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BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - February 2017

Feb 2017

Apr 21, 2021

Ex-post Facto Approval for Amendments to Finance Bill, 2021

The Union Cabinet gave ex-post facto approval to the official amendments to the Finance Bill, 2021, which were aimed at clarifying and rationalising tax proposals for 2021-22.
The amendments were essential to clarify and rationalise the proposals further and address stakeholders' concerns arising out of the proposals enumerated in the Finance Bill.
The Finance Bill became the Finance Act, 2021 on March 28, 2021 after receiving the President's nod.
The amendments to the Finance Bill, 2021 were primarily aimed at generating timely revenue for the exchequer and addressing the issues flagged by taxpayers and other stakeholders.

Adani Enterprises Incorporates Wholly-owned Arm MPL

Adani Enterprises announced incorporation of a wholly-owned arm 'Mundra Petrochem Ltd' (MPL).
MPL is incorporated with the object to set up various feedstocks (coal, petcoke, coke, limestone, salts, sand, tar, oil, LPG, LNG, Ethane, LPG, green fuels etc.) based refinery, petrochemical and chemical plants in a phased manner in India and to undertake all such activities associated with land acquisition, design and engineering, procurement...and other related undertakings.
MPL is incorporated in India and was registered with the Registrar of Companies, Gujarat at Ahmedabad.
Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL), the flagship entity of Adani Group, is an incubator focusing on establishing diverse new businesses.

SoftBank-backed WeWork to Begin Accepting Payments in Cryptocurrencies

SoftBank-backed office-sharing startup WeWork said that it would begin accepting payments in select cryptocurrencies and partner with Coinbase Global Inc and payment app Bitpay to facilitate transactions.
WeWork joins a clutch of high-profile firms that have dived into the digital currency space recently, including Tesla Inc, Visa Inc, Bank of NY Mellon, prompting the move away from the fringes of finance for crytocurrencies like bitcoin.

Flipkart Expands Hyperlocal Service

Flipkart expanded its hyperlocal service to six new cities, seeking customers for doorstep delivery of daily essentials during the coronavirus pandemic.
Flipkart Quick is now available in Delhi, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Noida, Hyderabad and Pune and will go to other cities this year gradually.
As per reports, Flipkart remains committed to creating solutions that will not only deliver greater value to the customers but also boost local farmers and suppliers apart from providing a fillip to entrepreneurship.
Flipkart Quick was launched in Bengaluru in 2020 to widen the accessibility of products and enable quick delivery for consumers who order products from Flipkart hubs in their location.
Flipkart Quick enables consumers to order online and get delivery within the next 90 minutes or even book a two-hour slot, based on their convenience. Customers get free delivery on their first order, and if their subsequent order size is more than Rs 499.

Paytm Payments Bank the Largest Beneficiary on UPI Platform

Paytm Payments Bank has become the largest beneficiary bank on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform, with 469.84 million transactions in March, an increase of almost 21 per cent month-on-month.
State Bank of India (SBI), which is second in the pecking order, saw 413.33 million transactions in March. SBI was followed by YES Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, and HDFC Bank.
Beneficiary banks are banks of account holders who receive money. When it comes to remitter banks, Paytm Payments Bank is fifth on the list, with 173.09 million transactions in March.
SBI is the leader with 775.55 million transactions, followed by HDFC Bank with 244.63 million transactions.
Axis Bank and ICICI Bank are third and fourth on the list of remitter banks.

LIC Appoints Paytm to Handle its Digital Payments

State-run Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has appointed Paytm to facilitate its digital payments. The state-run insurance firm had tied up with another payment gateway earlier but has now south a new deal with Paytm as most of its payments moved to digital modes.
As per the new agreement, the payment process needs to be smoother including a broader range of payment options and the inclusion of more players — banks, wallets, etc — in payment channels.
As per reports, at least 17 payment platforms had bid proactively for LIC's contract. However, Paytm's wide range of payment services helped it bag the contract over all the other players.

