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The biggest merger & acquisition (M&A) deal in the Indian financial technology space has fallen through, with Prosus-backed PayU calling off the acquisition of BillDesk. The acquisition, for a total consideration of $4.7 billion, had been announced on August 31, 2021.

In a statement issued on Monday, Prosus said: “Closing of the transaction was subject to the fulfilment of various conditions precedent, including approval by the Competition Commission of India (CCI). PayU secured CCI approval on September 5, 2022. However, certain conditions precedent were not fulfilled by the September 30, 2022, long stop date, and the agreement has terminated automatically in accordance with its terms and, accordingly, the proposed transaction will not be implemented.”

On August 31, 2021, Prosus had announced that an agreement had been reached between PayU Payments Private Limited (PayU), a subsidiary of Prosus, and the shareholders of the Indian digital payments provider BillDesk.

While the deal got a go-ahead from the CCI only in September, it was yet to receive the approval of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The process was to take at least 45 days.

Prosus, a long-term investor and operator in India, has invested close to $6 billion in Indian technology companies since 2005. It said it remained committed to the Indian market and growing its existing businesses within the region. Some of its other investments include Meesho, Byju’s, DeHaat, Mensa Brands and Good Glamm Group.

This acquisition would have made PayU the biggest player in the digital payment (B2B) segment. At the time of acquisition announcement, PayU India head Anirban Mukherjee had told Business Standard that the synergies of both the companies would lead to more new products being launched in the market.

“We do know where some of the synergies are. For instance, they are very strong in bill payments in the government and financial services.

We are much more focused on e-commerce and SMEs. There are synergies where their products apply to our customers and vice versa. Like LazyPay can go into their checkout pages. The bigger conversation will happen once we close this deal. I feel this type of scale can drive a different level of innovation and access to the market. We have a lot of complementary strengths and I am hoping that we will have lots of ideas on taking this to drive digitisation of the last mile much faster in India,” he had said.

Increased demand during the ongoing festival season has caused airfares on major routes across the nation to increase by 20 per cent to 30 per cent, reported The Hindu Businessline.

Research by ixigo, an Indian AI-based online travel portal, shows that typical airfares have increased by 20–30 per cent this year on popular routes as a result of the increase in aviation turbine fuel (ATF). Around Durga Puja and Diwali, EaseMyTrip has also seen a surge in airfares on metro routes.

Aloke Bajpai, Group CEO & Co-founder of the IPO-bound OTA ixigo said to The Hindu Businessline, “With Dussehra and Durga Puja just around the corner, excitement for the festival season is at its peak. Flight searches have risen 25-30 per cent for leisure travel for Dussehra week compared to last year.”

Cleartrip’s data also revealed 23 per cent higher bookings in the same period.

Patna, Mumbai, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Varanasi, Hyderabad, Pune, Goa, Bagdogra and Dehradun are among the top 10 leisure destinations for travel between October 01 and October 24, found the ixigo’s data.

Customer confidence has now increased as the majority of eligible citizens of India have received their booster vaccinations and the virus's impact has decreased.

This has encouraged airlines to make up for the lost revenues over the previous two years, which is supported by the raising of the airfare cap on August 31.

Ixigo has predicted that due to increasing demand for travel, last-minute prices for well-travelled routes will experience a sharp increase in airfares. For instance, on travel dates shortly before Diwali, one-way rates for routes like New Delhi to Patna, which are typically approximately Rs 5,000, might reach as high as Rs 8,000-13,000.

However, there is a decrease in airfare between Durga Puja and after Diwali in an effort to prevent further financial hardship for its consumers. Along with this, online travel agencies (OTAs) and airlines are providing their clients with flash bargains and offers.

According to Cleartrip spokesperson, there are sectors where prices have dropped and there are expensive fares too.

India's manufacturing activity lost some momentum in September, with S&P Global's Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) edging down to 55.1 from 56.2 in August, data released on October 3 showed.

A reading above 50 indicates expansion in activity, while a sub-50 print is a sign of contraction.

This is the 15th consecutive 50-plus print for the manufacturing PMI.

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk showcased his much-touted humanoid robot 'Optimus' at the electric vehicle maker's "AI Day" event on Friday.

The billionaire has said a robot business will be worth more than its cars, hoping to expand beyond self-driving cars that have not yet become a reality despite his repeated promises.

A prototype of the robot walked on stage and waved to the seated audience. A video of the robot carrying a box, watering plants and moving metal bars in the automaker's factory was shown.

