PhonePe on Monday said it is actively working on adding more payment service provider (PSP) partners to offer its users more options for UPI transactions, even as the Flipkart-owned company continues to engage with crisis-ridden Yes Bank.
PhonePe had seen a service outage for nearly 24 hours, which started immediately after the RBI placed Yes Bank on a moratorium on March 5. Its team worked overnight with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and new UPI partner, ICICI bank, to ensure all its services were up within a day.
"We were actively working on adding other PSP partners, this is also as per the recent NPCI advisory... PhonePe will shortly be launching an additional VPA (virtual payment address) with ICICI Bank," PhonePe Founder and CEO Sameer Nigam said.
He added that once the Yes Bank moratorium is over, "It will mean PhonePe users will have a choice of two handles from two different banks to work with."
Following the moratorium, Yes Bank faced restrictions, including caps on payments that impacted its ability to settle transactions on behalf of partners like PhonePe. Other players like Edenred, which offers services like meal cards, also suffered disruption. Foreign travellers and students who used prepaid forex cards from Yes Bank are also facing issues.
While PhonePe declined to comment on the banks it is in talks with, sources said PhonePe is engaged in dialogue with the State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, and RBL Bank.
Nigam said services on the PhonePe app were fully resumed on March 6 for all users and merchant partners, with ICICI bank as its new banking partner.
"All PhonePe consumer @ybl handles are working as before and all 10 million of our merchant QR codes are working seamlessly as well. The platform processed over Rs 4,000 crore worth of transactions in 24 hours and saw its largest-ever volume of user traffic in a single day (with over 70 million app sessions)," he added.
Bengaluru-headquartered PhonePe is the fastest-growing digital payments platform in India with over 200 million registered users. Its platform saw 570 million transactions in February, with the number of monthly average users at about 75 million.
Bengaluru-based digital payments major PhonePe on Monday said that it has witnessed close to 40 million users transacting through its platform, 48 hours after it faced downtime of its payment services.
Additionally, the platform also said that it registered more than 125 million app sessions, 70 million of which were registered on Saturday alone.
The payment service provider told YourStory that it has processed a total payment value of over Rs 7,000 crore over the weekend between Saturday and Sunday. The number stood at Rs 4,100 crore, 24 hours after the service recovered from the outage.
Since PhonePe was subscribing to a single-bank model with Yes Bank as its only banking partner, as opposed to following a multi-bank system and partnering with multiple banks, the Flipkart-owned fintech platform saw an extended service outage for 24 hours that started immediately after the Reserve Bank of India imposed a moratorium on Yes Bank on March 5 (Thursday) lasting until March 6 (Friday).
It sprung back around late Friday evening while performing a phased roll-out of UPI payments service to its customers to avoid any technical glitches on the platform.
Before that, all merchant payment settlements were restored by Friday noon, and all consumer wallet, credit, and debit card payments were restored by 3 PM the same day.
Further, Flipkart-owned PhonePe leveraged ICICI bank as its new banking partner to offer UPI services on its platform, therefore rebuilding its entire payment stack within 24 hours since the outage.
Commenting on the development, Sameer Nigam, Founder and CEO, PhonePe said,
“Friday was an extraordinarily difficult situation with little precedence. We are grateful to the RBI, NPCI, Yes Bank, and ICICI Bank for working collectively to ensure that millions of our customers and merchants were not inconvenienced a minute longer than necessary. The trust and loyalty of our customer and merchant partners have reposed in us by coming back in larger numbers than ever before is truly humbling. I would also like to take a moment to appreciate the mammoth effort of all the PhonePe employees who worked tirelessly for 36 hours straight with a singular focus on getting all our customer and merchant services live as fast as possible.”
During the moratorium, PhonePe and BharatPe wrote to the Reserve Bank of India along with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which runs the UPI service, seeking its approval to reassign the YBL handle to other banks.
In this case, YBL, which is Yes Bank’s IP, got transferred to ICICI Bank at the tech backend, not affecting PhonePe’s customers, allowing PhonePe users to use their UPI @ybl handles, as usual. This also applied for PhonePe QRs which are pasted at multiple kirana stores nationally, and continue to work as usual after the transition.
At present, PhonePe claims to have more than 200 million registered users and is accepted over 10 million merchant outlets across 300 cities nationally.
Singapore-based private equity platform Frontline Strategy Funds has led a Pre-Series round of investment in the medtech startup Cardiotrack. The round also saw participation from other angel investors.
According to a statement released by the medtech startup, the funds will be used to grow its customer base in India and international markets.
Commenting on the investment, Avin Agarwal, CEO, Cardiotrack said,
“With the involvement of Frontline Strategy Funds and associated investors, we are confident of increasing our patient scan rate by 10X within the current year. With the strong industry network and experience, the role of investors will be of a booster to our growth trajectory.”
Atim Kabra, Managing Director of Frontline Strategy Funds, said,
“Avin and his team have built a strong business that leverages technology to bring portability and speed to reliable patient screening and consultation. We are excited to be a part of Cardiotrack’s journey to bring innovative care delivery models alongside the power of IoMT – the internet of medical things to reduce the cost of healthcare delivery.”
Founded by Avin Agarwal and Ashim Roy, Cardiotrack is aimed at bridging the gap between healthcare providers and chronic patients for affordable access to healthcare and better disease management. It is an end-to-end disease management platform with diagnostic grade medical devices connected to the mobile, cloud, and AI technology.
Headquartered in Singapore, the startup offers an integrated healthcare platform with diagnostic grade certified medical devices including 12 channel portable ECG and remote medical consultation services through its 50+ trained and certified medical professionals.
At present, it is present in more than 16 countries, offering portable medical devices, report interpretation, and medical consultation for home screening, corporate wellness screening, and health camps to support chronic patients anywhere and anytime.
Frontline Strategy Funds provides growth capital and expertise to businesses primarily focussed on India and South East Asia. It serves as an accelerator that fuels growth-oriented companies.
In their biggest ever single-day drop in absolute terms, the BSE Sensexcrashed over 1,941 points and the NSE Nifty tumbled 538 points as no let-up in coronavirus spread and massive crude oil plunge fuelled global recession fears.
Besides, both indices also marked their biggest intra-day fall of all-time. Benchmarks Sensex and Nifty slumped intra-day 2,467 points and 695 points, respectively.
At the closing bell, the 30-share Sensex was down 1,941.67 points or 5.17 percent at 35,634.95 -- the lowest level in about 13 months.
The broader Nifty settled at 10,451.45, dropping 538 points or 4.90 percent.
The carnage in the equity market wiped out investor wealth worth Rs 6,84,277.65 crore, pulling the total m-cap of BSE-listed firms to Rs 1,37,46,946.76 crore on Monday.
On the Sensex chart, ONGC was the top loser, cracking over 16 percent, followed by Reliance Industries, IndusInd Bank, Tata Steel, TCS, SBI, ICICI Bank, and Bajaj Auto.
Heavyweight Reliance Industries shed over 12 percent. Crisis-hit Yes Bank, on the other hand, rallied over 31 percent.
Shares of SBI plunged over 6 percent after it said it will pick up a 49 percent stake in Yes Bank for Rs 2,450 crore.
All sectoral indices ended in the red, succumbing to growing fears about global recession among investors.
BSE energy plunged 9.74 percent, followed by metal, IT, oil and gas, tech, bank, and finance indices. In the broader market, midcap and smallcap indices fell up to 4.73 percent.
Since February 1 -- the day when the FY 2020-21 Budget was presented, the Sensex has lost 5,088.54 points or 12.49 percent, while the Nifty has shed 1,510.65 points or 12.62 percent.
Last year's annual spike in the Sensex was around 14 percent, and the Nifty had surged about 12 percent.
