's borders with Punjab in Jind and Fatehabad districts as well.

NEW DELHI : A large number of Union ministries had utilised only about two-thirds of their revised budgetary allocations for 2023-24 in the first nine months of the financial year. The actual total expenditure between April and December was ₹30.41 trillion, against the revised allocation of ₹44.90 trillion for 56 ministries, the Union finance ministry said in a statement on ministry-wise utilisation of the Budget allocation for FY24. The statement was a part of the government’s response to questions at the Rajya Sabha last week.

It’s no secret that Canada is facing a major housing shortage. But could the sheer amount of space used for parking vehicles be part of the problem?

(Reuters) — Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos sold around 12 million shares of the online retail and cloud services firm for roughly $2 billion, according to a company filing on Friday, soon after laying out a plan to sell his shares over the next year.

By Andrea Shalal

Investing.com — Tuesday’s U.S. inflation figures will be in focus as markets look for clues on the timing of interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve. Earnings season continues, oil prices look set to remain choppy, while the UK and Japan are to release what will be closely watched economic data. Here’s what you need to know to start your week.

MILAN (Reuters) -The founding family of Italian luxury shoemaker Tod's is trying to take the company private for the second time in less then two years, this time with the help of L Catterton, a private equity firm backed by France's LVMH.

MUMBAI : Small investors have been hit hard by the plunge in shares of One97 Communications (Paytm) since the Reserve Bank of India issued curbs on associate Paytm Payments Bank over repeated non-compliance with regulations. Retail investors sharply hiked their stake in Paytm to 12.85% during the December quarter from 8.28% in the preceding three months. Market experts believe that in the absence of clarity on the fate of the payment bank’s operations, the near-term outlook for the company remains bleak.