"Our goal is to make a useful humanoid robot as quickly as possible," Musk said at the event being held at a Tesla office in Palo Alto, California.

Musk is also expected to discuss Tesla's long-delayed self-driving technology. In May, Musk said that the world's most valuable carmaker would be "worth basically zero" without achieving full self-driving capability, and it faces growing regulatory probes, as well as technological hurdles.

"There will be lots of technical detail & cool hardware demos," Musk wrote on Twitter late on Wednesday, adding the event was aimed at recruiting engineers.

Tesla's live demonstration record is mixed. Launches typically draw cheers, but in 2019 when Musk had an employee hurl a steel ball at the armored window of a new electric pickup truck, the glass cracked.

The key test for the robot is whether it can handle unexpected situations.

Musk announced Tesla's plan for humanoid robots at its AI day in August last year and delayed this year's event from August to have its robot prototype working, with a plan to start production possibly next year.

Tesla teased the unveiling of the bot on social media with an image of metallic robotic hands making a heart shape. But building human-like, versatile hands that can manipulate different objects is extremely challenging, said Heni Ben Amor, a robotics professor at Arizona State University.

Initially, Optimus, an allusion to the powerful and benevolent leader of the Autobots in the Transformers media franchise, would perform boring or dangerous jobs, including moving parts around Tesla factories or attaching a bolt to a car with a wrench, according to Musk.

"There's so much about what people can do dexterously that's very, very hard for robots. And that's not going to change whether the robot is a robot arm or whether it's in the shape of a humanoid," Jonathan Hurst, chief technology officer at Agility Robotics, a humanoid robot firm, told Reuters.

Musk has said that in the future robots could be used in homes, making dinners, mowing the lawn and caring for the elderly, and even becoming a "buddy" for humans or a sex partner.

He is due at Friday's event to give updates on Tesla's much-delayed plan to launch self-driving cars, and on its high-speed computer, Dojo, which was unveiled last year and the company has said is integral to its development of self-driving technology.

Musk has said he expects Tesla will achieve full self-driving this year and mass produce a robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedal by 2024.

At an "Autonomy" event in 2019, Musk promised 1 million robotaxis by 2020 but has yet to deliver such a car.

Vikas Garg, Head of Fixed Income at Invesco Mutual Fund

Year 2022 is proving to be yet another year dominated by unprecedented events causing heightened volatility across global financial markets. While the year started on a positive note with many countries moving out of Covid-led disruptions, it was soon eclipsed by un-anticipated Russia-Ukraine conflict leading to a significant surge in global commodity prices and multi-decade high inflationary pressures in many developed countries.

Central bank US Fed has embarked upon aggressive monetary policy tightening led by steep policy rate hikes and quantitative tightening to tame inflation, thereby triggering massive dollar rally and forcing many other so-called safe haven currencies to go into tailspin.

Other key central banks are also undertaking fast paced rate hikes to control domestic inflation/currency. Consequently, global interest rates have remained extremely volatile during the year with an upward bias as market participants have struggled to gauge the inflation trajectory.

India has also seen a paradigm shift in interest rates during the year. RBI has already undertaken 190 basis point rate hike in policy repo rate and has withdrawn systemic liquidity to a great extent in response to the elevated inflation trajectory. Debt investors have been adversely impacted with high mark to market hit as domestic interest rates have hardened sharply during the year with a flattening bias.

Global backdrop continues to worsen with more rate hikes expected by the US Fed over the next few months. Indian fixed income has remained largely insulated to global spillovers on the strength of domestic stability, although the safety cushion has depleted rapidly with forex reserve falling to $524.52 billion and as India’s current account deficit remains high.

Further with FPI outflow of more than Rs 2 lakh crore year-till-date, rupee has depreciated sharply and crossed 83 against USD for the first time even as the RBI intervened to smoothen forex volatility. Much awaited inclusion of Indian G-Sec into global bond indices will now be reviewed by index providers in 2023 only as some of the operational aspects still need to be resolved with the India government.

RBI Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has clearly articulated its concern on inflation which is reflected in retention of inflation forecasts at 6.70 percent for FY23. Domestic CPI inflation touched the 7 percent mark again in August 2022 compared with 6.71 percent in July, marginally higher than market expectations led by sharp rise in select food items such as cereals, pulses, and milk.

Core inflation remained elevated and came in at 6.1 percent YoY versus 6 percent in previous month. Supply side disruptions, geopolitical tensions, erratic rainfall, commodity prices & improving domestic demand conditions pose risks to inflation outlook, while growth seems to be fairly supported by domestic factors.

