Page 17 - Banking Finance April 2023

ROUNDUP

crore collected on import of goods)," Mittal to merge Airtel Pay- get has increased five-fold to Rs 1.25
the ministry said in a statement. lakh crore since 2014, Prime Minister
ments with Paytm
The revenues for the month of Febru- Narendra Modi said, as he stressed
Telecom tycoon Sunil Mittal is seeking that his government is focusing on
ary 2023 are 12 per cent higher than
a stake in Paytm by merging his finan- progress of the farm sector and work-
the GST revenues in February 2022,
cial services unit into the fintech giant's ing on mission mode to reduce import
which was Rs 1.33 lakh crore.
payments bank, according to people dependence of food items like edible
Normally February, being a 28-day
with knowledge of the matter. oils.
month, witnesses a relatively lower
Mittal seeks to fold Airtel Payments
collection of revenue, the ministry said. The Prime Minister was addressing a
Bank into Paytm Payments Bank in a post-budget webinar on 'Agriculture
stocks deal and is also seeking to buy and Cooperatives'. It is the second of
Infosys opens Pvt 5G-as-a-
Paytm shares from other holders, the a series of 12 post-budget webinars
service for enterprise cli- people said, asking not to be identified organized by the government to seek
ents worldwide discussing private information. Talks ideas and suggestions for the effective
are in early stages and Airtel and implementation of the initiatives an-
Indian IT services major Infosys an-
Paytm may not reach a deal, the nounced in the Union Budget 2023.
nounced the roll-out of private 5G-as-
people added.
a-Service to drive business value for its Modi also outlined the various steps
enterprise clients globally. Shares of Paytm, formally known as announced in the budget to attract
One97 Communications, have re- young talent in the sector, and expan-
Infosys' wireless 5G expertise and its
bounded about 40% from its record low sion of the cooperative sector across
private network management solution
in November as it shows signs of turn- the country.
ensure high bandwidth, low latency,
ing profitable. The company narrowed
and reliable wireless connectivity for He stressed that various decisions are
its third-quarter loss after a drive to
enterprises, the company said in a
being continuously taken in the budget
add customers boosted revenue, it said
statement.
to promote the agricultural sector so
in an exchange filing this month. "We
"The private 5G-as-a-Service is that the nation becomes 'atmanirbhar'
remain fully focused on our strong or-
customised to the specific needs of cli- and the funds used for imports can
ganic growth journey and are not in-
ents and is implemented in an agile reach farmers.
volved in any such discussions," a rep-
and timebound manner. To reduce the
resentative for Paytm said in an
complexity of deployment, Infosys has Iran currency sinks to
emailed statement.
pre-integrated the 5G stack from mul-
600,000 versus $
tiple product vendors and tested A spokesman for Bharti Enterprises,
Iran's rial currency sank to a record low
against different use case require- controlled by Mittal, declined to com-
against the U.S. dollar despite the
ments," the release said. ment.
country's central bank passing mea-
Infosys' private 5G-as-a-Service incor- Once India's most valuable startup,
sures aimed at cooling demand for for-
porates multi-access Edge Computing Paytm has never traded above its IPO
eign currency from savers worried
(MEC), which reduces network lag by price of Rs 2,150 since its listing in
about inflation and the country's eco-
minimising the time required for data November 2021 and had the worst
nomic prospects.
processing. first-year plunge among large IPOs
But with stalled nuclear talks with glo-
over the past decade. The company's
"This enables a much more reliable
bal powers and mounting sanctions,
network operation for high-bandwidth backers include SoftBank and Ant
Iran's economic future has many Ira-
enterprise use cases such as remote- Group.
nians worried.
guided vehicles, drone-based real-time
analytics, high-definition media and PM: Agriculture budget The rial was trading at 575,000 on the
video analytics, metaverse solutions unofficial free market against the dol-
rose 5 times since 2014 to
and a variety of IoT/industrial IoT lar, compared to 540,000, according to
(Internet of Things) applications," it Rs. 1.25 lakh crore foreign exchange site Bonbast.com.
said. India's agriculture sector's annual bud- The website bazar360.com also gave
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