"Domestic markets post biggest ever one-day fall in absolute terms. Selling intensified across domestic markets, following a slide in global peers as fears intensified over the spread of coronavirus outbreak and oil prices plunge...," said Paras Bothra, President of Equity Research, Ashika Stock Broking.
In percentage terms, benchmark indices saw their biggest single-session fall in almost five years, he said.
Rattling global market sentiments, crude oil prices tanked over 30 percent, following Saudi Arabia's decision to cut prices and raise production after the talks with OPEC+ countries fell out, marking the biggest price crash since the first Gulf War.
Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus cases in India rose to 43 on Monday with four people, including a three-year-old child in Kerala who had returned from Italy, testing positive for the disease, Health Ministry officials said on Monday.
Globally, markets remained in sell-off mode amid concerns over the adverse impact of the rapid spread of coronavirus on the world economy.
Bourses in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul and Tokyo sank up to five percent. European benchmarks also plunged up to six percent in their early deals.
On the currency front, the Indian rupee weakened by another 27 paise to 74.14 per US dollar.
"Indian markets are facing a deluge of negative triggers. Global markets are plunging after the break of an alliance between OPEC and Russia resulted in the worst one-day crash in crude prices (more than 30 percent) in nearly 30 years, fuelling panic triggered by the escalation of the coronavirus epidemic," Deepak Jasani, Head Retail Research, HDFC Securities, said.
The Indian stock market will remain shut on Tuesday on account of 'Holi'.
Manoj Sharma, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Cleartrip.com, believes his two-decade long tech experience has not only let him lead teams at tech majors, but has helped him go beyond technology to look at what goes into making a successful business.
Starting at a time when computers were still not very popular, Manoj made headway in his career by embracing new challenges, taking on new roles, and taking ownership of what he built.
Drawing parallels between technology and his own career, Manoj talks about how he has evolved in his career - from teaching at IIT Kharagpur to working as the CTO of many organisations across the world, which has helped him develop leadership skills.
Manoj Sharma
Manoj is currently the CTO of travel tech platform Cleartrip.com. Prior to this, he worked with Verizon in the US, where he was responsible for setting up its network connections and dial up services before 2G or 3G. Later, he worked with popular social networking platform Myspace. He then moved back to India around 2009 and was at the helm of technology at Zynga and Quikr.
A passionate techie, he says: “At one point of time in my journey, I thought that even if no one pays me, I would just do it as I was so interested and passionate about it. Over a period of time, when I had just started building solutions using technology, I created many other things for myself and I continue to do so. I am so much attracted to new technology. As I look back in my career, I see each of these places actually had great impact on my learning in my career trajectory,” explains 50-year-old Manoj.
Here’s an account of his journey, which started from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh and how he moved towards building some of the largest global tech platforms.
Manoj studied at a time when computers were still not very popular. Hailing from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, his favourite subjects while in school were Maths and Physics, and he chose to study Electrical Engineering for his under graduation at MITS Gwalior.
Speaking about how engineering has evolved over the years, he says: “During those days (80s and 90s), PCs were just becoming mainstream. It is very gratifying to see that traditional engineering takes a long time to get inputs or codes to see the results. And if there were any issues, you just go back and do the drawing again,” says Manoj.
“But a software engineer today can instantly write a program and see the results right away or you can do a complex development for several months and ensure that your calculations are right,” he adds.
During his engineering days, Manoj realised that for one to be successful, what matters is logical thinking combined with the person’s capabilities.
But before taking on the role of a techie, while doing his master’s from National Institute of Technology Kurukshetra, Manoj also donned the hat of a teacher, and taught electrical engineering for undergraduate students at IIT Kurukshetra for a year.
Later, after completing his graduation, he did a course in programming in 1999 and went to the US.
Working in the US
Manoj initially started working as a technology consultant for the California Department of Corrections (CDC), which used to run all the prison facilities in California.
He then moved to MatchMaker, which was into developing software application to help the government raise funds with a limited budget. The only software developer working there, Manoj’s challenge was to make the product market-ready, which was left mid-way by the previous developer.
Manoj recalls: “This was a charter for me. I was the only guy and I had to make it work. However, we could deliver the product in two-three months, and during the process, I learnt to take ownership. If you are given something in technology, then you are supposed to own it. I got that feeling in my early days.”
In 2002, Manoj moved to Dallas and joined Verizon, one of the largest telecom companies then. Verizon was Manoj’s first time in a large multinational company with about 1,000 employees across multiple locations in the US as well as in India working on a single project.
While Verizon threw many challenges at him such as setting up the network connections and dial up services before 2G or 3G, his designs were used for the software development. He was also instrumental in helping unify all their ordering application into a single system to have a holistic view of the customer and the customer support.
Manoj then worked as a mobile application developer at Myspace, one of the largest social networks then. He developed and deployed Myspace social network experience with features like audio, video, chat board, pictures, etc., on multiple mobile platforms, native apps, on iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and others, according to its hardware configurations.
“I built the entire mobile engineering experience on my own. This was in 2006 when smartphone platforms did not exist. It was a very high learning experience at that time to build the mobile engineering and making it available on several thousand devices globally,” Manoj recalls.
It was also a challenge to provide social networking content for different devices with different screen sizes, different hardware configurations, keyboards, etc. This experience made him learn how large-scale, complex, and high performing sites worked.
After working with Myspace for around three years in the US, Manoj got the opportunity to move back to India around 2009 when the company set up its engineering operations in Bengaluru.
Back to the roots
By the end of 2010, Manoj joined online gaming platform Zynga as its director of engineering, and managed multiple game studios and also developed a small game.
He then joined ecommerce platform ValyooTechnologies as its CTO and worked there till 2014. He says: “I was responsible for building technology, and the platform saw 3x growth in traffic.”
Manoj’s time at Quikr was quite remarkable in terms of how he helped change the architecture of the platform.
“When I joined Quikr in 2014, the first thing I sorted out was the technology architecture. I also solved some of the challenges around infrastructure,” he says.
However, the main challenge at Quikr was to create an evolving platform. Quikr wanted to have all the five categories on one platform - from jobs and services to home cleaning and beauty services.
“These were all very different. One way to do this was to create five different technology platforms. But the challenge was to create a single platform that can look and behave differently in a single place,” says Manoj.
Under his leadership, Quikr also started growing aggressively and launched five new verticals in five months, opened multiple offices in India, and expanded to markets outside India as well.
“In my career, I have been in places where innovation was happening. I have always built my carrier - sometimes by choice and sometimes by accident. And that is really what I gravitate towards today. I also know that if used correctly, technology can actually solve real problems. So, at one point, I had the satisfaction that we were able to achieve what Quikr as an organisation needed,” Manoj explains.
This was also the time when he had started talking to Cleartrip.
He says, “I was using Cleartrip myself, and when I started talking to them, I realised that it is one place which is really committed to making a difference to consumers by understanding their challenges and then solving it using the right tech. It was natural that this transition happened.”
When he joined Cleartrip around 2017, the company was looking to grow. For Manoj, all the plans for development happened in a very collaborative manner with all the departments, and there was clear visibility on what other functionalities or teams were up to.
“So, my focus has been not to look at technology alone, but to see how I can build solutions to support other departments such as finance, customer support, and others,” he says.
Future of tech
Over the years, there has been a lot of innovation in technology, especially when it comes to smartphone and payments.
However, Manoj claims the coming decade will be revolutionary for technology.
“We will see technologies so much in our lives that we fail to see it. The next decade will be a combination of machine learning, voice, and automation, and our personal or social life will be much more influenced by technology.”
Manoj says, a new developer should be able to understand the value of the variety of solutions out there, and integrate those quickly to create a solution in order survive in the technological world.
