Fuel retailer IOC has for the second year in a row beaten ONGC to become India's most profitable State-owned company, raising questions over calls for the explorer to subsidise retailers amid soaring petrol and diesel rates.

Indian Oil Corporation, which has for decades been India's biggest company by turnover, last week posted a record net profit of Rs 21,346 crore in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018 (FY 2017-18), up 12 per cent from Rs 19,106 crore in the last fiscal.

Mumbai: At a time when lenders are rationalising branches, Axis Bank has decided to add 400 branches in the financial year 2018-19, taking its network beyond 4,000. The expansion is part of a strategy to grow retail business and expand the deposit base.

Axis Bank executive director and head of retail Rajiv Anand said, “We found that applications for our online savings account ‘ASAP’ were coming from 16,000 locations. We did a survey and found that the reason why most of them chose Axis Bank was because there was a branch nearby.”

The BSE Sensex advanced about 106 points in early session maintaining its positive form for the second day following robust growth data for the March quarter. Investors creating new positions at the beginning of the June futures and options (F&O) series also lifted the key indices.

The 30-share index, which had rallied 416.27 points in the previous session, was trading higher by 105.57 points, or 0.30 %, at 35,427.95.

Amazon Seller Services, the online marketplace arm of Amazon India, saw its net loss widening to Rs 4,830.6 crore in FY17 against Rs 3,679.9 crore in the preceding year, according to filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) and data platform Tofler. Revenue from operations increased 41% to Rs 3,128.7 crore in FY17 from Rs 2,217.9 crore in FY16.

India’s high-profile offer to sell a stake in Air India failed to attract a single bidder by the Thursday deadline, dealing a blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s target for offloading stakes in government-held firms. The no-show by buyers in a booming aviation market underlines the challenges the government faces in fixing the debt-laden national carrier, and was a setback for Modi’s credentials as a reformer willing to step away from running money-losing businesses.

The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and its director-general Rajan S Mathews to refrain from making disparaging and defamatory statements against Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio) Justice Yogesh Khanna, while issuing notice to Mathews, expressed doubt about the use of phrases like “back door operator”, “skullduggery”, “deep pockets and monopolistic designs” against Reliance Jio.

Volvo Car India has announced it will launch the new XC40 on July 4. The entry-luxury SUV, which will compete with BMW X1, Mercedes-Benz GLA and Audi Q3, gets the 2.0-litre, four-cylinder diesel engine that produces 190bhp of power and 400Nm of torque.

GMR Infrastructure’s auditors SR Batliboi & Associates have observed in the auditor’s report that the group has not accounted for an impairment loss of Rs 2,250 crore in the accompanying consolidated Ind AS financial results for the quarter and year ended March 31, 2018. “In our opinion, the aforesaid accounting treatment is not in accordance with the relevant accounting standards.

Maruti Suzuki, which had forayed into the commercial vehicle segment with the launch of the Super Carry in September 2016 with a pilot in the three cities of Ludhiana, Kolkata and Ahmedabad, has announced it has reached the milestone of 200 outlets which are selling this vehicle in more than 165 cities.

Digital payments major Paytm today said it has crossed an annual gross transaction run-rate of USD 29 billion, driven by growth across mobile payments and bank transfers through its platform. A Paytm spokesperson said the company is witnessing strong growth in both mobile payments usage as well as transactions through bank transfers, which has been recently introduced. “We are already seeing a GTV (gross transaction value) run rate of USD 29 billion.

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