Daybreak

For many years, finfluencers have been enjoying an almost no-holds barred party in the Indian market since they operate outside Sebi's regulatory ambit. While there is no doubt about the importance of their role in combating India's rampant financial illiteracy, many often give advice that is generic, underplaying risks, and overplaying returns. 

After reviewing several complaints, two weeks ago, Sebi Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch was asked about Sebi's views on regulating influencers once again. This time she did put India's financial influencers on notice.

A SEBI circular seems to be on its way and finfluencers have good reason to be worried.

Tune in.

Recommendation

Sebi’s Madhabi Puri Buch and the art of keeping market players on tenterhooks

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Credit card companies, in their rush to sell more and more cards use a whole gamut of attractive offers—the most popular one being free access to airport lounges. Thanks to this and the sharp rise in domestic air travellers, last year, airport lounges saw of football of over 8.5 million people.

What was once an exclusive service became a top-selling feature, even for non-premium cards issued by banks. Lounge access became overused and an expensive bill to foot for credit card issuers.

Earlier last month, Axis Bank, the country’s fourth-largest credit-card issuer, revised its lounge policy. But retracting the freebie altogether is not a risk banks can afford to take.

What are they doing then?

Tune in.

Recommendation:

Credit-card issuers can’t bank on their most profitable users 

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Since November 2022, when Paytm shares dropped to an all-time low, the fintech giant has been on a steady recovery path. If all goes well, its share price may cross Rs 1000 soon.

But what's even more interesting is the sharp jump in its loan distributions in FY23. In the March quarter of the same year, Paytm distributed nearly 12 million loans worth over 1.5 billion dollars.

And last Friday, Paytm’s parent company even announced a partnership with Shriram Finance, an NBFC that's known for its deep understanding of risk and more importantly, its collections capabilities. 

What's driving this prolific growth and how is Paytm growing its loan business in the post-FLDG era?

Tune in.

**Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an investor in The Ken  

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

On Thursday, Kotak Institutional Equities, released a note and turns out, Zomato managed to maintain its lead over Swiggy with a 55% market share in the year 2022. Swiggy is at 45%.

Swiggy and Zomato have been constantly win the bigger share in India’s $5 billion food delivery market. But it was Swiggy that had the portion share just three years ago. 

Inherently, both the food delivery companies are quite different from each other. And it is this difference that's been giving Zomato an edge lately.

Recommended reading:

Why Swiggy is building a Shopify for local brands

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

ICICI's stock has tripled since 2018—the year when ICICI’s current CEO Sandeep Bakhshi took over. Loans and deposits are growing strong, margins are healthy, and investors can’t seem to get enough of the blue-chip company. Bakshi joined at a time when the bank was reeling from the after-effects of his predecessor Chanda Kochchar's controversial exit.

The bank was experiencing a high rate of attrition and employees needed reassurance and stability. Bakshi gave them just that. He revamped the bank's HR policy, bringing about a democratisation with decisions like the standardisation of appraisals and tenure-based promotions.

All these moves made him quite the favourite amongst many current and even former employees.  But it has also led to the creation of a faction of young disgruntled high-performers who feel they are not incentivised enough. And they are resigning.

Tune in.

Recommendation:
At ICICI Bank, Sandeep Bakhshi’s people-first strategy costs top people by Rounak Kumar Gunjan

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

For decades, the 60 year old BITS Pilani, one of the most prestigious science and engineering institutions in the country, has been second to India's crown jewels–the IITs.

Now, the institute is on a mission under the leadership of its Group Vice Chancellor, V Ramgopal Rao. A syllabus revamp after a decade, a US$100M endowment fund from alumni, 10% of faculty from industry, allowing a year off for startups—BITS has taken some major leaps

It wants to be on the top with the IITs.

Tune in.

Recommended reading:

BITS Pilani is tired of playing second fiddle to IITs by Alifiya Khan

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
 

Starting April, major non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), including Avanse Financial Services, Aditya Birla Finance, and Fullerton India, which lend to Byju’s’ customers, suspended loans for the edtech. These play an important role in allowing Byju's to make its sales to its customers via zero-interest EMIs. 

With sales slowing down, the edtech desperately needs these financing options because its one year courses range from anything between Rs 20,000 to Rs 1.4 lakh. Not all its customers can afford to pay it all in one go. This is why Byju’s tied up with these NBFCs in the first place. 

But now that the non-banks have left the building, what is the ailing giant doing to survive?

Tune in.

Recommendations:

Byju’s has one escape route 

Indian lenders cut off Byju’s air supply by not lending to its users

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

On Thursday evening news broke that Deloitte, the biggest audit firm in the world, has resigned as Byju's statutory auditor. This couldn't come at a worse time for the edtech giant. Just hours before this, three of its key board members also tendered their resignations over differences with the company's founder. 

It was in September last year when, after a long delay that raised many eyebrows, Byju’s had finally released its financials for the year 2021. The delay was because Deloitte was not satisfied with what Byju’s was presenting to them as a fair picture of their accounts. It gave it an "adverse opinion."

Months have passed since and there is still no sign of Byju's financials for FY2022. Worst still, the company's own projection of a Rs 10,000 crore revenue for the same year seems to be incorrect.

Tune in.

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The seven things you need to know about Byju’s FY21 financials

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Byju’s is looking like a hedge fund 

Indian lenders cut off Byju’s air supply by not lending to its users

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Despite being called ‘the pharmacy of the world,’ time and again, the Indian pharmaceutical industry has received criticism for substandard quality. Last year, the deaths of children in Gambia and Uzbekistan were allegedly linked to cough syrups manufactured in India.

Yesterday, the WHO flagged seven more Indian-made cough syrups for containing toxic chemicals. 

Why does Indian Pharma still struggle with quality control?

Tune in to find out.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

When Tata acquired the e-grocer, BigBasket, at a reported valuation of $2 billion in mid-2021, the company was loss-making. For those at BigBasket, it was an opportunity to shift their focus back to the company’s core business: doorstep grocery delivery.   

While it was a bit too late when Tata realised its new acquisition was left out from the quick commerce game, there is one game that BigBasket seems to be clearly winning.

Tune in to find out.

Recommended reading: Torn between growing competition and Tatas’ ambitions, $3.2B BigBasket is at a crossroads

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.