Apr 20, 2021

Tata Digital Infuses Rs. 100 cr Debt in Medicine Start-up 1mg

Tata Sons' digital services subsidiary Tata Digital infused debt money in online medicine startup 1mg. Tata Digital is in the final stages to acquire a controlling stake in the Gurugram-based company. As per regulatory filings, Tata Digital is picking up Rs. 100 crore worth compulsorily convertible debentures or CCDs in 1mg, according to Entrackr, a platform that tracks tech companies.
1mg has allotted 29,054 CCDs at a price of Rs. 34,417.87 per debenture to raise the sum. The firm has already received Rs 25 crore while the remaining Rs. 75 crore will be infused at a later stage. The Entrackr report said Tata Digital's investment has valued the eight-year-old firm at $240 million.
Tata Digital is reportedly expected to acquire over 50 per cent stake in 1mg and the companies have been in talks since last November. The acquisition is expected to help Tata strengthen its e-commerce initiatives. The deal comes at a time when e-commerce sales, especially of food, groceries and healthcare products, have soared in India as the Covid-19 pandemic has spurred a shift to online shopping.

RBI Okays Re-appointment of Murali Natrajan as DCB Bank MD and CEO

Private sector lender, DCB Bank received the approval from the Reserve Bank of India for the re-appointment of Murali M. Natrajan as the Managing Director and CEO, for further period of one year from April 29, 2021.
The re-appointment as above is subject to the approval of shareholders at the ensuing Annual General Meeting of the Bank.
Natrajan was appointed as MD and CEO of DCB Bank in May, 2009. Prior to joining DCB, Natrajan worked with foreign banks Standard Chartered and Citibank.

IEX Expands beyond India with Launch of Cross-border Electricity Trade

In a first, Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) commenced the Cross Border Electricity Trade (CBET) on its power trading platform. This would help the exchange expand its power markets beyond India to the South Asia region.
The company said that it will lead towards building an "integrated South Asian regional power market.
The government designated nodal agency for CBET is NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Ltd (NVVN), a fully-owned subsidiary of NTPC limited. The company has secured approval for Nepal to participate in the day-ahead market on IEX.

Nokia Joins LG Uplus to Install Indoor 5G Equipment in South Korea

Nokia, a Finnish telecom equipment giant, signed an agreement with South Korean mobile carrier LG Uplus to install its next-generation indoor 5G equipment in the country.
Nokia said it will deploy its small cell AirScale Indoor systems in indoor locations across the country, including shopping malls and office buildings, for LG Uplus' 5G network.
The system allows seamless 5G connectivity between indoor and outdoor locations and can be easily upgraded to accommodate future network expansion, according to Nokia.
South Korean telecom operators have recently focused on expanding 5G coverage in indoor locations amid complaints of lack of network availability.

Paytm Expands ESOP Scheme

Digital financial services company Paytm added 242,904 stock options, taking the overall Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) valuation to $604 million.
The addition takes the existing ESOP pool to 2.4 million equity options.
Paytm, valued at over $16 billion, plans to award the expanded stock options to more employees during its annual performance appraisal.
To attract and retain talented professionals, Paytm last year amended certain aspects of its ESOP policy, introducing performance-based ESOPs.
These are given at the time of hiring or during the appraisal cycle and all key roles across different levels are eligible for it. It has linked ESOPs to individual goals that are reviewed and approved by the business heads with the flexibility to accommodate multiple scenarios and also meet employees' aspirations.

RBI Constitutes Six-member Panel to Review ARCs

The Reserve Bank of India has formed a six-member panel headed by Sudarshan Sen, former Executive Director, to carry out comprehensive review of the working of Asset Reconstruction Companies (ARCs) in the financial sector ecosystem.
The panel will recommend suitable measures for enabling such entities to meet the growing requirements of the financial sector.
Besides Sen other members of panel are Vishakha Mulye, Executive Director, ICICI Bank; P. N. Prasad, former Dy. Managing Director, SBI; Rohit Prasad, Professor of Economics, MDI, Gurgaon; Abizer Diwanji, Partner, Ernst & Young; and R. Anand, Chartered Accountant.
The Committee will submit its report within three months from the date of its first meeting. RBI governor Shaktikanta Das had articulated intent to form the panel while announcing monetary policy for 2021-22.

Tech Mahindra Acquires 100% Stake in DigitalOnUS

Tech Mahindra acquired DigitalOnUS, a hybrid cloud and DevOps services provider, for a consideration of $120 million. Tech Mahindra has acquired 100 per cent stake in the organisation to strengthen cloud-native development, hybrid cloud infrastructure, and SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) automation.
The acquired company is headquartered in San Jose, California and reported revenue of $30.6 million, at the end of CY2020.
The strategic acquisition will further elevate Tech Mahindra's position as a partner of choice for hybrid-cloud digital transformation, providing end-to-end transformation and new-age capabilities including enterprise DevOps and cloud-native development technologies.

