Tag: EY India

RBI orders Bank of Baroda to halt new customer onboarding on ‘bob World’ app

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday (October 10) directed the Bank of Baroda to immediately suspend any further onboarding of customers onto its ‘bob World’ mobile application. While the company has said that it won’t have a material impact on its earnings, a Macquarie report showed that the app accounts for 43% of time deposits and three-fourth of all its retail loans.

This regulator cited significant supervisory concerns observed in the manner in which customers have been onboarded onto this mobile application. The RBI has asked the bank to rectify the issues raised before inviting new customers to the app.

Also Read: Bank of Baroda crosses ₹22-lakh crore business milestone in Q2, total deposits up 15%

Bank of Baroda has also been asked to ensure that customers who already have the ‘bob World’ app do not experience any service disruptions due to this suspension.

Responding to the RBI’s directions, the state-owned lender said it has already taken some corrective measures and has initiated further steps to plug any remaining gaps. “This order does not impact any of the bank’s other digital banking channels such as netbanking, WhatsApp banking, debit cards, ATMs, etc, for servicing its existing customers as well as for onboarding of new customers,” the lender added.

The bank does not expect the RBI’s action to have a material impact on its overall business and growth plans. However, broking firm Macquarie said that this would hamper both asset and liability growth in near term.  “significant proportion of personal loans (89%), home loans (68%), auto loans (67%) and credit cards (61%) are sourced digitally,” the report added.

Macquarie has a ‘neutral’ rating on the shares of Bank of Baroda, with a target price of Rs 188 per share.

Back in July 2023, a report by Al Jazeera accused the Bank of Baroda of tampering with its accounts to boost registrations on its mobile app, BoB World.

“The bank reiterates that a full system authenticated, and customer consent-based process … is currently being followed for undertaking any mobile banking app registrations in the bank,” the Mumbai-based company said in response.

Abizer Diwanji, holding the position of Partner & National Leader Financial Services at EY India, is less afraid of the risks faced by Bank of Baroda.  ‘I don’t think that the bob World business is that significant part of Bank of Baroda’s business as yet as yet. So, in a way, it is good that something like this get highlighted now, so that when the scale up comes through, these issues are well taken care of,” he said in a conversation with CNBC-TV18 on October 11.

However, he added, that if there’s an issue related to fraud, the challenges for the bank may last longer.

For more details, watch the accompanying video

Also, catch all the live updates on markets with CNBC-TV18.com’s blog

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

21 finalists for 23rd EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards Program announced

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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EY, a leading global professional services organization, recently announced the selection of 21 of the most exceptional entrepreneurs as finalists for the 23rd Entrepreneur of the Year-India (EOY) 2021 Awards. The finalists have been selected from over 240 nominations and will be felicitated at an awards ceremony in Mumbai on April 12, 2022.

The winner of the Entrepreneur of the Year Award from India will represent the country at the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year Award (WEOY) on June 10, 2022.

CNBC-TV18 is broadcast partner of the awards ceremony, which will be telecast live from Mumbai at 7pm.

“The 21 finalists have combined revenues of Rs 1,87,000 crore and are providing employment to over 2,60,000 people. Underscoring their resilience, the finalists also reported significantly strong financial performance in times when global and domestic economic growth rates have been volatile,” EY said in a statement.

A nine-member independent jury panel led by KV Kamath, Former Chairman of ICICI Bank, selected the finalists. The other jury members include Dr. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson of Biocon; Vibha Padalkar, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of HDFC Life; Neeraj Bharadwaj,
Managing Director of The Carlyle Group; Amit Dixit, Head Asia Private Equity at Blackstone; Rajnish Kumar, Former Chairman at State Bank of India; Harsh C. Mariwala, Chairman at Marico; Sanjiv Mehta, Chairman and Managing Director of Hindustan Unilever; and Gopal Srinivasan, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director at TVS Capital Funds.

