India is one of the fastest growing economies of the world today. We have seen strong government drive towards financial inclusion, which continues to benefit from unprecedented advancement in digitization and technology in recent years. We have come a long way in the last five years. Today we have over 30 crore Jan Dhan accounts and these are set to increase further. The use of Aadhaar-linked services is increasing credit penetration beyond the metro cities. The demonetization initiative has brought about a steep jump in the volume of digital transactions.

However, the digital payments ecosystem needs support for increasing its reach and usage. A specific support area would be Point of Sale (POS) machines, which is perhaps the biggest channel today, to compete against cash transactions.

Currently there are only about 30 lakh POS devices undertaking close to 39 crores of transactions every month. We need to multiply the number of POS devices to achieve the scale that our country needs. However, there has been a gradual decrease in merchant discount rate ( MDRs) in recent times. Some budgetary incentive in this space would go a long way in promoting cashless transactions.

At the same time, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system could emerge as a cheaper and more scalable alternative to POS machines, because of the rising penetration of smartphones and internet connectivity. Budget 2018 can possibly provide the much needed incentives such as cashbacks for both customers and merchants

Insolvent producers including Monnet Ispat & Energy Ltd. are attracting potential bidders as prices of the material soar and creditors embark on the first significant test of a bankruptcy law that's intended to encourage asset sales.

Surging steel prices and the new insolvency law have set the stage for an industry-defining battle between tycoons and producers for more than $26 billion of the sector's most-coveted assets.

Creditors are seeking the approval of the new bankruptcy court to sell assets of as many as 40 firms, including steel producers. That's spurred Lakshmi Mittal, head of the world's largest maker of the alloy, and fellow billionaire Anil Agarwal to vie for control of Essar Steel India Ltd., according to people with knowledge of the matter. Debt-laden Bhushan Steel Ltd. has drawn interest from Japan's and India's biggest producers, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

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The Aadhaar-issuing body UIDAI on Thursday allowed Bharti Airtel to conduct eKYC verification for its telecom subscribers till January 10 with stiff riders but maintained its 'suspension' order on Airtel Payments Bank. Airtel, the India's largest telecom company with 282 million subscribers, got the temporary reprieve with conditions after Rs 138 crore Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) was repaid into 55.63 lakh original accounts of its customers, sources privy to the development told PTI.

The second interim order to this effect has been passed by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) keeping in view convenience of customers and also the looming March 31 deadline given by the Supreme Court for mobile SIM re-verification.

The authority will take a view on the issue after it receives a report from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Telecom Department on January 10.

Read More — http://www.republicworld.com/s/16639/uidai-allows-airtel-to-do-aadhaar-based-ekyc-verification-till-january-10-with-riders

New Delhi: Banks lost a whopping Rs 16,789 crore on account of frauds in the last fiscal, the finance ministry said in the Lok Sabha on Friday.

The Reserve Bank has informed that as per the fraud monitoring reports submitted by the scheduled commercial banks and select financial institutions, "the amount lost on account of frauds during 2016-17 was Rs 16,789 crore", said Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla in a written reply.

He further said an inter-disciplinary standing committee on cbyer security has been constituted by the RBI comprising academia, information security audit, forensic and cybersecurity experts.

The committee reviews, inter alia, threats inherent in the existing or emerging technology, and suggests appropriate policy interventions.

In another reply, he said incidents of bank robbery, theft, dacoity and burglary were reported from different parts of the country during 2016-17.

The amount involved in such incidents totalled about Rs 65.3 crore.

Read More here — http://zeenews.india.com/economy/banks-lost-nearly-rs-17k-cr-to-frauds-last-fiscal-says-finmin-2068885.html

New Delhi: Indian economy is expected to witness sharp recovery in the January-March quarter and its GDP growth likely to be around 7.5 per cent for 2018, says a Nomura report.

According to Japanese financial services major Nomura's Composite Leading Index (CLI), some growth consolidation is likely in the Q4 (October-December), followed by a sharp recovery in Q1 (January-March) 2018 due to ongoing remonetisation and improving global demand.

"We remain bullish on the growth outlook. We expect GDP growth to rise to 6.7 percent year-on-year in Q4 (October- December) from 6.3 percent in Q3 (July-September), followed by a stronger rebound to 7.5 percent in 2018," Nomura said in a research note.

The report further noted that a tightening of monetary policy is likely owing to inflationary pressures and higher oil prices.

Moreover, the minutes of the December 6 monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting suggest that even as most members saw upside risks to inflation, weak growth concerns have held them back.

Read More — http://zeenews.india.com/economy/indias-gdp-to-grow-at-7-5-in-2018-nomura-2069253.html

San Francisco: In a bid to build on its Augmented Reality (AR) ambitions, Facebook has acquired German computer vision startup Fayteq, which is known for its video-editing technology that makes it possible to add or remove objects from existing videos.

Facebook has confirmed the acquisition but did not share any additional information on its plans, Variety reported on Saturday.

The social network major can use the technology for object tracking in live videos as part of its AR efforts and also for applying digital effects to captured videos.

Fayteq had been selling plug-ins for video editors like 'Adobe After Effects' that allowed video-editors to track objects in videos and then add or remove objects with help of the tracking data.

The company on Friday told its customers that its products and services are no longer available for purchase, the report added.

Read More — http://profit.ndtv.com/news/start-ups/article-facebook-acquires-start-up-focused-on-video-editing-1736875

The Lok Sabha on Friday passed the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Bill 2017. The new amendments are part of the ordinance that was brought in earlier last month.

The Bill prohibits certain persons from submitting a resolution plan in case of defaults. These include wilful defaulters, promoters or management of the company having an outstanding non-performing debt for over a year.

The Bill also has provisions to bar the sale of property of a defaulter to such persons during liquidation.

Replying to a debate on the Bill, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley rejected the claim of the Congress party that the Non-Performing Assets(NPA) of banks have increased during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime.

He further accused the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of hiding the real figure of NPA by restructuring the assets.

Jaitley also said that there was an extreme urgency to bring an ordinance to address the issue of insolvency in the country. 

Read More — http://www.republicworld.com/s/17476/lok-sabha-passes-insolvency-and-bankruptcy-code-amendment-bill

The Lok Sabha on Friday passed the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Bill 2017. The new amendments are part of the ordinance that was brought in earlier last month.

The Bill prohibits certain persons from submitting a resolution plan in case of defaults. These include wilful defaulters, promoters or management of the company having an outstanding non-performing debt for over a year.

The Bill also has provisions to bar the sale of property of a defaulter to such persons during liquidation.

Replying to a debate on the Bill, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley rejected the claim of the Congress party that the Non-Performing Assets(NPA) of banks have increased during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime.

He further accused the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of hiding the real figure of NPA by restructuring the assets.

Jaitley also said that there was an extreme urgency to bring an ordinance to address the issue of insolvency in the country. 

Read More — http://www.republicworld.com/s/17476/lok-sabha-passes-insolvency-and-bankruptcy-code-amendment-bill