Apr 19, 2021

Toyota Partners Sasol to Pioneer Hydrogen-powered Mobility

Japanese automotive manufacturer Toyota has partnered with South African fuel giant Sasol to develop a green hydrogen-powered mobility ecosystem.
The two companies announced the plan at an event this week organised by EE Business Intelligence and the British High Commission to South Africa, titled '2nd Renewable Hydrogen and Green Powerfuels Webinar for South Africa'.
The parties intend to develop a mobility corridor and expand the demonstration to a pilot project using one of South Africa's main freight corridors, the N3 route, where most of the country's imports arrive in containers, to the economic hub of Johannesburg.

Microsoft Buys AI Speech Tech Company Nuance

Microsoft has made its second-biggest acquisition after LinkedIn. The tech giant has bought AI speech tech firm Nuance for $19.7 billion. The move will help Microsoft's prowess in voice recognition and will give it a boost in the health care market. Nuance is known for its Dragon software which helps to transcribe speech using deep learning. In 2016, Microsoft had purchased LinkedIn for $26 billion.
The acquisition will combine solutions and expertise to deliver new cloud and AI capabilities across healthcare and other industries, and represent the latest step in Microsoft's industry-specific cloud strategy.
Nuance provides the AI layer at the healthcare point of delivery and is a pioneer in the real-world application of enterprise AI.
Nuance's products include multiple clinical speech recognition software as a service (SaaS) offerings built on Microsoft Azure. The firm's solutions work with core healthcare systems, and are currently used in 77% of U.S. hospitals.

Reliance Communication Headed for Liquidation

Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Communications (RCom), which is now bankrupt, will now undergo liquidation, unless the Supreme Court overturns the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) order.
The order states that spectrum owned by the firm can be sold under the insolvency process after government dues are cleared.
A banking source said the committee of creditors (CoC) for RCom will file an appeal against the order. The NCLAT had passed the order in the 'Aircel versus the Department of Telecom-munications (DoT)' legal fracas.

Haryana Ranks 4th in Input Tax Credit Frauds

Gurugram Zonal Unit of Directorate General of GST Intelligence arrested Ravinder Kumar in connection with input tax credit (ITC) fraud worth Rs. 43 crore.
This is not a lone example, but Haryana has the fourth highest cases pertaining to issuance of fake invoices to get benefit of ITC from July 2017 to December 2020. As many as 3,852 fraud cases were unearthed across the country during this period. Maharashtra topped the list with 668 cases followed by Tamil Nadu (652), West Bengal (370) and Haryana (303), according to data tabled in the Lok Sabha by the Finance Ministry.
Tax officials said that the use of fake invoices to avail ITC credit had been increasing and it was a cause for concern, especially at a time when revenue collection was depressed.
In terms of quantum of fraud, Haryana is at number three. Frauds worth Rs 4,489.90 crore were detected in Haryana between July 2017 and December 2020. In total, Rs. 35,620.40 crore of ITC fraud was detected across the country during the period. Delhi topped the list with fraud worth Rs. 7,922 crore followed by Maharashtra (Rs. 7,147.50 crore). The modus operandi, according to the department, is setting up of fake companies, creating fake invoices and collecting illegal input tax credit.

ARK Buys another $64 mn in Coinbase Shares, Sells Tesla Shares

Cathie Wood's ARK funds bought more shares of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc while selling shares of electric carmaker Tesla.
It sold 134,541 shares of Tesla, valued at $99.5 million. Tesla is still by far the firm's biggest position by value on its major funds.
The funds added to were the flagship ARK Innovation fund, the Next Generation Internet ETF and the Fintech Innovation ETF.
ARK sold the Tesla shares from its flagship fund and its Next Generation Internet ETF.

US Stops Short of Branding Vietnam, Switzerland Currency Manipulators

The U.S. Treasury Department said that Vietnam, Switzerland and Taiwan tripped its thresholds for possible currency manipulation under a 2015 U.S. trade law, but refrained from formally branding them as manipulators.
In the first semi-annual foreign exchange report issued by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the Treasury said it will commence "enhanced engagement" with Taiwan and continue such talks with Vietnam and Switzerland after the Trump administration labeled the latter two as currency manipulators in December.
The Treasury said that Taiwan, Vietnam and Switzerland exceeded 2015 currency thresholds during 2020 - a more than $20 billion bilateral trade surplus with the United States, foreign currency intervention exceeding 2% of gross domestic product and a global current account surplus exceeding 2% of GDP.