The jury considered a host of criterion including the nominee’s entrepreneurial spirit, ability to navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic, recent financial performance, strategic direction, product or service innovation, leadership including personal integrity and risk-taking abilities, corporate governance, and social and environmental impact, the company stated.

 21 Finalists for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 India Awards:

-Abhay Soi, Chairman and Managing Director, Max Healthcare
-Amit Jain, Chief Executive Officer, Girnar Software (CarDekho)
– Falguni Nayar, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, FSN E-commerce (Nykaa)
-Girish Mathrubootham, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Freshworks
-Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, Co-founders, Razorpay
– Manish Gupta, Chief Executive Officer, Indegene
– Nitin Rakesh, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Mphasis
– Dr. Satyanarayana Chava, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Laurus Labs
-Sahil Barua, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, Delhivery
– Sanjeev Barnwal and Vidit Aatrey, Co-founder & CTO and Co-founder & CEO , Fashnear Technology Pvt Ltd (Meesho)
-Shiv Kishan Agarwal and Manohar Lal Agarwal, Chairman and Managing Director, Haldiram Group
– Sriram Natarajan and Dr. Chandrasekhar Nair, Founders, Molbio Diagnostics
-Sunil Vachani, Founder and Executive Chairman, Dixon Technologies
– Vijay Kumar Arora, Chairman and Managing Director, LT Foods
– Vivek Vikram Singh, Managing Director and Group Chief Executive Officer, Sona Comstar
– Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura, Founders, Delightful Gourmet (Licious)

A M Naik, Chairman of Larsen & Toubro, will be felicitated with the Lifetime Achievement Award. “Mr. Naik is widely recognized for his entrepreneurship and a passionate commitment to advancing the interests of all stakeholders. A concern for social uplift complements Mr. Naik’s keen business interests. He was instrumental in setting up the Larsen & Toubro Public Charitable Trust, which is engaged in a wide spectrum of community development initiatives, including, skill training at several locations around the country” the statement said.

Rajiv Memani, Chairman of EY India, said,  the EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 Finalists have reframed their businesses to capture the upside of the economic rebound. “This year, our finalists include several start-ups and fast-growing companies that are redefining their industries and writing new rules for success. It is also heartening to see that many of our 2021 finalists draw their inspiration in uplifting the less privileged and creating a lasting impact on the wider society,” he said.

Farokh Balsara, Partner and EOY India Program Leader, congratulated the finalists. “What sets them apart is their entrepreneurial mindset is that they see change before it happens, they identify opportunities and have the confidence to move towards them, they are constantly focused on growing, developing and improving,” Balsara said.

The past winners of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year India Awards include, Harsh C. Mariwala (Marico), Dr. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (Biocon), Siddhartha Lal, (Eicher Motors), Sanjiv Bajaj (Bajaj Finserv), Vivek Chaand Sehgal (Samvardhana Motherson), Vinita and Nilesh Gupta (Lupin), Uday Kotak (Kotak Mahindra Bank), Adi Godrej (Godrej Group), Rahul Bhatia (Interglobe Enterprises), Dilip Shanghvi (Sun Pharmaceuticals), Anand Mahindra (Mahindra Group), Anil Agarwal (Vedanta Resources), Kumar Mangalam Birla (Aditya Birla Group), Sunil Bharti Mittal (Bharti Airtel), Ratan Tata (Tata Group), N.R Narayana Murthy (Infosys), Brijmohan Lall Munjal (Hero Group) and Mukesh Ambani (Reliance Industries).

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

EY Entrepreneur of the year award: India surging ahead as an economic power, says Mukesh Ambani

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Reliance Industries (RIL) Chairman Mukesh Ambani believes that India is surging as an economic, democratic, diplomatic, cultural and digital and technology power in the world. Speaking at the Entrepreneur of the Year (EOY) India 2020 Awards organised by professional services organisation EY, the richest Indian said, “We have the potential, in the coming decades to be among the top three economies of the world.”

Marico Chairman Harsh Mariwala was awarded the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Congratulating all entrepreneurs who won awards, Ambani said in the virtual address, “The key driving force of India’s rise will be our entrepreneurs, who are inventing new things everyday that can transform India and the world.”