Following some trouble from activist fund Elliott Management Corp, Twitter Co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey finally has some relief as he retains his chief executive position.
Twitter and Elliott Management has entered a truce – with some terms and conditions. The trouble sparked because Dorsey is the CEO of TwitterInc. and SquareInc., which are both publiclytradedcompanies.
ElliottManagementCorporation, NewYork-basedhedgefundcompany and also one of the largest activist funds in the world, has a significant amount of stake in Twitter. After having picked up an undisclosedstake in the social media giant over the last few weeks, it has been attempting to remove JackDorsey from his role.
Having nominated four directors on to the board of Twitter, Elliott Management was planning to push for major changes at the social media company, media reports suggest.
After the truce, Twitter stated that it is soon going to raise $1 billion in funding from MenloPark-basedSilverLakePartners. Along with some on-handcash, Twitter also intends to facilitate a sharerepurchaseprogramme for $2 billion, which will be carried out over time, which was part of the terms discussed.
Right ahead of the US presidential elections in 2008, Dorsey faced several challenges at Twitter like crashes in the company servers almost every hour that left his team in complete disarray. With the following lack of confidence in the CEO's leadership and unhappy board of advisors, he was fired from Twitter, which he had co-founded in 2006.
In July2015, he returned to the company as its CEO. After his return, Twitter suffered a large drop in its shares – sixpercent – while Facebook had a growth rate of above 121percent.
Owing to numerous other hiccups in the organisation, Dorsey has been facing the gun from the company board for a while now, with the latter trying to ousthim.
Automating infrastructure operations of applications and reducing errors and resolution time for businesses excited husband-wife duo Anand Purusothaman and Karunya Sampath so much that they set up their startup, AppViewX, in 2009, to help companies with their workflows.
AppViewX is a hybrid cloud, low-code application platform that enables the automation and orchestration of network infrastructure.
Anand explains,
“A bank or financial institution has thousands of applications running on their data centres and these applications are going through constant changes and upgrades to offer services to customers. An error in one application can have a significant impact on the customer experience and business and adds stress on network and security operations of the bank.”
Anand Purusothaman
The absence of automation warrants huge investments in IT infrastructure and manpower to deliver the superior experience needed in the current digital space. It was to solve for this that AppViewX came into existence.
Leveraging a vast library of pre-built tasks and workflows, the AppViewX platform enables operations teams of companies to translate business requirements into automation workflows that improve agility, enforce compliance, eliminate errors, and reduce cost.
Currently, the majority of the startup’s customer base are in the US and Europe.
Anand had an entrepreneurial bent of mind right from his days at PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore. After his master’s in the US, he spent around 10 years working for different tech startups in the New York area.
Around this time, he started experimenting with various product concepts and thus started his entrepreneurial journey with Payoda, a tech firm incorporated in 2004. Headquartered at Texas, Payoda offers software solutions, products, and services to clients across the world.
Karuna, who is the Co-founder of both Payoda and AppViewX holds a master’s degree in Computer Engineering from PSG College of Technology. She has over a decade of experience in business operations and management.
On deployment, the AppViewX platform discovers the network and security infrastructure and brings it to manage state.
“It then low-codes the workflow configuration, and the product can be then made to automate and orchestrate a majority of the change processes. This helps business units to be agile and undergo digital transformation. AppViewX removes the last mile in application delivery by simplifying the complex nature of security and network management,” Anand explains.
The product helps network and security operations and engineering teams as well as application teams of companies. AppViewX charges based on the solutions delivered on the platforms as well as the size of the network and security infrastructure that is being managed. It is an annual subscription service.
AppViewX serves customers with a large set of applications that are hosted on-premise or on a multi-cloud setup. These are typically Fortune 5000 companies across BFSI, healthcare, retail, oil and gas, manufacturing, and deep technology.
Anand says that 20 percent of its clientele are Fortune 100 companies, including six of the top 10 global banks, five of the top 10 US managed healthcare companies, and top five global media companies.
According to Markets and Market, the global network automation market size has grown from $2.3 billion in 2017 to $16.9 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 48 percentage.
Although there are numerous players in the automation space such as IBM with its Ansible tool, and Anuta Networks, what makes AppViewX unique, Anand says, is the platform capabilities as well as the solution set.
“The platform has capabilities such as low-code drag-and-drop automation, closed-loop automated troubleshooting, intuitive visual tools, and an application-centric view and management of network infrastructure. AppViewX has the unique advantage of being the pioneer in this space with some of the solutions such as orchestration of application delivery services and certificate lifecycle automation,” says Anand.
Across its Coimbatore, Bengaluru, and overseas offices in New York and London, AppViewX has a total headcount of 300 employees, with a majority of the engineering and product folks based out of the Coimbatore location.
“We are a fast-growth company averaging around 70 percent year-on-year growth with a strong pipeline for three years to maintain an even accelerated growth,” says Anand, who refused to disclose revenue figures.
After 10 years of bootstrapping, in mid-2019, a self-sufficient AppViewX raised a funding of $30 million from Brighton Park Capital (BPC) to fund the venture’s growth and expansion plans.
“We realised that the market was opening up in an explosive manner, and we had to rapidly deploy a strong sales force globally to capture the opportunity. These days the competition is aggressive and we need to move fast. Given the market conditions and the growing demand, we decided to raise capital to fuel our hiring world over in an accelerated fashion,” says Anand, of the decision to raise funding.
The Co-founder hopes that the startup sustains the same growth rate for the next five years.
It is no surprise that Indians love cricket. But, it turns out they love online cricket and making money out of it even more. Over the past couple of years, fantasy cricket has become one of the most profitable businesses and a boon for the Indian startup community.
When second-time entrepreneur Akhil Suhag founded FanFight in 2016, little did he know how big it would become. The Bengaluru-based startup caters to fans of popular sports and aims to offer a real-life gaming experience to users. One can choose teams like professional selectors, watch their performance, and win cash awards.
As fantasy gaming is a dynamic business, users are always moving onto the next platform if their luck doesn’t work on one. So, even though the market has several players already, Akhil believes there is place for one more.
Akhil Suhag (left) talks to the winner of a FanFight competition
“When we started, no one knew how big fantasy gaming would be but cricket was huge in the country. Right now, it’s a $500 million revenue market and that is just fantasy cricket,” he says.
With an army background, Akhil has grown up in frontier towns and believes that this has helped him stay grounded and patient. He has previously worked with Infosys, Dell, and MBA Guru, and was the founder of Contreezy.com.
From beta to scaling the product
Catering to fans of cricket, football, and now kabaddi, FanFight launched its beta version in 2016 while Akhil was still pursuing his MBA at the Indian School of Business. The startup immediately went looking for funding and the founder tells us that he approached almost 150 people – only five responded. But the Founder-CEO says that he needed just one to click.
Eventually, FanFight was funded by ACE2THREE, one of India’s biggest rummy companies that had about 10 years of experience in online gaming at the time. The company was looking to diversify its offering and decided to invest Rs 1.3 crore in Akhil’s idea in 2017.
This money gave FanFight an opportunity to build its team and get the right people to make the product.
The startup then launched its full-fledged product in September 2017. “Since then, we have been growing four times every year. Now, we are looking at crossing the 10-million user base after this year’s IPL,’’ says the Founder.
Fantasy cricket is a lucrative business and helped FanFight gain the trust of over six million users due to its consistent service.
However, the startup recently introduced fantasy kabaddi onto its platform as the sport has gained prominence in the last three to four years. Akhil believes its fantasy version is bound to make an impact on the market.
“Kabaddi is exciting; it’s played for only 40 minutes and features some of the finest players in the world. Fantasy kabaddi will play an integral part on FanFight and it'll slowly but steadily pave way for other sports as well,” he adds.