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Led by global monetary policy tightening as well as still elevated inflationary pressures, we expect MPC to continue with more rate hikes and reach a terminal policy repo rate closer to 6.25 percent or 6.50 percent by early 2023.

With challenging global backdrop as many central banks tighten the monetary policies to tame inflationary pressures, huge fiscal supply and RBI’s expected rate hikes, we expect interest rates to remain volatile with an upward bias.

Nonetheless, risk-reward is looking favourable for the investors as absolute yields have risen considerably over the past 6 months and now give a reasonable safety cushion to absorb mark to market volatility. For instance, a 3 – 4 year G-Sec at 7.30 percent - 7.40 percent levels is up from the lows of 4.75 percent in December 2020 and is now similar to the levels last seen almost 4 years back.

Also read - RBI rate-setting panel plans unscheduled meet on November 3

Against the backdrop of still many uncertainties, we prefer using the conventional wisdom to contain interest rate risk with a moderate overall duration of debt investment portfolio. A much flatter yield curve gives an opportunity to investors to cut down on duration risk and still continue to maintain high accrual.

The 2 to 4 year segment of the yield remains well placed from carry perspective for medium to long investors, as it has already priced in more aggressive rate hikes and also lesser impacted by the rate volatility.

Credit environment remains healthy, however, current narrow spreads of AA / AA+ over AAA bonds do not provide favourable risk adjusted reward opportunities and we expect illiquidity premium to increase sharply over a period of time thereby posing mark to market challenges for this segment.

India's services sector expanded at the weakest pace since March, survey data released October 6 showed.

The sector expanded for a 14th month in a row in September, with the S&P Global India Services Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) coming in at 54.3 last month.

A reading above 50 indicates expansion in activity while a sub-50 print signals contraction.

The services PMI was 57.2 in August.

"The Indian service sector has overcome many adversities in recent months, with the latest PMI data continuing to show a strong performance despite some loss of growth momentum in September.," noted Pollyanna De Lima, Economics Associate Director at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

India's key inflation rate, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), returned to 7 percent in August from July’s five-month low of 6.71 percent. The Reserve Bank of India is now just one month away from failure, with CPI inflation having been outside the central bank's 2-6 percent tolerance range for all of 2022.

The RBI is deemed to have failed if CPI inflation is outside the 2-6 percent range for three consecutive quarters. It averaged 6.3 percent in January-March, 7.3 percent in April-June, and will exceed 6 percent again in July-September.

The central bank has raised interest rates sharply since early May in a bid to curb inflation. It is expected to tighten policy again when its rate-setting panel meets in December.

Unmesh Kulkarni – Managing Director and Senior Advisor at Julius Baer India

The monetary policy was on expected lines, and the fixed income markets were pretty much anticipating the 50 basis point hike in policy rates, especially after the 75 bp hike by the US Fed along with their hawkish messaging.

Overall, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is concerned about the emerging shocks on the global front – Covid shocks followed by Ukraine shocks and, now, the rate hike aggression shocks by global central banks – as these shocks tend to have spillover effect on other economies.

On the other hand, the RBI Governor exuded a lot of confidence around the state of the Indian economy – resilience of domestic demand, encouraging signs around credit growth, capacity utilisation, the government's thrust on capital expenditure, and the strength of our forex reserves along with better performance of rupee vis-à-vis other currencies.

On the liquidity front, given the advanced stage of tightening that we are already in, one would have expected an official change in the policy stance to include the word “tightening”; however, the MPC has chosen to stay with the stance “withdrawal of accommodation”. RBI has been successful in bringing down the excess system liquidity through its VRRR (variable rate reverse repo) auctions. The money markets have reacted sharply to the tightening liquidity, with the call rates hovering around 5.75 percent – 5.85 percent in the past one week, and closer to the enhanced repo rate of 5.90 percent.

Also read - As RBI raises repo rate, here are 10 rate-sensitive stocks to bet on

Inflation remains on the higher side and above the RBI’s comfort zone. The RBI has retained its overall projections for inflation (as per the previous policy) and expects CPI to moderate sequentially over the next few quarters, from the current expected 7.1 percent in the second quarter to five percent in FY24. Despite easing of crude oil prices and food inflation, RBI perceives uncertainty on the overall inflation trajectory on supply concerns as well as the strength of the US dollar (leading to imported inflation).