Here’s the full text of his speech:

“Ladies and gentlemen,

A very good evening to each and every one of you! My hearty congratulations to the entrepreneurs who have won the EY Awards this year. As I look at the India of today and tomorrow, I see a tsunami of opportunities for entrepreneurs. There are two reasons for my confidence.

Firstly, our Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, has been advocating a greater role for the private sector in India’s future development. All of us should welcome this.

Secondly, we now have the revolutionary power of new technologies to transform our economy. A small, medium and big businesses have once in a lifetime opportunity to meet the needs and aspirations of 1.3 billion people for good quality of life.

We have the potential in the coming decades to be among top three economies of the world.

New sectors like Clean Energy, Education, Healthcare, Lifesciences & Biotechnology and transformation of existing agricultural, industrial, and service sectors offer unprecedented opportunities.

Moreover, Indian entrepreneurs are now capable of providing world beating quality to meet the needs of our market at the most competitive cost. This opens-up the entire global market for Indian entrepreneurs.

Hence, Indian entrepreneurs have dual opportunities, first, to serve the domestic markets and then the global markets. Today, our country is going to be the epicentre of global growth and transformation.

India’s rise has already begun.

India is surging ahead as an economic power, as a democratic power, as a diplomatic and strategic power, cultural power. And also, as a digital and technology power. And the key driving force of India’s rise will be our entrepreneurs, who are striving to scale and globalize their businesses; who are inventing new things every day that can transform India and the world; who are disruptive and hungry for success.

My dear entrepreneurs, many of you have started new businesses. Therefore, I would like to share one personal learning with you. Start-up entrepreneurs must be ready to work with limited resources but with unlimited determination.

My young friends, my message is not to be deterred by failure, because only after many failures there is success. I am sure as an entrepreneur you will have the courage and the determination to succeed. Therefore, I am absolutely confident that you are going to script far bigger success stories for India then the entrepreneurs of my generation.

All the best to you as you pursue your dreams. May God bless you! Stay safe. Stay healthy. Thank you.”

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

EY India acquires Spotmentor Technologies

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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EY India on Monday said it has acquired Spotmentor Technologies, an AI-enabled upskilling and reskilling platform, for an undisclosed amount.

The acquisition strengthens EY’s People Advisory portfolio of digital services to help businesses navigate their end-to-end skilling needs, a statement said.

Spotmentor is an end-to-end skilling platform to help businesses identify skills required for the future of work, upskilling and reskilling talent at scale. It leverages emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to help close the critical competency gaps in an organisation, the statement said.

“It remains our priority to enable clients with tools and resources to help them adapt to rapid changes and navigate market disruptions in the new normal,” Rohan Sachdev, Partner and Consulting Leader at EY India, said.

The acquisition of Spotmentor Technologies will boost digital offerings, combining strengths in strategic people consulting and seasoned experience in learning and skills development, he added.

“This reinforces our continued commitment and investments in technology and strategic acquisitions to further our range of digital offerings,” Sachdev said. EY Spotmentor – the software-as-a-service based skills, learning and careers platform – provides 360-degree skills industry benchmarking to help create success profiles and real-time identification and closure of skill gaps.

It is also designed to provide easy access to quality content, curated learning plans, and offers a real-time skill inventory health index, the statement said.

Anurag Malik, Partner – People Advisory Services at EY India, said over the past year, the company has collaborated with Spotmentor Technologies team to equip its clients with the right skillsets and they have benefitted immensely from this association.

“This new technology solution further strengthens our People Advisory portfolio of digital services, enabling us to effectively harness our client’s people agenda as part of an integrated business strategy,” he added.

Spotmentor Technologies was co-founded by Deepak Singh, Arpit Goyal, Shekhar Suman and Yash Pl Mittal in 2016 in Gurugram. The company broadly focused on large enterprises, government and industry bodies.