FanFight distinguishes itself from other platforms by not only offering daily cash prizes, but also fast cash withdrawals and a chance to compete with one's friends. The startup claims to have an advanced tech stack, which ensures the shortest lag between the live game and updates on a player’s potential wins.
In 2017, Ace2Three became a seed investor in the startup. Just before the 2018 IPL, FanFight raised around $1 million from Ace2Three and Canada-based equity firm Clair West, which it used to scale up its numbers. As a result, the startup went from having a mere 10,000 users to one million during 2018 IPL.
‘’From IPL 2018 to 2019, we went from one million users to four million users and we raised our next round just before the IPL 2019, which was of $5 million. The existing investors continued to invest as they were confident about the brand,” says Akhil.
Initially, finding an investor was tough for Akhil, but the startup claims to be growing six times every year since it launched its full-fledged product. The founder says that this success is because of their data-related research and how the team is always looking to better the platform for players.
India's fantasy gaming market is full of players – big and small – and FanFight competes with the likes of Dream11,11wickets, and Howzat. But, Akhil is not so worried about competition and says that FanFight has had a pretty impressive growth due to its USP, which is the ease of access and an effortless UI.
‘’We’ll invest plenty on research to make the product more user-friendly. The market will only grow and after this year’s IPL, we are expecting better growth. Cricket in India has grown multi-fold in the last four to five years. The reach has increased with the explosive growth of viewing on mobiles and the reduction of the cost of data in the country,” he says.
During the IPL, FanFight uses HotStar's APIs for effective targeting as the streaming giant has a clear demarcation of its subscribers' profiles. This has helped the startup onboard more users onto its platform.
"We have tied up with cricket.com. You can just copy a code and pick a team on FanFight. Fantasy users are glued to their devices when a game is about to resume. Our safe edit option has given everybody an equal opportunity to win money. You can now choose a playing eleven until the very first delivery in cricket, until the referee blows the whistle in football, and until the kabaddi brawl begins,’’ says Akhil.
As IPL matches will be aired across in several languages like Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Bengali, this puts FanFight in a unique position to develop content in all the languages to target the audiences across India. In fact, it is now building a language strategy.
Fantasy cricket may have had made a mark in the early 2000s but it was only a minuscule idea at the time. Since then, the number of players has increased exponentially due to technology and easier access to sports.
A report published by KPMG and the Indian Federation of Sports Gaming (IFSG) estimates that the user base of fantasy gaming platforms crossed 70 million Indians in 2018. Participants in the nascent sport spent around $1.73 billion (Rs 11,880 crore) last year.
FanFight claims that in 2019, its revenue increased by 295.9 percent, deposits by 323.6 percent, and winnings by over 227 percent.
The huge numbers are a clear indication of how the portal has shot skywards. Sources say the startup is well on its way to cross Rs 50 crore in revenue this year.
The ongoing coronavirus outbreak has not only contributed to the recent stockmarketcrash, but has also slowed down the aviation and tourismindustries across the world. And now, according to a report published on phone recommendation platform PhoneCurry, the smartphonemarket in India is not safe either.
PhoneCurry recently launched its real-time market intelligence tool Lumos, which ran a series of data crunching algorithms and published a report on the same. The report signifies early 2020trends for smartphonesales in India, and how coronavirus has impacted them. It holds key early insights from the Indiansmartphonemarket in 2020, tracking the first two months of the year, January and February.
According to Lumos, 2020 began with a definite slowdown, as the overall volume of online sales in January and February were 30percent lower than the numbers reported in November and December of 2019.
Part of it is explained by a natural decline in shopping propensity after the festive season, as well as due to fewer important new launches in Jan-Feb2020, as compared to Jan-Feb2019. There were 24newlaunches in Jan-Feb2019 compared to 17 launches in Jan-Feb2020 for the top10onlinesellingbrands.
The report also suggests that there is a generalconsumptionslowdown in India, which is reflecting on the sales of smartphones.
SahilBajaj, CEO and Founder,PhoneCurry, says,
"Mind you, all of this is without any major supply-side effect of the Coronavirus till date. We are in for tougher times."
According to the report, the impact of the coronavirus outbreak will now begin to show up, with a 20 percent decline in production expected this quarter (YoY). A similar drop is also expected in the next quarter (YoY).
The coronavirus impact on Chinese factories
The report states that the restart has been full of stutters and the current average running capacity of factories making mobile phone supplychaincomponents is at around 25percent. About 60percent of the workforce in these factories, who went back to their hometowns for the ChineseNewYear, were unable to return because of the various travel and mobility restrictions.
Limited availability of upstream and downstreamlogistics, also impacted by the unavailability of the workforce, is adding on to the troubles. Another major roadblock was the shortage of face masks, which are now a ‘must-have’ as per many local government regulations.
Sahil explained,
"In essence, this is a ‘the chain is as weak as its weakest point’ phenomena. A lot of things will have to fall in place for a sense of normalcy to return."
Overall, the Lumos report estimates that China’s mobile phone components factories would limp back up close to normalcy at 80 percent of optimal utilisation only by the end of April. This is pushed largely by the efforts of the Chinese central government to now focus on reopening the factories.
While the World Health Organisation (WHO) has been reluctant to term the coronavirus outbreak a ‘pandemic’, many scientists believe it to be so.
A pandemic would mean that governments around the world would have to shift strategy from placing quarantines, travel restrictions and contact tracing, to measures like cancelling mass events in order to contain the spread of infection and buy more time to develop vaccines.
In terms of industrial output, a ‘pandemic’ would likely be ‘beneficial’, since it would mean the end of quarantines, and the world slowly returning to and accepting ‘a new normal’, the report said.
The focus would shift to trying to slow down the disease in manufacturing setups and offices. This would mean social distancing measures for workers, instead of ‘absolute containment’.
Impact on India’s smartphones
Virtually, all of the final smartphone units sold in India (over 95 percent) are now assembled at home. The country still sources about 75-80 percent of mobile phone components from China, and that is where India’s supply chain is expected to take a hit.
Nearly 85-90 percent of the mobile phone display component and 70-80 percent of the semi-knocked down (SKD) kits are imported from China. So far, there has not been much impact as brands usually stock up ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday season, and they have been relying on their stocks so far.
Hence, it is expected that India will see a lagging cycle of stock hits, with the impact likely to start from the beginning of March. The hit in the production, as the report estimates, is already reflecting in the industry, with Xiaomi raising prices of RedmiNote8 by Rs 500. Many other phones might see price increments as companies try to regulate demand.
Where there may be a price increase, Sahil says it is expected to be in the range of 5-10 percent, and the consumers might also see a lot of phones going ‘out of stock’ on online retail stores.
Meanwhile, the report also states that India continues to be a 'value smartphone market' with 60percent of online sales being under Rs10,000. The top five online selling brands in January and February 2020 were Xiaomi, Realme, Samsung, Vivo, and Infinix, and the top 10 online selling phones include four Xiaomi phones, three Realme phones, two Samsung phones and an Infinix phone.
Interestingly, Xiaomi and Realme took home close to 60 percent of all sales, leaving 40 percent of the online market pie to be shared among all other brands. As for the online search trends, Samsung jumped to the number one spot, followed by Xiaomi and Realme.
Entrepreneur-turned-investor Vinod Khosla is not only known for being a successful businessman and venture capitalist, but also for his updated views on technology and investment.
Always dared to dream and achieve big, the venture capitalist has been at the core of many startup journeys. He co-founded Sun Microsystems – a computer components, software and IT company in 1982.
At present, Vinod manages Khosla Ventures, which he founded in 2004. The firm invests in startups from sectors like the internet, computing, mobile, silicon technology, biotechnology, healthcare, and clean technology.
