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Context is everything.
Detailed stories on technology startups, business and economic current affairs.
Detailed stories on technology startups, business and economic current affairs.
The talks may have stalled for now, but a merger would not be a bad idea. The two giants could draw on their core competencies to benefit one another.
Editor's note: Two weeks ago, I wrote in this newsletter that 2023 might see a number of mergers and acquisitions in the fintech space. Last week, the country’s two leading payments banks were reportedly looking to combine their operations. Bharti Airtel founder-chairman Sunil Mittal was looking to fold his telecom giant’s financial services arm, Airtel Payments Bank, into Paytm Payments Bank in an all-stock deal, Bloomberg reported. But this week, those talks collapsed, according to Moneycontrol. Also, The Economic Times reported that Japan’s SoftBank and China’s Ant Group had approached Mittal to buy out their stake in Paytm (i.e. One97 Communications Ltd), but that conversation did not make much headway; the two investors are now likely to offload their stakes in the fintech company in the open market. The news of the Airtel-Paytm talks, regardless of their fate, hardly comes as a surprise. Last year, Paytm’s top management had informal chats to explore a stake sale with two large corporate houses, several industry insiders told me. Ever since the digital payments giant listed on the bourses in November 2021, things haven’t quite …
The Rs 250 SIP was launched last year by the former SEBI chairperson with one clear goal: financial inclusion. More than a year later, the much-hyped scheme doesn’t seem to have caught on with MF investors.
Mukesh Ambani wants investors to price Reliance Industries’ IPO-bound telecom arm like a technology business. In reality, Jio’s tech ambitions remain a work in progress.
The central bank’s shift to a 100% collateral requirement threatens to erode leverage, reduce volumes and force a consolidation across prop desks.
