Neal Mohan, YouTube's Chief Product Officer and Senior Vice President, was named YouTube's CEO. He replaced Susan Wojcicki, who stepped down from the role after nine years.
Mohan joined an expanding club of prominent Indian-American executives who are running the show for some of the biggest tech giants in the world.
Neal Mohan, a Stanford graduate, joined Google in 2008. He has also worked with Microsoft and sits on the board of Stitch Fix, a personal styling company, and the genomics and biotechnology company 23andMe. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent US think tank.
EbixCash Becomes First Entity to Enable UPI for Foreign Nationals
EbixCash Limited, a subsidiary of US-based Ebix Inc, became the first company in India to launch and enable Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions for foreign nationals visiting India.
RBI proposed permitting inbound travellers access to UPI for merchant payments (P2M) while they are in the country. The facility will initially be extended to travellers from G-20 countries arriving at select international airports and later across all other entry points.
EbixCash World Money is the foreign exchange division of EbixCash and has a network of over 81 retail branches, 250 franchisee partners and duty-free shops, 27 bank clients, 1,200 corporate clients and 5-star hotels. It is a leading player in India's airport and seaport Money Exchange business with retail kiosks in 20 international airports, and 12 seaports. Ebix Inc is a leading international supplier of on-demand software and e-commerce services to the insurance, financial, healthcare and e-learning industries.
Surf Excel Becomes First Indian Home Care Brand to Top $1 bn Annual Sales
Hindustan Unilever's detergent brand, Surf Excel, became the first Indian home and personal care brand to cross one billion dollars in annual sales in 2022. With a total sales of Rs. 8,200 crore, it also became HUL's first brand to reach the milestone.
HUL's second largest brand is Brooke Bond with annual sales of Rs. 5,000 crore.
Feb 17, 2023
South Indian Bank Ties up with Maruti for Car Financing
South Indian Bank announced the signing of a MoU with Maruti Suzuki to provide dealer finance options and customised auto retail financing solutions for customers.
With this tie-up, South Indian Bank aims to help dealer partners streamline vehicle inventory funding and offer comprehensive retail financing solutions to the customers of Maruti Suzuki.
The MoU was signed in the presence of Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Officer, Marketing & Sales, MSIL, Bhuvan Dheer, Executive Vice President, Sales, MSIL, Vikas Kohli, Vice President, MSIL, Murali Ramakrishnan, MD & CEO, South Indian Bank, and other senior officials from both organisations.
CAMSPay Receives RBI Nod to Operate as Payment Aggregator
Registrar and transfer agent of mutual funds Computer Age Management Services Ltd (CAMS) said that its payment platform CAMSPay, received in-principal authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as a payment aggregator.
CAMSPAy, a payment platform specialising in solving banking and finance services sector's payment challenges has been supporting mutual fund investors, insurance policy holders and loan borrowers for over a decade in enabling them to move from paper-based mandate process to offering digital payment solutions.
Indian Overseas Bank Launches Electronic Bank Guarantee Scheme
Public sector Indian Overseas Bank launched the facility of issuance of e-BG (Electronic Bank Guarantee) scheme in association with the National e-Governance Services Ltd.
The e-BG is an instrument issued by the city-headquartered bank in which the bank undertakes to guarantee a specific amount against the non-fulfilment of some action/performance of the applicant.
The main features of the e-BG are completely paperless mode with digital stamping and digital signature. Real time issuance of e-BG would make it available for the beneficiary instantly leading to time saving which in turn would fast track all the business purpose for which it is issued.
Feb 16, 2023
Govt. to Try Merging BSNL & MTNL again, Appoints Deloitte as Advisor
The government seeks merging state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), trying that again after unsuccessful attempts in 15 years.
The government appointed the accounting and consulting firm Deloitte as the transaction advisor.
Deloitte is expected to submit its analysis on how the merger could be done in the next six to seven months. Given the complexity, the merger may take about two years to complete.
The merger is a part of the Rs. 1.64 trillion revival package for BSNL the government approved in July 2022. In the cabinet note, the government had said that it would form a committee of secretaries from different ministries to decide on the merger of the two companies.
ICICI Bank Signs MoU with European Bank BNP Paribas
ICICI Bank and BNP Paribas signed an initial pact to cater to the banking requirements of European corporates operating in India and Indian companies in the European Union. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two entities establishes a framework of partnership between the two banks for providing financial services to corporate customers operating in the India – Europe corridor.