One of the earliest tech-billionaire entrepreneurs, he was named among the 400 richest people in the world by Forbes in 2014. The Indian-American businessman is also on the board of trustees of the Blum Centre for Developing Economics, which aims to find solutions to address extreme poverty and disease in developing countries.
Here are some of the inspirational quotes by Vinod Khosla that entrepreneurs can take away from his illustrious career:
“Everybody else is afraid to fail. I don't really care because when I fail, I try something new.”
“The only way you multiply resources is with technology. To really affect poverty, energy, health, education, or anything else - there is no other way.”
“I've probably failed more often than anybody else in Silicon Valley. Those don't matter. I don't remember thefailures. You remember the big successes.”
“What an entrepreneur does is to build for the long run. If the market is great, you get all of the resources you can. You build it. But a good entrepreneur is always prepared to throttle back, put on the brakes, and if the world changes, adapt to the world.”
“Seeking an acquisition from the start is more than just bad advice for an entrepreneur. For the entrepreneur, it leads to short term tactical decisions rather than company-building decisions and in my view often reduces the probability of success.”
“If everyone played it safe, we wouldn't get anywhere.”
“Knowing whose advice to take and on what topic is the single-most important decision an entrepreneur can make.”
“Entrepreneurs can benefit a lot from the right help and advice, and you can avoid costly mistakes. You can get incredible leverage in hiring people who wouldn't even talk to you if you have the right help. An investor isn't about money - it's about the help and advice you can get.”
“Eighty percent of what doctors do, tech can do at a fraction of the cost - especially your rural doctor in India.”
“I don't know a startup that hasn't been through tough times.”
“Your willingness to fail is what will let you succeed.”
“The combination of brilliant ideas and entrepreneurial spirit should lead us to a safer and more secure future.”
“It’s really important not to have everybody come from the same background or have the same point of view. It’s important that everybody respects everybody in the team, but that they are very different. I think it’s really important to have disagreement, diversity and the ability to debate.”
On the second day of YourStory’s tech, product, and design conference, Future of Work 2020, three leaders from the Indian startup ecosystem -- Chetty Arun, Sidharth, and Dharmesh BA came together to discuss ‘Designing for fintech.’
The trio discussed the regulatory framework and trends in the fintech space, and the limitations of traditional banks.
Five or six years ago, regulators were generally seen as people who would basically put an end to innovation. But today, a lot of these regulators are actually co-producing products with a lot of fintech players.
“Lot of people consider the regulators to be blockers or the stopping stones for us (fintech companies) to move forward. While regulators are putting in regulations, I also see it as an opportunity. Regulators are opening a lot of space for us to innovate further,” said Chetty Arun, Design Manager at Razorpay. Chetty is a self-taught product designer, and was one of the early hires at Razorpay.
Chetty believes that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and account aggregators are all creating opportunities in the fintech space. However, sudden regulations have cons too. “When eKYC was introduced for wallets, around 30 percent of the wallets went down in just a month. There are two sides to a coin,” he said.
Dharmesh, Head of D91 Labs and Design Lead at SETU, is equally excited about account aggregators. He believes that a user’s ability to understand and access financial products will be a challenge. However, basic problems like filling bank forms, and getting access to bank statements will be solved by account aggregators. D91 Labs is an open-source initiative by SETU that publishes open-source research, insights, frameworks, and component libraries for fintech companies, to develop digital offerings for India.
Sidharth, Product and Design Head at tourism and leisure startup Headout, on the other hand, believes that regulations like the blanket ban on crypto is not really conducive in a technology development environment. He said that India as a nation is going to miss out on important advancements, as a result of the crypto ban.
“With UPI and NPCI, we are moving towards a more conversational format. I hope people working in the (fintech) industry think well before deciding whether to allow or ban something,” said Sidharth, who has 10-plus years of experience of leading design at product companies.
Trends beyond the metros
Years ago, communication was different from what it is today. Sending a picture across continents was not the trend, but with the intervention of technology and the internet, it is now a matter of a few seconds. Chetty believes a similar change will happen in the fintech space as well.
“Payment is going to be as liquid and common as communication. India is in a space where everyone is consuming the internet. The Jio effect is real -- the internet is so cheap nowadays, although the implication is that people are coming online for consuming content. People who are consuming the internet for only communication and entertainment purposes today, are going to transact online,” said Chetty. An alumnus of IIT-Roorkee, Chetty has experience of over nine years. He was previously the Head Designer at SDSLabs.
Sidharth has a similar idea. He said that a decade ago, membership sites and paid blogs were a trend in ‘foreign countries.’ With the introduction of credit cards, trends have changed and now people from even the Tier-II and Tier-III cities are paying for content and services.
Having said that, Sidharth believes that language will be the key to understanding and powering fintech.
“India is not a country where we can keep opening up new bank branches. We have to make it in whichever device is in hand and is capable of doing it. And hopefully, we will cross the language barrier with voice,” said Sidharth, who has also worked as a Product Manager at fintech startup Instamojo.
It was under his leadership that Instamojo scaled its design and core product from 100 to more than six lakh customers. Sidharth is also a Speaker at TED conferences and has previously co-founded UX and Design Agency Mutiny Labs.
Financial inclusion
Speaking about financial inclusion, Dharmesh said that financial inclusion as a journey, starts with a bank account, then payments, followed by investments, and lending, and finally insurance.
“Today, 80 percent of Indian adults have bank accounts, primarily because of the push from the government. However, we still lack the rest of the parameters. Payment is evolving and thus, we have UPI and Google Pay as alternative models. But in case of lending, investments, and insurance, we are still lower as compared to the rest of the emerging nations.
"There is a huge opportunity in the market to intervene and create new products,” he says.
According to Dharmesh, traditional banks have not been able to reach out to lending and investment because financial products were not necessarily designed for these two areas. For example, the minimum amount of loan one could take was probably Rs 1 lakh, and that is almost a year’s income for some.
“Probably the loan they require is Rs 500, and they just require it for a day. This was mostly not a feasible business model for traditional banks,” says Dharmesh, who is building fintech platforms for ‘Bharat.’
Dharmesh was earlier the Lead Product Designer for ClearTax India, and Product Manager at Rupeek. He has done his BTech from Vellore Institute of Technology, before doing his Masters in Design in New Media Design from National Institute of Design.
Dharmesh feels that when it comes to design, there have to be other channels besides mobile apps, like a support system or chatbot like WhatsApp. These features should go hand-in-hand.
Sidharth has a similar opinion. He says, in India’s hinterland, people need small amounts of loan and for a shorter period of time.
“The use case of loans in the FMCG sector is for a day or two, to fulfil the order and have the cash flowing again. The needs of MSMEs are not something that traditional banks can cater to, and banks are clearly not adopting technology,” he says.
Chetty believes that India as a country, has an intent to pay, but affordability plays a huge role and that there is a need for new-age payment methods. The trio further discussed how traditional banks are now starting to co-produce and co-create with fintech players. Chetty said that after having proved its (fintech players) credibility, working with traditional banks has got a lot easier.
Sidharth is of the opinion that going ahead, neo-banks have to either become sales distribution channels for traditional banks or become a bank themselves.
“Do not expect speed, but expect deep innovation in the fintech space,” Dharmesh ends.
Kerala-based Accubits aims to send a low-Earth orbit satellite to space to establish a blockchain ledger to enable a secure transactional network for financial and IoT systems.
At YourStory’s Future of Work, the GM of Startup Business, Digital & Alternate Channels at Vodafone explains how the telco is helping startups and SMEs find their target audience.
Four-time cancer survivor Parimal Gandhi has had to deal with an eye disorder, cardiac bypass, diabetes, and hypertension, and still thinks his is a life well-lived.
