The resilient Indian IT industry, which has been going through challenging times on multiple fronts, faced disruption in 2017 from increasing automation and the boardroom spat in software major Infosys spilling into the public domain. Though the $150-billion (almost Rs 10 trillion) software sector reconciled to single digit export growth of 7-8 per cent for the 2017-18 fiscal, demand for more automation and using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the services had put the vendors under pressure to hone the skills of their techies in the thousands and invest in new technologies to deliver on time for global enterprises.

Alibaba backed mobile financial services platform Paytm on Wednesday announced that its app has crossed the 100 million milestone on Google Play Store in the second week of December 2017. This makes Paytm the country’s first payment app to cross the 100 million downloads mark.

The State Bank of India has asked its customers to stop using cheque books of its 6 subsidiary banks as they would be invalid from December 31 onwards.

The country's biggest public lender has asked the account holders of State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Raipur, State Bank of Travancore, State Bank of Hyderabad and Bhartiya Mahila Bank to submit the application to change the cheque book and said that Old cheque books and IFSC codes will be invalid after December 31.

Activist investor Cevian Capital has agreed to sell its 8.2 per cent stake in Swedish truck maker AB Volvo to China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, Cevian and Geely announced in a joint statement on Wednesday.

They did not disclose the value of the transaction, which makes Geely Volvo's largest owner by capital and the second biggest by voting rights after investment firm Industrivarden.

MUMBAI: A late surge in the last half an hour of Tuesday's session took the sensex to a record closing high — above the 34,000 mark, helped by a sudden spurt in Reliance and Bharti Airtel stocks.

After opening at 34,005, the sensex mostly remained in a narrow zone before racing past the psychologically important mark to close 70 points higher at 34,011.

Coal India Ltd (CIL)’s profitability should benefit from a rise in coal earnings. Last week, it introduced evacuation facility charges of Rs50 per tonne on all coal despatches (except despatches through rapid-loading arrangement) with immediate effect. This is expected to generate incremental annual revenue of Rs2,500 crore, adding Rs800 crore to revenue in the current fiscal alone.

The year 2017 has been a year of consolidation and has given the company the much needed breather to take step back and align its business strategy and increase its focus and presence in the global markets. Despite no all-new launches, Mahindra managed to make big headlines on several occasions and is now warming up to 2018, which is when it will execute many of its business plans.

The richest people on earth became $1 trillion richer in 2017, more than four times last year’s gain, as stock markets shrugged off economic, social and political divisions to reach record highs. The 23 percent increase on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s 500 richest people, compares with an almost 20 percent increase for both the MSCI World Index and Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

In a bid to boost the 5G technology in the country, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has framed a plan to set up a test-bed. This will be anchored by the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, as per a report by The Indian Express. DoT has also sought an amount of Rs 35 crore, for the same, in the second batch of supplementary demands for grants for 2017-18. A DoT official confirmed that the test-bed is expected to be operational within the next six months.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will consider a raft of proposals to ease various compliance procedures for listed insolvent companies—especially with regard to trading, listing and de-listing norms, and declaration of financial results—at its board meeting on Thursday, official sources told FE. The proposals include relaxing the requirement of a minimum 25% public shareholding and the stringent procedures to de-list a stressed company, if that is part of the resolution plan.

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