The report on Digital Payments, prepared by the committee headed by former Finance Secretary Ratan P. Watal, was put in public domain on Tuesday and suggests outsourcing electronic fund transfer systems like RTGS and NEFT and making the service available round the clock.

"RBI should progressively increase their timings over due course. Upgrade payment systems like RTGS and NEFT to operate on 24x7 basis in due course of time. Consider outsourcing the function of operation of payment systems like Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT)," the report said.

Increased focus by central and state governments on improving the road network and transportation under the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) has provided a boost to bus purchases, helping the segment buck the broader demand trend.

Implemented in Ahmedabad, Pune, Rajkot, Bhopal, Indore, Surat and Amritsar, the BRTS has found several takers. Its acceptance as a smarter and cheaper alternative to the metro rail have pushed several state governments to adopt it.

Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is finalising norms for allowing options in commodities, albeit cautiously.

While the decision is expected to be taken soon, experts have suggested various other measures which could be taken simultaneously to achieve the objective of increasing the hedging by farmers. These objectives were also discussed during the meeting of the regulator with stakeholders and also with the commodity market advisory committee recently.

Tata Motors on Tuesday roped in Bollywood star Akshay Kumar as brand ambassador for its commercial vehicle (CV) business unit.

"Indian cinema's 'original Khiladi' will make his blockbuster entry in this new role at the launch of Tata Motors' latest offering in commercial vehicles, slated in January 2017," the company said in a statement.

NEW DELHI: The home ministry's new year gift to its foreign tourists from 161 countries will be a pre-loaded sim card at 12 major airports of the country after home minister Rajnath Singh formally launches the scheme this weekend.

The ready-to-call sim cards will be available to foreign tourists arriving at airports in Panjim, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Jaipur, Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Lucknow, Delhi and Varanasi to start with.

When other Indian tycoons were greedy, the richest of all was hesitant, even fearful. But now that most of his rivals have fallen on the swords of their debt-fueled hubris, Mukesh Ambani is preparing to pounce.

Ambani, 59, has all but completed massive investments in his petrochemicals empire, whose cash flows give him the firepower to promote and expand his new fourth-generation mobile service. He hopes to turn the network into a payments gateway:

The benchmark BSE Sensex firmed up further by 117 points in late morning trade on sustained buying in consumer durables, healthcare, IT, and energy stocks.

The Sensex opened higher at 25,815.43 and hovered in a range of 25,954.81 points to 25,803.19 points in morning trade. At 1145 hrs, the 30-share barometer was higher by 117 points, or 0.46%, at 25,924.80 points with 24 of the index constituents trading in the green.

Private sector lender ICICI Bank Tuesday said it has launched mobile app 'Eazypay' that enables merchants, retailers and professionals to accept instant cashless payments on mobile phones from their customers through multiple digital modes.

A first-of-its kind application, Eazypay offers customers the improved convenience of paying by using their mobile phone through Unified Payment Interface (UPI), any credit or debit card or Internet banking, ICICI Bank said in a statement.

The $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn can propel technology giant Microsoft to be the first tech company to attain a market value of $1 trillion, an analyst has said. A report in GeekWire on Monday quoted Michael Markowski, who writes for Equities, as saying that Microsoft will reach that threshold before other big companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple.

“Microsoft will do it by leveraging LinkedIn to become a leader in social media and the emerging crowdfunding industry,” the report said.

The Railways has sent a letter to the West Bengal government stating that from now on the state has to take responsibilities of all ongoing and upcoming projects of the suburban system as well as Metro Railway.

According to a highly-placed source at the state secretariat Nabanna, the letter addressed to the Chief Secretary, the Transport Secretary and the Urban Development Secretary, was sent last week from the Railways Works Planning Directorate.

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