Paytm Payments Bank Becomes First to Launch UPI LITE Feature
Paytm Payments Banks Limited (PPBL) launched Unified Payments Interface (UPI) LITE, enabled by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) for multiple small-value UPI transactions. This feature will help with faster real-time transactions with a single click through Paytm as the bank aims to drive the adoption of digital payments across the country. As a part of its efforts to drive innovation, the bank is the first payments bank to launch such UPI LITE feature.
It also de-clutters the bank passbook of small value transactions, as these payments would now only show in the Paytm balance and history section, and not in the bank passbook. The small value transactions would now only show in the Paytm balance and history section, and not in the bank passbook. With UPI LITE, users can carry out a large number of small-value UPI payments in a superfast manner without worrying about cap on the number of bank transactions.
Feb 15, 2023
HDFC Bank Launches Pilot for Offline Digital Payments in Poor Connectivity Areas
Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) Bank launched a pilot known as 'OfflinePay' to test offline digital payments for customers and merchants enabling payments transactions even when there is no mobile network.
As per the HDFC, it has launched the first-of-its-kind digital payment solution, in partnership with Sweden based Crunchfish Digital Cash AB, a subsidiary of Crunchfish AB, for merchants and customers under the RBI's Regulatory Sandbox Program.
"HDFC Bank's 'OfflinePay' brings in the unique capability where both customer and merchant can be fully offline and yet do the transaction. Merchants can receive an instant payment confirmation even in an offline mode. As soon as either the merchant or the customer goes online, the transaction gets settled.
Reserve Bank of India Announces 2nd Global Hackathon 'HARBINGER 2023'
The Reserve Bank announced its second global hackathon – 'HARBINGER 2023 – Innovation for Transformation' with the theme 'Inclusive Digital Services'. Registration for the hackathon starts from February 22, 2023. It had received 363 proposals submitted by teams from within India and from 22 other countries including the US, UK, Sweden, Singapore, Philippines, and Israel.
Being part of HARBINGER 2023 gives an opportunity to the participants to get mentored by industry experts and exhibit their innovative solutions before an eminent jury and win exciting prizes in each category.
Winner of the hackathon will be given a prize of Rs. 40 lakh and runner-up Rs. 20 lakh. The first hackathon was announced in November 2021 and results were declared in June 2022.
Country's First Waste-to-Hydrogen Plant to be Set up in Pune
The country's first solid waste-to-hydrogen plant will be set up in Pune at a cost of over Rs. 430 crore.
The plant will be set up by sustainability solutions provider TheGreenBillions Ltd (TGBL), who has entered into a 30-year-long agreement with Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).
It will treat 350 tonnes of solid garbage every day by next year.
The PMC will pay Rs. 347 per tonne to TGBL as tipping fee to treat the waste.
Digital Lending Firm Lentra Enters Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam
Lentra, a digital lending platform, announced its entry in Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. The company aims to reach $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by March 2024 with business in South East Asia.
Lentra will build a stronger market presence and increase credit disbursal in the three South East Asian countries, replicating its growth in India. It already has clients in the Philippines.
The move came after the company's latest fundraise of $60 million in a Series B round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Susquehanna International Group (SIG), and Citi Ventures.
Founded in 2019, Lentra provides an application programming interface (API)-driven modular architecture to create retail and business loan products for banks and other regulated lending institutions.
In India, the firm has partnerships with 60 banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFC) and it has processed more than 50 million loans on its platform.
Feb 14, 2023
HDFC Bank Begins Offline Payment Pilot under RBI Sandbox Facility
The country's largest private sector lender HDFC Bank is attempting to execute digital payments in an offline mode under a regulatory facility to test innovations.
Apart from executing transactions in no network areas, such a facility will be of help in urban pockets experiencing bad networks and also in aircraft.
It can be noted that there is a facility which helps users with feature phones undertake Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions.
HDFC Bank began the pilot in a partnership with Crunchfish, IDFC Bank and M2P Fintech under the RBI's regulatory sandbox programme after getting the nod in September 2022.
The lender will roll-out this service as part of a limited pilot for four months in more than 16 cities and towns across the country. The offline transaction amount would be limited to up to Rs 200 per transaction.
T-Hub, Suzuki Motor Pact to Help Indian Start-ups Access Japan's Ecosystem
T-Hub, an innovation hub and ecosystem enabler partnered with Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC), a leading corporation in the automobile sector to accelerate the growth of the Indian start-up ecosystem.
T-Hub said that with the collaborative partnership, both the firms aim to provide mentoring and support Indian entrepreneurs to access Japan's ecosystem.
Suzuki Innovation Center (SIC), which is an open innovation platform, will provide growth opportunities to T-Hub incubated start-ups. In addition, SIC provides an open platform for new connections and innovation between India and Japan among academia, industries, and start-ups.
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