Paytm is on a major global expansion drive. After launching its wallet in Japan, sources said Paytm is planning to make an entry into Europe. However, things are at a nascent stage and plans of entering Europe might not kick off before next year. After gaining 300 million mobile wallet users in India, the firm has now expanded operations to Japan via PayPay Corporation, a joint venture established by SoftBank Corp and Yahoo Japan Corporation.

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RIL) posted a 17.9 per cent year-on-year growth in its June 2018 quarter (Q1) net profit (excluding exceptional items) on the back of robust performance of its petrochemicals (petchem) operations as well as strong show in the retail and telecom businesses.

For the April-June 2018 quarter, RIL posted a net profit of Rs 94.59 billion compared to Rs 91.08 billion reported in the year-ago quarter, which is a rise of 3.9 per cent.

Reliance Industry's telecom arm Jio Infocomm reported a net profit of Rs 6.1 billion for April-June quarter, a rise of 20 per cent from Rs 5.1 billion during the year-ago period. The average revenue per user (ARPU), however, fell marginally to Rs 134.5 (from Rs 137 last quarter), but continued to be higher than the industry average.

Riding on its growing AWS Cloud and advertising portfolio, Amazon posted a record profit of $2.5 billion (or $5.07 per diluted share) in the second quarter of 2018 -- an impressive jump from the $197 million (or $0.40 per diluted share) it posted in the same period last year.

Revenue grew 39 per cent year-over-year to $52.89 per cent while operating cash flow increased 22 per cent to $21.8 billion. The second quarter sales went up 39 per cent to $52.9 billion.

ITC Ltd may consider the acquisition of GSK-owned Horlicks brand in India, provided its valuation is right. The bid is expected to be opened next month. However, ITC is not interested in the Complan brand of health drinks from Kraft Heinz.

It is suggested that in case of a takeover of this brand, the acquirer may also have to take over several other brands like prickly heat powder Nycil and glucose drink Glucon D.

The US bankruptcy court has asked Nirav Modi and two of his aides — Mihir Bhansali and Rakhi Bhansali — to appear before it after Punjab National Bank (PNB) and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) filed petitions to this effect.

Mihir was head of the US arm of Firestar Diamond and Rakhi was a director in the firm. PNB and MCA had filed a petition to issue subpoena or witness summons in the court.

Private sector lender ICICI Bank reported its first-ever loss amounting to Rs 1.2 billion for the June 2018 quarter (Q1) on Friday as provisions for bad loans doubled. The bank had made a net profit of Rs 20.49 billion in the same period last year.

The loss would have been higher if it weren’t for the Rs 11.1 billion profit on the sale of its 2 per cent stake in the life insurance arm, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance.

Share Market Today: Indian stock markets (Sensex and Nifty) surged to record highs in the late afternoon deals with BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty finishing at all-time highs following the sharp rally in the shares of ITC, RIL, ICICI Bank, HDFC, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank. Both the key indices Sensex and Nifty edged higher in the late trade on the sustained upsurge in the shares of ITC, RIL, HDFC, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has sought details from India’s ICICI Bank Ltd. on its accounting and corporate governance practices, people familiar with the matter said.The SEC’s queries center on ICICI’s dealings with certain borrowers under Chief Executive Officer Chanda Kochhar and whether there had been is representations in the bank’s accounting, the people said, asking not to be identified.

SoftBank Group Corp today said it will launch a digital payments service in Japan, and has partnered Paytm for the service. The service PayPay will be launched by SoftBank’s joint venture PayPay Corporation (with Yahoo Japan) in fall this year, SoftBank said in a statement. “PayPay Corporation will team up with India’s largest digital payments company Paytm, a SoftBank Vision Fund portfolio company, to utilise Paytm’s technology and expertise in mobile payments,” it added.

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