Discover the top business headlines that are trending across the world today.
For the sixth consecutive week, India’s foreign exchange reserves have seen a high of $692.3 billion, as per data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on September 27. During the recent week, the reserves jumped by $2.84 billion, thereby witnessing an overall rise of $19.3 billion over the previous five weeks. Coming to foreign currency assets, they saw a high of $605.7 billion from $603.6 billion in the previous week.
Owing to RBI’s intervention in the forex market and the movement of foreign assets, there has been a rise in foreign exchange reserves. Meanwhile, amid rupee’s volatility, the Indian currency has seen its best performance of 2024. Interestingly, Gold reserves too have increased, jumping to $63.6 billion from $62.9 billion.
IDFC First Bank, on Friday. announced the completion of the merger of IDFC Limited with IDFC bank. In a statement, the bank mentioned that the merger is effective from October 1, 2024, post the receipt of all requisite shareholder and regulatory approvals.
With the latest development, 155 equity shares of the bank will be given for every 100 equity shares of IDFC Limited held by such shareholders, and they will be credited on or before October 31, 2024, subject to clearances. Post the merger, it will be a corporate structure at the Bank with no holding company. “The shareholding structure will be like other leading institutional Indian private sector banks with no promoter holding. The bank will continue to be a professionally managed institution,” the bank stated.
State-run lender Punjab National Bank (PNB), on Friday, confirmed that it has raised ₹ 5,000 crore through a qualified institutional placement (QIP). With the development, PNB has allocated about 48.19 crore equity shares at an issue price of ₹ 103.75 per share.
PNB said in a statement, "The bank received bids from Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs), including mutual funds, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), insurance companies, etc., to the tune of ₹ 41,734 crore for the QIP issue, which is 16.7 times the base issue size of ₹ 2,500 crore and 8.3 times the total issue size of ₹ 5,000 crore.” It is believed that the bank’s QIP issue was open for subscription from September 23 to 26, 2024.
The Karnataka government has finally launched its draft Global Capability Centres policy (GCC 2024-2029), thereby becoming the first Indian state to do so. In fact, the government is looking to add 500 more GCCs in Karnataka by 2029. With the latest development, the government plans to generate 3.5 lakh new jobs and do a business of $50billion. Currently, Karnataka has 500 GCCs, which is 30 percent of the country’s GCCs.
With an aim for 1,000 GCCs, the draft policy has included several incentives, and stated how the initiative is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 12-14% over the next decade. With the launch of the draft policy, the government also wishes to attract investments beyond IT hub Bengaluru.