Given the lower-than-expected GDP growth in the first quarter (13.5 percent versus projected 16.2 percent), the MPC has lowered its growth outlook for FY23 from 7.2 percent to seven percent, but raised the growth outlook for the coming quarters, as well as for the first quarter of FY24 (7.2 percent versus earlier projection of 6.7 percent). This projection seems optimistic and will likely be tested over time, as the world is staring at a recession, and not a phase of accelerated growth, as a fallout of the continuous and massive rate hikes by global central banks.

Also read - RBI Monetary Policy Live Updates: MPC to discuss RBI's reply to government on failing to meet inflation target

Overall, the policy managed to perform a balancing act, between inflation and global concerns on the one hand, and providing optimism around the domestic growth/demand situation on the other. We do expect the RBI to continue on the path of rate hikes for some more time (December and February policies).

Although the Governor mentioned that the MPC would avoid providing guidance around a terminal policy rate, it would be reasonable to assume a repo rate of 6.5 percent at the end of FY23, especially against the backdrop of an aggressive Fed, dollar strengthening and rising global bond yields.

In the near term, as fixed income markets had already priced in this 50 bp rate hike, there is a possibility of some pullback in yields; however, the yield curve will continue to be under upward pressure until the markets start sensing that we are close to the end of the tightening.

The Reserve Bank of India is expected to increase its policy rate by half a point for the third time in a row as the currency’s plunge to a record low this month complicates the battle against inflation.

The Reserve Bank of India’s six-member monetary policy committee will raise its repurchase rate by 50 basis points to 5.9%, according to 34 of 46 economists surveyed by Bloomberg as of Thursday. Eleven forecast the rate will rise by 35 basis points to 5.75%, while one sees a quarter-point increase.

Governor Shaktikanta Das may opt to dial up his hawkish rhetoric from his tone at the August meeting when he pledged to do “whatever it takes” to cool inflation that has stayed above 6% this year. Since then, India’s price gains quickened anew and the currency slump deepened as the Fed raised rates by 75 basis points for a third consecutive time and amplified a hawkish signal while warning of a painful slowdown needed to curb US inflation.

“The biggest point of worry currently is the significant depreciation in the currency,” said Upasna Bhardwaj, chief economist of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. Deteriorating reserves curtail RBI’s ability to intervene so “higher interest rates will have to be maintained with hawkish tone in the policy to support the rupee.”

Here’s what to watch out for when Das addresses media:

Oil, Food Prices

With oil prices falling below $80 a barrel from more than $120 in June, the RBI will probably revise its oil price assumption on Friday from the $105 level it factored in previously. It’s unlikely to make any significant changes to this year’s 7.2% economic growth forecast, or 6.7% inflation outlook, given pressures from food grain prices.

“The inflation-growth mix is likely to remain tricky,” HSBC Holdings Plc economists led by Pranjul Bhandari wrote in a note this week. They expect the RBI to hike by 50 basis points each at the September and December meetings and see average inflation staying above the 4% mid-point of the RBI’s target range in the current and next fiscal years as economic growth slows.

In a separate survey by Bloomberg on India’s economy, retail inflation is seen to average at 5.1% next fiscal year from a 6.6% estimate in the year ending March while the latest projections on economic growth moderated to 7% and to 6.1% for fiscal years 2023 and 2024. Economists polled on the policy path expect the key rate to rise by another 25 basis points by March 2023 after a half-point hike on Friday.

FX Reserves

The rupee is down about 10% this year and trading near a record low even after the RBI mounted a staunch currency defense in the past year -- evident from an almost $100 billion drop in its foreign-currency reserves, with some of the decline attributed to revaluation. Das had said the reserves “provide a cushion against external shocks.”

A broad consensus among market participants was that anything lower than a 50 basis-point hike, or the governor sounding less hawkish may push the currency even lower.

“Rupee readjustment is catching up faster than peers, as it was held artificially stronger in past adjustments by policy intervention,” Madhavi Arora, lead economist at Emkay Global Financial Services wrote in a note, “The FX war chest has already dipped an estimated more than $100 billion, while the war is still pretty much on.”

Bonds, Liquidity

Bond traders are watching for signs from the central bank on how it plans to manage liquidity in the financial system that’s been tightening.

While the RBI’s intervention in the foreign-currency market is reducing the supply of rupees, increased domestic activity after a broad reopening from virus restrictions has contributed to the strain.

The liquidity crunch along with RBI’s rate hikes are reflected in rising shorter-term borrowing costs. Five-year yields are edging higher than benchmark 10-year notes, and a flattening yield curve is delivering the narrowest spread between 10- and 2-year yields since 2020.

The bond market is also awaiting the results of index reviews by FTSE Russell and JPMorgan Chase & Co. and whether or not India will be included.