Also in this letter:
■ PB Fintech block deal
■ Nvidia valuation breaches $3 trillion
■ Microsoft, OpenAI under antitrust lens
RBI wants to create a public entity to track payment frauds
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has set up a committee to build a digital public infrastructure platform specifically to tackle the issue of online payment frauds.
Driving the news: The panel will suggest ways through which the platform can check frauds in the digital payments ecosystem and recommend mitigation measures.
The committee will be chaired by Abhaya Hota, who was the first chief executive officer of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and has played a key role in establishing India as a digital economy.
Representatives of NPCI, State Bank of India, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank will be members of the panel. From the payments industry the likes of Vipin Surelia, head of risk at Visa, Arif Khan, of Razorpay, are on the committee.
Key purpose: The panel will recommend guardrails to ensure customer data remains safe through the process. It will also outline methods for identifying fraudulent transactions, which will then be reported to the Central Payments Fraud Information Registry (CPFIR).
This platform will establish operational parameters and processes to determine the extent of data provision by reporting entities, such as banks and fintechs.
Bigger picture: The menace of payment frauds is real and growing. The central bank reported a 300% rise in bank fraud cases in FY24 and a 700% jump in digital frauds over the last two years.
BNPL startup Simpl undertakes fresh layoffs in profitability push
Credit startup Simpl has undertaken a fresh round of layoffs a month after letting go of 160 employees.
Pink-slipped: Among those who are leaving the firm are Vatsal Jain, vice president, enterprise business; Ashwini Ravindranath, vice president, partner success; and Ramkumar Narayanan, vice president, product and operations.
Confirming the layoffs, the company said it has offered the affected employees a severance package.
Those laid off last month included several in higher-paying roles. Just over a year ago, in April, the company had cut 25% of its workforce, or around 150 employees.
Internal rejig: Simpl has elevated Vivek Pandey as its chief technology officer. He will also be managing the risk vertical in the startup, which was led by chief financial officer Russell Byrne till date. Bryne will continue as Simpl’s CFO and manage its capital markets function.
Simpl’s current CTO, Puneet Singh, will now lead the enterprise business and checkout solutions. Khanaz KA will continue to expand Simpl’s direct-to-consumer business, apart from focusing on customer experience.
FY24 scorecard: Simpl posted a total income of Rs 96.3 crore in the fiscal year ended March 2023, up three times from Rs 32 crore in FY22. Its losses widened nearly two-and-a-half times to Rs 356.7 crore from Rs 144.3 crore the previous year.
Policybazaar parent shares climb 5% amid block deal
Online insurance and credit aggregator PB Fintech’s share price jumped 5.2% to Rs 1,360 in Thursday’s trade on the BSE, following a large block deal involving 33 lakh equity shares.
Transaction successful: Around Rs 428 crore worth of equity shares, representing a 0.73% stake in the company, changed hands in this transaction.
The deal was executed at an average price of Rs 1,297 per share, slightly above the stock’s previous close of Rs 1,293.35. The buyers and sellers involved in the transaction remain undisclosed.
The stock erased intraday gains to close at Rs 1,289.45, down 0.35% from the previous day’s close.
Company’s performance: PB Fintech, the holding company of insurance marketplace Policybazaar and credit marketplace Paisabazaar, reported its first full year of net profit at Rs 64 crore for FY24 compared to a loss of Rs 488 crore a year back.
The Gurugram-based fintech strengthened its operating revenue, growing 34% to Rs 3,437 crore from Rs 2,557 crore in FY23. At the same time it controlled expenses, which were largely flat at Rs 3,739 crore from Rs 3,340 crore a year ago.
By the numbers: Nvidia pips Apple to become second most valuable company
Nvidia’s shares rallied to record highs on Wednesday, with the chipmaker’s valuation breaching the $3 trillion mark.
Riding the AI wave: Nvidia’s stock rose 5.2% to end the day at $1,224.40, valuing the company at $3.012 trillion. Apple’s market capitalisation was last at $3.003 trillion.
Nvidia’s stock has surged 147% so far in 2024, with growing demand for its processors as Microsoft, Meta Platforms and Google-owner Alphabet race to build out their AI computing capabilities and dominate the emerging technology.
Driving the rally: The chipmaker has seen soaring demand for its semiconductors, which are used to power AI applications. The company’s revenue more than tripled in the latest quarter to $26 billion from the same period a year earlier.
US clears way for antitrust inquiries on Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI
Federal regulators have reached a deal that will allow them to proceed with antitrust investigation into the dominant roles that Microsoft, Nvidia and OpenAI play in the AI industry.
What’s the reason? US authorities believe AI – a rapidly-advancing technology – has the potential to upend jobs, information and people’s lives. For months Microsoft, Nvidia and OpenAI have evaded regulatory scrutiny.
With generative AI producing humanlike text,videos, photos and audio, the Biden administration wants to tighten scrutiny. In July, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) opened an investigation into whether OpenAI had harmed its consumers through its collection of data.
Quote unquote: FTC chair Lina Khan said in a February interview that when it came to AI, the agency was trying to spot “potential problems at the inception rather than years and years and years later, when problems are deeply baked in and much more difficult to rectify.”
Also read: US antitrust case against Google is just the start
Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Megha Mishra in Mumbai and Riya Roy Chowdhury in Bengaluru.