Last year, EY India acquired C Centric (CRM solutions and services provider) and in 2018, acquired Fortune Cookie UX Design.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

EY ‘India Divestment Study’: 58% companies plan to divest within next 12 months

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The COVID-19 outbreak and the subsequent nationwide lockdown in India has triggered an economic crisis, forcing companies to look at restructuring their businesses.

The bottomline is that businesses are moving towards a technologically enabled future by cultivating partnerships that will strengthen their operational capabilities. Naveen Tiwari, partner and head of carve-out and integration, EY India, shared his views and outlook.

According to the EY’s India Divestment Study, based on responses from more than 40 corporates, 58 percent of the companies are planning to divest in the next 12 months. That’s not all, the study also highlights that most companies understand the need to divest their assets as COVID-19 is having a significant impact on their finances. Debt repayment and raising capital are some of the key challenges.

Further, companies are looking to make their businesses more agile and resilient to face the hurdles that could crop up in the post-COVID era – companies are looking at restructuring their balancesheet, cutting down debts and looking at divestment proceeds from the non-core businesses to strengthen their balancesheets.

Watch this video for details

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

India to be 5th largest FMCG market by 2025: EY Report

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Country’s long term consumption story seems to be intact as India is expected to be the fifth-largest consumer products market in the world by 2025 with a size of $262 billion, according to an EY India report.

According to the report, a robust ecosystem along with a favourable demographic is expected to drive growth in India’s consumer retail sector.

Rapid changes in technology, the emergence of ecommerce and social media is pushing incumbents to tweak their strategy to stay relevant. “Companies need to be agile and keep consumers at the centre of the heart. Companies need to deliver products that consumers really want,” said Pinakiranjan Mishra, Partner and National Leader – Consumer Product & Retail, EY India.

Consumer goods companies have started personalising both digital and product strategies to cater to the target audience. “Mondelez is consumer obsessed and we have built a digital strategy to understand consumers better. Our digital strategy is focused on how to maximize return on investment on media investments,” said Sanjay Gurubaxani, CIO – Asia, Middle East and Africa, Mondelez. The chocolate and snacking giant also does personalisation in its gifting portfolio.

With the advertising pie shifting beyond the conventional mediums, brands are now engaging with consumers across multimedia platforms. Social media is certainly one such platform. Up to 60 percent consumers across age groups said that social media was an important influencing factor to try a new brand, according to the EY India survey on consumer insights.

Based on such consumer insights and trends, FMCG companies are happy to invest in these areas of interest. For instance, to cater to the trend towards health and wellness, FMCG companies have launched products with less sugar, salt and fat.

In a bid to align themselves with sustainability goals, companies like Hindustan Unilever has launched detergent that reduces the amount of water required to rinse clothes. “Companies need to innovate more, experiment more and learn faster. In this way, scale up the innovation and build on the same learning,” said Zaved Akhtar, VP, Digital Transformation and Growth – South Asia, Hindustan Unilever.

Partnering with start-ups in the ‘emerging’ consumer domains could help larger FMCG companies stay relevant to consumers. Owing to their sharp focus on consumers, start-ups are able to build nimble organisations with better turnaround time. Building in innovation in the overall business model for large consumer giants could be a good way to stay relevant to consumers, say experts.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Companies need to deliver products that consumers want rather than what they are good at, says EY India

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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India will be the fifth largest consumer products market in the world by 2025 with a size of USD 262 billion, according to an EY India report. A strong economic ecosystem along with a favourable demographic will drive growth for the consumer retail sector in India.

While the growth trajectory for the industry looks solid, rapid changes in technology and the emergence of e-commerce & social media has meant that the large players now need to rethink business models and strategy to be able to cater to a consumer who knows his/her mind. On top of that, there is competition in the form of agile & tech friendly startups. These companies are able to innovate quickly and keep the consumer at the heart of every business decision. This is exposing the chinks in the armour of incumbent players in consumer retail sector.

So what does this new breed of consumers want when they go out shopping?