Apr 18, 2021

SEBI Issues Guidelines for Warehousing Norms for Agri, Non-agri Goods

Markets regulator SEBI came out with guidelines for preparing warehousing norms by clearning corporations for agricultural, agri-processed, base and industrial metals goods.
The guidelines, which will be the minimum requirements that will be prescribed by clearing corporations for warehousing service providers, are aimed at bringing uniformity, improve ease of doing business and rationalise regulatory compliance cost, among other aspects.
In a circular, SEBI said that the guidelines would come into effect from June 1, 2021.
According to the regulator, the prescribed norms are the minimum requirements/ standards which a clearing corporation will set out for compliance by its accredited WSPs (Warehouse Service Providers) and assayers.
A WSP is an entity which provides a storage facility for storing underlying goods related to a commodity derivatives contract.

Hyundai Bags Top Position in Passenger Vehicle Exports in 2020-21

Hyundai Motor India led the passenger vehicle (PV) exports from the country last fiscal with dispatch of 1,04,342 units to various overseas markets like Mexico, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. The country's second largest carmaker said that during the period under review the company also exported vehicles to Nepal and Chile, among others.
Hyundai surpassed the cumulative three million vehicle export milestone last year.
The company currently exports 10 models, including Venue and Creta, to around 88 countries across five continents.

US Keeps India, 10 Others in the Currency Practices Monitoring List

The United States placed 11 countries, including India, China, Japan, South Korea, Germany and Italy in the currency practices Monitoring List.
Other countries named by the Department of Treasury in its quarterly report to Congress, the first under the Biden administration, are Ireland, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Mexico.
All except Ireland and Mexico were covered in the December 2020 report, which was under the previous Trump administration.
An economy meeting two of the three criteria in the 2015 Act is placed on the Monitoring List.

Vi Appoints Senior Executives in Marketing, Technology Security Roles

Vodafone Idea (Vi), which in the recent past saw a spurt of senior level exits, has appointed executive vice presidents in charge of marketing and technology security.
Vivek Jain has returned to Vi and has been appointed EVP of marketing. Jain worked as head of Maharashtra circle in his previous stint till October 2019.
In another senior level appointment, Vi hired Mathan Babu Kasilingam as EVP- Technology Security. Previously he worked as chief of information privacy and data security in National Payment Corporation of India.

Apr 17, 2021

Richard Verma Appointed as Mastercard's Head of Global Public Policy

Former US Ambassador to India Richard Verma was appointed as General Counsel and Head of Global Public Policy of Mastercard.
The announcement from Mastercard came as it appointed Tim Murphy, the company's General Counsel, to the newly created position of Chief Administrative Officer.
Verma served as US Ambassador to India from 2014 to 2017.
The first and only Indian American to serve in this position so far, Verma joined Mastercard in October 2020, bringing more than 25 years of international experience across senior levels of business, law, diplomacy and the military.

IOC to Buy Guyanese Crude as India Doubles Up on Cutting OPEC Dependence

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) will buy a consignment of Guyanese crude oil in a push to diversify the sources. According to oil ministry officials, this deal is at competitive rates and is in line with the strategy to have multiple sources of crude oil for Indian refiners. "We are no longer constrained by West Asian crude oil grades.

National Aluminium Co Gets Mining Lease for Utkal-E Coal Block

National Aluminium Company Ltd (Nalco) was granted the mining lease of Utkal-E coal block in Odisha.
The lease was granted by the Department of Steel & Mines, Government of Odisha, through a notification.
As per the notification, the mining lease of Utkal-E coal block is over an area of 523.73 hectare.
The initial capacity of the block is 2 million tonnes per year with a total mineable reserve of approximately 70 million tonnes.

Jindal Steel Exits Oman Business

Moving towards the completion of its Oman unit divestment, Naveen Jindal-led Jindal Steel & Power (JSPL) arm Jindal Steel & Power (Mauritius) Limited has sold its balance stake to Vulcan Steel in the second and final tranche.
The Delhi-based primary steel producer today informed that the balance stake sold represented 51 percent of the share capital of Jindal Shadeed Iron and Steel LLC, Oman was sold to the private limited company, in accordance with shareholder approval secured at the extraordinary general meeting held in July last year.
Jindal Steel owned 48.99 percent stake in the Oman unit via Jindal Steel & Power (Mauritius) Limited.

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