Y Combinator sees 5X jump in Indian startup applications for its summer batch 2020. Partner Dalton Caldwell speaks about his expectations from the country’s ecosystem.
Global focus on climate change and its impact have never been stronger. Startups are also working to find innovative and sustainable solutions, but are investors following suit?
With a penchant for risk and a sound business idea, an entrepreneur can create success from anywhere. Here’s some who started small and built multi-crore businesses.
Sales-as-a-service startup Avenue Growth is killing two birds with one stone – helping young brands get their business ahead while generating employment for thousands.
No conversation around technology today is complete without a reference to artificial intelligence(AI). While the term AI has been around for decades, in recent times, its application across industries, from mining to healthcare, education and finance, among others, is changing the way we live, both at work and at home.
The increasing ubiquity of AI can be attributed to greater processing power and the declining cost of achieving these tasks at increased speeds. The adoption of AI has been so rapid that technology leaders across industries can no longer ignore it for long-term and sustained financial growth.
At the third edition of YourStory’s Future of Work event in Bengaluru on Saturday, AI was the focus of a panel discussion, which drew attention to ‘How AI is disrupting business models and value chains and unleashing transformative and innovative growth opportunities’.
The session was moderated by Sameer Dhanrajani, CEO and Co-founder, AIQRATE, and the panelists were Rajan Sethuraman, CEO, LatentView Analytics; Soumendra Mohanty, EVP Analytics and COO, Tredence; Prithvijit Roy, CEO and Co-founder, BRIDGEi2i; and Iqbal Kaur, Co-Founder, Zylotech. The discussion yielded many insights on the top trends around the technology.
1. Experiments at scale are the need of the hour
It is clear that we are at a stage where we need to experiment at scale.
“In India, AI is still at the evangelising stage. There’s a lot of interest and most organisations realise that it is not a case where their first forays into AI are going to give phenomenal returns,” Rajan said.
He added that companies needed to run a lot of experiments. “From a team perspective, I would say how do you figure out how to run multiple prototypes, channels, and experiments.”
CXOs today are concerned with the outcome that they can deliver. “Today, businesses have realised that they are all into technology, regardless of the vertical they operate in,” Iqbal said.
All companies, whether startups or established businesses, are realising that they will no longer remain relevant or in the running without AI.
Prithvijit added, “As consumers, we are primarily operating from our mobile devices and have come to expect the same level of experience, whether it is ordering food, booking a cab, or any other service. So, a CXO has no other option but to rethink the way the business operates if s/he wants to remain in business. That’s where data, automation, and AI will be the game-changers.”
3. Disruption is the new normal
The business landscape today is evolving constantly.
“Strategic business models are changing and the things we learned in business school like Porter’s 5 Forces model are no longer relevant today. But is AI a Trojan horse in Transformation at Scale?” Sameer asked.
Giving the example of Niramai. Ai, Rajan said the healthtech startup was using thermal sensors instead of X-rays to create images that would then be analysed using AI to make more accurate predictions and diagnoses of breast cancer.
“This allows for faster and more accurate treatment. Disruption is possible in several places, and companies and industries are still understanding use cases where AI can be used.”
Companies further along their digital tranformation journey are better poised to leverage AI.
“If a company’s core processes are not digitised, then there is not enough data, and AI is a monster that needs to be fed a lot of data. One of the reasons many of our clients did not do well in their AI journey was that a lot of their processes were not digitised. So, we took a step back in the value chain and created that data,” Iqbal said.
Soumendra said it was important for companies to have absolute clarity on the problems they were trying to solve.
“Secondly, we often treat AI as a toy, an experiment, or an innovation. We forget who the main consumer of whatever we are creating is and whom we are disrupting for. If we keep the consumer in mind and have clarity on the problems we are trying to solve, that’s where the magic happens.”
5. Humans and AI will solve problems together
Prithvijit said we were already on the journey where this collaboration is happening.
“AI is like a genie that is already out of the bottle, and we can’t put it back in. I think there will be certain repetitive jobs that will be done by AI. But that’s not the bigger thing. That will be an augmentation of human abilities, where AI will do things that the human brain cannot do,” he said.
When leveraged correctly, AI will bring about positive advances that will disrupt value chains across the economy. However, companies will have to guard against misinformation and manipulated and false data that can corrupt output, and AI developers need to be suitably prepared.
(Edited by Teja Lele Desai)
A big shout out to our Future of Work 2020 Sponsors: Alibaba Cloud, Larksuite, Vodafone Idea Limited, GoJek, Adobe, Udaan, Pocket Aces, Junglee Games, ShareChat, Open, VestaSpace Technology, Maharashtra State Innovation Society, Kristal.AI and GetToWork; and our Knowledge Partner: Ascend Harvard Business Review.
The deadly outbreak of the coronavirus (officially known as COVID-19) that originated in Wuhan, China, has now turned into a global nightmare. As of March 9, 2020, the number of cases reported worldwide crossed 110,000, with the disease killing over 3,800 people so far.
Startups across the globe have joined the fight to halt the spread of the epidemic. US-based SaaS provider LogMeIn is offering free access to its collaboration and remote access software to governments, municipalities, educational institutions, healthcare organisations, and non-profits.
Zoom Communications, which provides remote conferencing services, has recently removed the 40-minute limit on meetings of more than two people for free users in China. Doctors from more than 1,000 public hospitals in China use its video conferencing software to conduct online consultations, remotely diagnose patients and provide treatment.
While global companies are stepping up to fight against the novel coronavirus, here are four Indian startups which are leading the charge at home:
Haptik
With the spread of panic, social media platforms are rife with misinformation and fake news about the outbreak. Recently, UNICEF called out Malayalam TV actress Sadhika Venugopal for spreading fake information.
To curb this, Mumbai-based startup Haptik, which builds Intelligent Virtual Assistant solutions, launched a WhatsApp hotline last month to provide correct information regarding the novel coronavirus.
The hotline acts as a chatbot, which uses machine learning to process the query and respond accordingly. It provides information on five key areas: what is coronavirus, its symptoms, how to protect yourself, myth busters, and travel advisory.
“One of the things we constantly think about is how do we use AI for good, which is for the betterment of the society at large,” Aakrit Vaish, Co-founder and CEO, Haptik, tells YourStory.
The information is sourced from World Health Organisation (WHO). To obtain information and ask queries, individuals can send a WhatsApp text on 93213-98773.
Nanoclean Global Private Limited
The widespread panic has put the health facilities in India and around the world under stress. This has led to a shortage of protective gear, including face masks. To address the shortage, Delhi-based health startupNanoclean Global Private Limited has increased the production of Naso mask – an N95/FFP2 grade face mask.
Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, the startup has sold over 5 lakh packs of Naso masks. The startup is retailing the product at Rs 149, and sells the product at a lower cost for bulk orders.
It has also increased the production of its cost-effective product ‘Nasofilter’ to meet the increasing demand.
Prateek Sharma, Co-Founder and CEO of Nanoclean, says that in the last 30 days, the startup has generated a revenue of over Rs 5 crore and is doing 10 times its usual business. “Clearly, the reason is a shortage of face masks supply in the Indian, as well as international market,” he adds.
Digit Insurance
Bengaluru-based insurtech startup Digit Insurance has rolled out a fixed-benefit health insurance policy designed specifically to cover COVID-19.
The ‘Need-Based Insurance’ cover is available to anyone up to the age of 75. A person who tests positive can claim 100 percent of the insurance, while those quarantined can claim 50 percent of the sum insured.
However, people with pre-existing respiratory conditions or those already exhibiting symptoms of the disease are not covered under the policy. The policy doesn’t cover people who have travelled to its list of countries affected by the outbreak, or contracted the infection from family members who visited the countries in its list.