An EY India survey across cities, age-groups and income brackets shows;

• A whopping 80 percent consumers are willing to pay up to 25 percent higher prices if they receive the desired value – showing a strong appetite for premium products.
• Three-fourths or 75 percent of consumers surveyed chose to try a new brand because they thought it was ‘better-for-them’ – free from harmful ingredients, more effective or healthier.
• Value-for-money continued to be a critical factor while making purchase decisions – it was the second most important reason for trying a newer brand.
• 60 percent consumers across age groups said that social media was an important influencing factor to try a new brand.

Now that we know how this breed of consumers think, are large consumer companies ready for the challenge? How do these incumbent players ensure that they are able to move fast to adopt technology, upgrade business plans and communicate effectively within this fast evolving consumer market?

To discuss this Shereen Bhan spoke to Zaved Akhtar VP at Hindustan Unilever, Sanjay Gurubaxani Global Innovation Lead at Mondelez and Pinakiranjan Mishra, Partner at EY India.

Akhtar said, “Typically you are operating in a mass market CPG industry, the change that is happening today is that there is much more bespoke need and requirement, so there are people who want huge amount of personalisation that is required. So your consumer understanding continues to be very important element of it, but you need to have a much more granular understanding of the consumer insights and enabling us to really create bespoke solutions.”

“For instance – I would sell a detergent powder and I would create a detergent powder and sell it to the mass consumer for that. But today I am creating a detergent liquid that is designed for your fine cottons, silks and woollens. Now these are bespoke products for specific benefits, so hence you need to really have a sharper understanding so that you can personalise your solutions for these set of consumers.”

Mishra said, “If you look at one significant lever that companies need to look at, probably would be agility and keeping the consumer at the center of their heart. Today, companies are probably delivering products that they are good at, I think they need to move to delivering products, which the consumers want rather than what they are good at and that is a big ask from the larger companies.”

According to Gurubaxani, “Mondelez now is also extremely consumer obsessed. We are putting the consumer at the heart of everything we do. We have also built a digital strategy. We are going out to understand our consumers better and that is where we are learning about the consumer. Personalisation at scale is growing and that is what we are going after and growing across our company.”

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Budget 2020: Govt can look at rationalising tax structure, tax slabs, says EY India

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Ahead of Budget 2020, CNBC-TV18’s special show ‘Budget Hotline’ gives its viewers an opportunity to put forth all their tax queries as well as share their expectations from the budget. Sonu Iyer of EY India answers all tax related queries.

Talking about her expectations from budget Iyer said, “With regards to the rationalisation of long term capital gains tax on equity transactions, there could be two things – one, they could increase the holding period from 12 months to 24 months and do away with the tax totally or restricting it to the continued 10 percent tax on long term capital gains but increasing the holding period to two years wouldn’t really have much of an impact. If they want to give a full exemption from tax on equity transactions, then increasing the holding period 12 months to 24 months would be one big expectation which I hope will come true or they could also toy with the idea of doing away with securities transaction tax (STT)  .”

When asked if the government had more room to manoeuvre Iyer said, “It is well known that the finance minister is in an unenviable position, she doesn’t really has much room to manoeuver, given that the revenues are critical, if the government has to undertake capital expenditure to kick start infrastructure spending. So for that I think it has to be a big balancing act.”

Answering a query on whether personal tax could be replaced by another avenue of generating income for the government Iyer said, “Doing away with personal tax and instead focusing on indirect tax is not a great idea because if you look at it if there was no personal tax and government’s entire revenue collection was coming through goods and services tax this would lead to personal inequity in the social structure where even the poor people have to pay more to buy goods and services because increased tax would come through GST.”

However, the government can certainly look at rationalising the tax structures, the tax slabs, she said.

Speaking about inheritance tax she said, “I don’t expect estate duty or inheritance tax to come in simply for the reason that earlier when the government actually took away the wealth tax, it really brought in the message that the cost of collection of this wealth tax or any form of wealth tax is much higher than what we actually collect. I don’t see estate duty or inheritance tax coming at all.”

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow