Fintech
Bitcoin climbed back above $82,500 on October 19, up about 1% in 24 hours after falling below $80,000 last week. But US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw about $228 million of outflows from October 12 to 16, Ether ETFs lost $320 million, and uncertainty ahead of the Fed's October 27-28 meeting kept the rebound fragile.
Aravind Kumar
Author
Indian lenders are moving beyond credit bureau scores to combine GST filings, bank transactions shared through account aggregators and other real-time data, says Ashok Hariharan, founder of identity verification platform IDfy. Digital onboarding has transformed the front end of lending, he says, but back-end processes have changed far less.
Shopify is reportedly preparing to launch its Shop Pay accelerated checkout in India by early 2027, a move that would put it in direct competition with GoKwik, Shopflo, Razorpay's Magic Checkout and other Indian checkout providers serving D2C brands.
The National Payments Corporation of India has deferred the planned 0.4% merchant discount rate on UPI person-to-merchant payments above ₹2,000, which was due to start on October 15, until after Diwali. No new date has been set, and the decision follows weeks of pushback from traders.
Causa Prima, founded this year by Taulia co-founder Maex Ament, has raised a $20 million seed round led by Base10 Partners for a network in which AI agents representing buyers and suppliers negotiate invoice disputes, payment timing and early-payment discounts.
The 0.40% merchant discount rate on larger UPI payments, due on October 15, could be pushed to January 1 next year, with an exemption for merchants with turnover up to ₹40 lakh under consideration.
The Insurance Brokers Association of India and insurtechs including PolicyBazaar, Turtlemint and Coverfox are pushing back against IRDAI proposals to reintroduce product-wise commission caps, warning of a 60–70% revenue collapse and up to 10 lakh job losses.
IPO-bound Razorpay will help Indian brands such as Tanishq, Tata Neu and Traya plan, run and measure ChatGPT Ads through its Razorpay Engage platform, extending a partnership with OpenAI that began with agentic payments.
At the Kautilya Economic Conclave, RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra cited risks to monetary sovereignty and capital flows from crypto, while saying the central bank is already using its underlying technologies.