Bengaluru-based health startup mFine, which enables virtual medical consultation via artificial intelligence (AI), is providing remote doctor consultation to help people answer their queries regarding coronavirus.
It also released a video where doctors bust some common myths regarding the coronavirus outbreak.
Founded in 2017, mFine offers professional diagnostics and health check-up services that can be availed from the comfort of home, office or anywhere else.
PayPal’s recent meetup on ‘Scale Strategies for Startups’ shared valuable insights from business experts and founders.
PayPal and YourStory recently hosted a meetup for startups at WeWork in Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC), Mumbai. Two keynotes, and a wide-ranging panel discussion, shed light on what it will take startups to scale their business in India and across international markets.
The speaker lineup included Sreevathsa Prabhakar, Founder, Servify; Shashank Randev, Founder VC, 100X.VC; Sachin Agrawal, Co-founder and COO, Bizongo; Nath Parameshwaran, Director, Corporate Affairs, PayPal India; Shailesh Gnanaprakasam, Senior Marketing Manager, PharmEasy; and Navin Mistry, Director, Director, SMB, PayPal India.
To begin with, founders must reflect on their aspirations of scale, and act on them using manageable processes, tech architecture, talent pools, and appropriate business partners. For example, this approach has helped Servify develop a range of white-label solutions for after-sales customer service at leading tech brands.
The rise of smartphones and affordable mobile internet has helped SMBs and startups launch effective workflow solutions based on apps. Digital payment infrastructure has helped improve both the quantity and quality of transaction options for buyers, sellers and aggregators.
Reputation of the business partner helps startups in a major way when they want to establish a presence in global markets. For example, PayPal, founded in the US in 1998, has become a trusted payment brand for businesses and consumers in dozens of countries. This creates a comfort level for international parties when they want to transact with Indian product and service firms.
Respect is an important part of the business relationship as well. The business partner of choice must not undermine the startup by offering competing services or platforms. The terms of the cooperation must be clearly defined, and the lines of competing activity properly respected.
Risk management is particularly important, especially when a startup expands to foreign markets. Large players with established brands can leverage their extensive experience and expertise and offer valuable insights into risk management with respect to transactions and other business practices.
International players like PayPal have also extended their domain knowledge into regulatory best practices for emerging markets like India. For example, governments need to promote business environments that are favourable for startups, and not just for large established incumbents.
In this regard, Indian founders looking to expand abroad should turn to experienced partners with knowledge in regulatory issues (eg. compliance, standards) and legal provisions (eg. returns, damaged goods, theft, fraud).
PayPal shared examples of its expertise in this regard, thanks to its presence in over 200 markets around the world, and over 100 currencies. It offers assisted on-boarding, Seller Protection and Buyer Protection, cross-platform integration, and invoicing solutions. These are supported by analytics, data protection, and encryption.
PayPal urged founders to also form peer support groups in this regard, to lobby the government as sectors and advocate for favourable regulations and policies in future. 'Think big' and 'keep reinventing yourself' are other business tips for founders shared from YourStory's earlier interactions with Paypal.
Foreign exchange rates also work in favour of Indian exporters, some of whom are experiencing seven-fold gains in expanding to markets like the US. In sum, opportunities for Indian founders already exist and will continue to grow in overseas markets, for physical and digital offerings.
In what may calm harried depositors of Yes Bank, its administrator Prashant Kumar on Monday said he is hopeful of the moratorium on the private sector lender being lifted by Saturday.
Merging Yes Bank with itself will have a "negative impact" on SBI, and an independently running institution should continue to do so after some help, Kumar, the former chief financial officer of SBI, said, dismissing speculation of an amalgamation.
RBI put a Rs 50,000 cap on withdrawals by Yes Bank customers
In an interview to PTI, he also said that life insurance behemoth LIC was never approached for infusing capital, and is not part of the plan now as well.
Kumar was installed as the administrator of the bank by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last Thursday, after the central bank superseded Yes Bank's board as it found that there was no headway in capital raising plans.
"We are hopeful that we will be able to work around, where the moratorium will be lifted by this weekend," he said, making it clear that moratorium lift-off and the capital raising plans are "unconnected".
"The trigger (for the lift-off of moratorium) will be approval of final (resolution) plan by RBI," he said, adding that work on fund raising is on in parallel.
Yes Bank has been put under a moratorium by the Reserve Bank till April 3, and customers are not allowed to withdraw more than Rs 50,000 from their accounts.
On the capital raising, where there are reports of the bank needing at least Rs 20,000 crore to spring back to normalcy, he declined to give an estimate of the requirement but said it would be likely for most of the fund raising to happen in the first round itself.
"As of now, we are expecting that most of our capital requirement will be met initially itself. It may or may not happen. Definitely our plan is that we should complete the (entire) capital raising requirement before declaration of annual results, which is May 31, 2020," he said.
Kumar said it is possible that depositors may make a beeline to withdraw or transfer their deposits out of the bank once the moratorium is lifted and added that while there is no case for the depositors to act this way, Yes Bank has commitments from both the RBI and SBI to help with liquidity.
The bank is on track to come out with the results for December quarter on Saturday, he said, listing the preparation of the accounts as among his top priorities right now along with calming depositors and capital raising.
"The results on 14th will give complete picture on what is the position as of now, how much more impact will be there in the future because of our stressed book and what will be the requirement (of capital)," Kumar said.
When asked if a forensic audit of the books by a third party is required to have a better picture, he replied in the negative.
"Not required absolutely. It is not a question of restating at all...if in your balance sheet, you come out clean, then where is the issue?" Kumar questioned.
He also said that the moratorium-followed by SBI-led restructuring was the best that the government and the RBI could do, given the circumstances and underlined that a plan to merge is not advisable.
"Merger is not something which is good. Merger means a negative impact on SBI... instead of merger, you can always support to see that these institutions (are) run independently," he said, adding this is a "strategic investment" for SBI.
Kumar said in the case of Global Trust Bank case, which is cited often, it was a merger which could be directly carried out, whereas the rules under the Banking Regulation Act make it necessary for a bank to go into a moratorium first before a restructuring can be carried out.
On the reports of LIC being involved in the plan, he said, "We are not looking at LIC. But if they want to come, they are most welcome. These are all rumours or some stories. Right from the beginning, LIC was not there at all".
When asked if he expects legal challenges to the restructuring plan, given that the AT-1 bond holders have threatened to move courts, he said the investors were given a higher premium against the risk of losing all the money in case of an event.
Refusing to disclose what role he will be playing once the moratorium is lifted, Kumar also welcomed the role played by the employees over the last few days and assured that he will speak to them directly as the days progress.
Depositors' money is absolutely secure and they should not panic, he appealed, adding that they should not think of moving it into any other firm, asserting the bank will "come out more stronger".
The coronavirus outbreak could cost the global economy up to $2 trillion this year, the UN's trade and development agency, UNCTAD, said, warning that shock from the epidemic will cause a recession in some countries and depress global annual growth to below 2.5 percent.
"We envisage a slowdown in the global economy to under two per cent for this year, and that will probably cost in the order of $1 trillion, compared with what people were forecasting back in September, Director, Division on Globalization and Development Strategies at United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Richard Kozul-Wright said.
The UN agency said that apart from the tragic human consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic, the economic uncertainty it has sparked will likely cost the global economy $1 trillion in 2020.
A preliminary downside scenario sees a $2 trillion shortfall in global income with a $220 billion hit to developing countries (excluding China). The most badly affected economies in this scenario will be oil-exporting countries, but also other commodity exporters, which stand to lose more than one percentage point of growth, as well as those with strong trade linkages to the initially shocked economies.
Growth declarations between 0.7 percent and 0.9 percent are likely to occur in countries such as Canada, Mexico and the Central American region, in the Americas; countries deeply involved in the global value chains of East and South Asia, and countries in the immediacy of the European Union.
