Business

US diesel prices soar past $6 a gallon US farmers are facing a bigger fuel bill as diesel prices hit record highs just as the corn and soybean harvest gets underway, pushing up the cost of running combines, tractors and trucks. The national average price of diesel reached $5.85 a gallon on September 4, the…

FM Sitharaman at Global Fintech Fest 2026 in Mumbai MUMBAI: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman called upon tech companies to promote a federated industry platform to give India’s technology sector a stronger collective voice in global markets and regulatory discussions.“There may be merit in considering a federated industry platform that brings together the broader Indian technology…

MUMBAI: Whether AI will get us all killed by the end of the decade is still a matter of debate, but funding into artificial intelligence continues to soar.In fact, it is only getting bigger. Global AI funding touched a whopping $226 billion in the March quarter this year. That’s almost 80% of all global equity…

MUMBAI: India’s retail credit market is showing a widening gap between the number of borrowers being added and the value of loans being accumulated, with consumer durable loans driving new borrower acquisition, while home and gold loans account for much of the portfolio growth.According to credit bureau CRIF’s ‘How India Lends’ report, gold loan outstandings…

MUMBAI: NPCI Bharat BillPay has proposed a centralised digital infrastructure to connect invoices, payments, reconciliation and financing, to fix the biggest constraints faced by MSMEs – the difficulty of turning sales into cash and cash flows into credit. The system could help address the MSME sector’s Rs 60 lakh crore formal credit gap, while reducing…

MUMBAI: The $136.4 billion raised by banks from non-residents and foreign lenders, then swapped with RBI, has swelled India’s foreign-exchange reserves by a record $44.9 billion to $785.7 billion in the week ended Sept 4. The windfall gives RBI a larger war chest to defend the rupee, but creates a problem at home with too…

The BSE SENSEX declined by 385.74 points (-0.51%) to stand at 74,516.85, pressured by losses across banking and heavyweights. The index opened at 74,309.16 and traded within a intraday range between a low of 74,160.16 and a high of 74,584.35, following its previous session close of 74,902.59. IT stocks provided support to the index, led…

Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari addresses a session at the Global Fintech Fest 2026, in Mumbai By next year, your highway journeys could get a lot smoother, as India moves towards a barrier-free, fully digital tolling process.Expected to be rolled out by February-March 2027, the new system will allow motorists to pass…

UPI now dominates Indian merchant payments, significantly reducing card usage (AI image) Walk into almost any shop in India today, a kirana store, a pharmacy, a roadside food cart and you’ll see the same thing.A small QR code taped near the counter, and a shopkeeper who barely looks up when you scan it. Nobody asks…

India’s FTA with the EU will offer European automakers concessional tariffs on passenger vehicles, with annual quotas rising to 1.6 lakh, alongside tariff concessions on wines and select agricultural products. European carmakers will get a significantly wider opening to India’s passenger vehicle market under the proposed India-EU free trade agreement, with the draft pact released…