1. RBI Likely to Tighten Cyber Security Norms
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has called a meeting on Monday with all stakeholders involved in the largest data breach in India’s banking system, said two people with direct knowledge of the development.
The meeting will be chaired by a deputy governor of the central bank and will be attended by executives from banks and payment network service providers.
The central bank will ask all lenders to report cyber security issues on a real-time basis, an RBI official, one of the two people cited above, said on condition of anonymity.
(Source: Livemint)
2. RIL to Seal Ethane Ship Deal on Monday
Reliance Industries BSE -2.21% is set to buy six very large ethane carriers (VLEC) from South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries Co Ltd for $600 million, said executives involved, marking the Mukesh Ambani-led company’s biggest maritime initiative in recent times. The deal is to be signed on Monday in Mongolia’s capital Ulan Bator, said people with knowledge of the matter.
These bespoke carriers – the largest such ships to be built – will carry liquefied ethane, a key feedstock for petrochemicals, from the US to RIL’s refinery in Jamnagar off the coast of Gujarat.
(Source: The Economic Times)
3. Reliance Jio Likely to Continue Free Services Till March: Analysts
Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd may extend its offer of free phone services to customers till March, about three months later than its earlier plan of ending free services on 31 December, parent Reliance Industries Ltd told analysts.
“Mass scale free welcome offer could continue until March 2017 to attract subscriber growth towards the celebrated 100 million mark with RJio’s indicative data pricing at Rs130-140 per giga byte,” Motilal Oswal analysts wrote in a 21 October note.
(Source: Livemint)
4. SEBI Finds Some More Brokers Gained Unfair Access to NSE Systems
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) will start a fresh inspection of the books of some brokers to examine if they got unfair access to National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) co-location servers for algorithmic trading, said two people aware of the development, including an official with the regulator.
The regulator has decided to conduct this special inspection after it found evidence that as many as 12 brokers might have got unfair access; a whistle-blower had earlier named just three brokers.
(Source: Livemint)
5. Singh Brothers in Talks to Sell Religare Finvest
Brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh have approached financial and strategic investors to sell Religare Finvest for as much as Rs 6,000 crore, said people aware of the matter. The non-banking finance company (NBFC) focusses on lending to small and medium-sized enterprises and is the mainstay of the Singhs' publicly traded diversified financial services platform Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL).
Attempts to sell REL last year met with lukewarm interest and the promoters have started selling individual units such as the US-based fund management business and a life insurance joint venture in a change of strategy. Finvest contributes 55% of its parent’s revenue and is a 99.99% subsidiary of REL, which denied any sale plans.
(Source: The Economic Times)
6. Foreign Portfolio Investors Overturn Their Bullish Stance, Scale Back In October
Foreign investors have pulled out nearly Rs 7,500 crore from the Indian market this month so far, after pumping in a staggering amount in September.
Most of the funds have been withdrawn from debt markets during the period under review.
“The recent rate cut by RBI is one of the factors for the outflow from debt markets. With downward pressure on bond yields, debt does not seem attractive. Besides, the new RBI governor’s dovish stance and flexibility to cut rates further, if needed, has helped in the debt outflow,” Siddhant Jain, Chief Operating Officer, SAS Online said.
On 4 October, the Reserve Bank slashed policy rate by 0.25% to 6.25%, a six-year low.
(Source: BloombergQuint)
7. Debt May Play Spoilsport For Telecom Companies In The Second Quarter
The second quarter is expected to be a tepid one for telecom companies, with Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Idea Cellular Ltd. likely to report lower revenue, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), and net profit compared to the last quarter of this financial year, Bloomberg consensus estimates suggest.
Net profit for both companies could also decline on a yearly basis due to the increase in interest cost and operating expenses.
(Source: BloombergQuint)
8. Wipro’s Abidali Neemuchwala Sees His Strategy Paying off By March 2018
Wipro Ltd expects the strategy pursued by chief executive Abidali Neemuchwala to help India’s third-largest software services company end the next fiscal year with industry-matching growth.
Bengaluru-based Wipro does not give an annual forecast (it provides quarterly guidance) and for this reason, it has clarified that this should not be interpreted as a target.
“I’m always careful of putting a timeline and so I believe it is not unreasonable to expect this industry-matching growth number by March 2018,” Neemuchwala said in an interview on Friday.
(Source: Livemint)
9. Procter & Gamble Plans Walmart-Like Pact With Future Group
Procter & Gamble (P&G), the world’s biggest consumer goods company, is exploring a long-term partnership with Kishore Biyani’s Future Group akin to the one it has with Walmart in the US, that could involve joint sales forecasting and planning, exclusive product releases, embedding officials at each others’ headquarters and even supply-chain initiatives.
Top executives of P&G and Future Group have held a series of meetings to take their association beyond retailer-client relationship, two officials aware of the development said.
(Source: The Economic Times)
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