Last week, UNCTAD had said that the trade impact of the coronavirus epidemic for India is estimated to be about $348 million and the country figures among the top 15 economies most affected as slowdown of manufacturing in China disrupts world trade. Slowdown of manufacturing in China due to the coronavirus outbreak is disrupting world trade and could result in a $50 billion decrease in exports across global value chains.
Launching the UNCTAD report as world financial markets tumbled over concerns about supply-chain interruptions from China, and oil price uncertainty among major producers, Kozul-Wright warned that few countries were likely to be left unscathed by the outbreak's financial ramifications.
One "doomsday scenario" in which the world economy grew at only 0.5 percent, would involve "a $2 trillion hit" to gross domestic product, he said, adding that collapsing oil prices had been "a contributing factor to that growing sense of unease and panic."
While it was difficult to predict how the international financial markets will react to COVID-19's impacts, "what they do suggest is a world that is extremely anxious," he said.
"There's a degree of anxiety now that's well beyond the health scares which are very serious and concerning," he added.
To counter these fears, governments need to spend at this point in time to prevent the kind of meltdown that could be even more damaging than the one that is likely to take place over the course of the year, Kozul-Wright said.
UNCTAD's analysis points out that a persistent belief in the soundness of economic fundamentals and a self-correcting world economy continues to hamper policy thinking in the advanced economies.
"This will stymie the bolder policy interventions needed to prevent the threat of a more serious crisis and increases the chances that recurrent shocks will cause serious economic damage in the future, Kozul-Wright added.
Central banks are not in a position to solve this crisis alone and an appropriate macroeconomic policy response will need aggressive fiscal spending with significant public investment, including into the care economy, and targeted welfare support for adversely affected workers, businesses and communities, the analysis says. International coordination of these programmes will be required.
"Ultimately, a series of dedicated policy responses and institutional reforms are needed to prevent a localized health scare in a food market in Central China from turning into a global economic meltdown," he said.
Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC®) is the world’s largest startup program empowering entrepreneurs to address global challenges. So far, it has held nine regional competitions that have already advanced 22 amazing startups to the semi-final round for June 2020.
One of the first was through participation in YourStory’s annual conference TechSparks, where XTC® selected three winners from over 30 finalists and thousands of applications.
Freshokartz is building an integrated agriculture value chain using AI and ML, leveraging data of all kinds to provide recommendations and advice to farmers so that they can increase their yields.
Elucidata's AI-enabled Polly platform empowers innovators to more easily utilise complex biomedical data to drive the discovery of new drug therapies.
Navana Tech is solving the user interface problem for the next billion users by building text-free, image-based, and voice-assisted technology, including speech recognition technologies in Indian languages and dialects, so that more people can use smartphones with confidence.
Growing momentum for engaging with XTC
Since TechSparks, XTC® events have been held in several countries such as Germany, Israel, Japan, Indonesia and USA, with the objective of finding ground-breaking solutions in each of the six global challenge categories - Agtech, Food and Water, Cleantech and Energy, Education Fintech, Healthcare, Transportation and Smart Cities, as well as Enabling Technologies - these include the hardware, software and Artificial Intelligence solutions that enable the above-mentioned six categories.
XTC® supports and empowers these startups by helping them engage with a growing ecosystem of global corporate sponsors and investors. New partners for XTC® include Tech Mahindra, Ford, Harman, SG-Innovate, IT-Farm and Intel.
Here's why you shouldn’t miss out
XTC® supports and empowers applicants by offering them with a bunch of benefits.
This includes engagement with leaders of global corporations, VCs, and corporate VCs. Startups will also get global visibility and access to leading investors who can help them raise capital.
The top 35 startups will be invited to Paris in June to participate in a final-round bootcamp with the opportunity for world-class mentorship from industry leaders and experts to help guide their startups to success.
After a subsequent round of judging, a final group will pitch on stage at VivaTech 2020 to an audience of thousands and a panel of leading investors from around the world including Tim Draper, Young Sohn and Bill Tai, who will select a winner for each of the seven XTC® categories.
Who can apply?
If you're a startup that is legally incorporated and innovating in any of the above-mentioned seven domains, you can apply for the XTC® competition. Registration is free, but startups will be responsible for their own travel, accommodation, and other costs to attend competition-related events.
Reliance Industries lost nearly a third of its market valuation as oil stocks crashed globally on Mondayin what is being seen as the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
As a result, RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani lost 'Asia's richest man' tag after his wealth plunged $5.8 billion in a single day.
Ambani, now at #2, is trailing Alibaba founder Jack Ma, whose fortune is worth $44.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index (a dynamic year-to-date ranking of the world's 500 richest people).
Ambani though continues to be India's richest man with a fortune of $41.8 billion, even as his energy-to-telecom empire shed 26 percent in value since the start of the year. In fact, billionaires across the world in the energy sector have been among the worst hit.
Other big losers of Monday included Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who shed $7 billion before recovering to $5.6 billion, and Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett, who lost $5.3 billion. Bezos, in fact, has lost $18 billion in a month.
He, however, continues to be the world's richest man with a fortune of $112 billion. Closing in on him is Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whose net worth now stands at $106 billion after he lost $5.1 billion.
Overall, the world's 500 richest people lost $239 billion in a day. This is the biggest single-day plunge in wealth since the index started tracking billionaires in October 2016.
In 2020 alone, "more than half-trillion dollars has been erased from the combined fortunes of the top 500," according to Bloomberg.
Other top losers were luxury goods-maker LVMH founder Bernard Arnault, who lost nearly $4.5 billion overnight.
In fact, Arnault has been one of the worst-hit since the coronavirus scare began, with LVMH stocks sliding 24 percent in just two months. This is because of thecompany's large dependence on China, which is one of its top export markets and also the epicenter of the outbreak.
While concerns around the new coronavirus (officially known as COVID-19) mount, a few billionaires have played down the scare. Tesla CEO Elon Musk dubbed it an overreaction.
"The coronavirus panic is dumb," he tweeted on Friday. Interestingly, Musk himself has lost $6.75 billion in the past two weeks as Tesla shares continued to fall.
Social commerce platform Meesho announced that it has secured the number 14 spot on Fast Company’s World’s 50Most Innovative Companies (MIC) 2020 list – the only Indian company to be featured this year.
Meesho founders: Sanjeev Barnwal (left) and Vidit Aatrey
According to a statement by the startup, it is also the number one on MICs India list. The list includes businesses making a profound impact on industry and culture, showcasing innovative ways to thrive in a fast-changing world. This year’s MIC list features 434 businesses from 39 countries.
Commenting on this achievement, Meesho Founder and CEO Vidit Aatrey said,
“Over 80 percent of first-time entrepreneurs created through the Meesho model are women. We've been able to build a simple yet powerful ecosystem that has empowered them to earn from home. This recognition is a testament to the scale of social impact we have created in just three years, and our commitment to build a strong community of self-starters by enabling anyone to start a business without capital.”
According to Meesho, it has enabled over 2.8 million Indians to start their own business without capital, putting an overwhelming majority of women from small towns back into the workforce, empowering them to earn a sustainable livelihood by selling on WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram.
Through these social sellers, the Facebook-backed startup has created a disruptive distribution channel for 40,000+ suppliers and manufacturers, many of whom have come online for the first time.
The World’s Most Innovative Companies is Fast Company’s signature franchise, which provides a snapshot and a road map for the future of innovation across the most dynamic sectors of the economy.
“At a time of increasing global volatility, this year’s list showcases the resilience and optimism of businesses across the world. These companies are applying creativity to solve challenges within their industries and far beyond,” said Fast Company senior editor Amy Farley, who supervised the issue with deputy editor David Lidsky.
