Mumbai, July 1 (IANS) Indian stock indices closed in green on Monday following the rally in IT shares. At closing, Sensex was at 79,476, up 443 points or 0.56 per cent and Nifty was up 131 points or 0.55 per cent, at 24,141.

During the day, midcap and smallcap stocks outperform compared to largecaps. The Nifty midcap 100 index was up 555 points or one per cent, at 56,292 and the Nifty smallcap was up 275 points or 1.51 per cent, at 18,593.

Among the sectoral indices, Auto, IT, fin service, media and bank were major gainers. Realty and energy index were major laggards.

Tech Mahindra, Wipro, UltraTech Cement, Bajaj Finance, TCS, Infosys, JSW Steel, and HDFC Bank were the top gainers. NTPC, SBI, L&T, IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank, and Bajaj Finserv were the top losers.

As per the market experts, “The domestic market sustained its upward momentum, with a reduction in US PCE inflation raising hopes for a rate cut by the FED in September. This optimism contributed to the strong performance of IT stocks. We anticipate this trend will persist in the near term due to expectations of a rebound in discretionary spending.”

“Investors are now focusing on upcoming US job data and the Fed Chair’s speech for further indication on interest rates,” they added.

The market had started flat on Monday. The Sensex was trading above 79,000 with marginal gains and Nifty was around 24,000.

–IANS

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Mumbai, July 1 (IANS) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday said that 97.87 per cent of the ₹2000 banknotes that were in circulation as of May 19, 2023, when their withdrawal was announced, have now been returned.

The total value of ₹2000 banknotes in circulation has declined to ₹7581 crore at the close of business on June 28, 2024, from ₹3.56 lakh crore at the close of business on May 19, 2023, according to the RBI’s latest update.

The facility for the exchange of the ₹2000 banknotes has been made available at the 19 Issue Offices of the Reserve Bank 1 since May 19, 2023.

From October 9, 2023, RBI Issue Offices are also accepting ₹2000 banknotes from individuals/entities for deposit into their bank accounts.

Further, members of the public are sending ₹2000 banknotes through India Post from any post office within the country to any of the RBI Issue Offices for credit to their bank accounts.

The ₹2000 banknotes continue to be legal tender.

–IANS

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Mumbai, July 1 (IANS) Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday announced that it has now joined Project Nexus with the four ASEAN countries to create a platform to facilitate instantaneous cross-border retail payments.

Nexus, conceptualised by the Innovation Hub of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), aims to connect India’s UPI (Unified Payments Interface), with the fast payment systems of ASEAN members — Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. These four countries and India would be the founding members and first-mover nations of this platform, the RBI said.

An agreement to this effect was signed by the BIS and the central banks of the founding countries i.e., Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), Bank of Thailand (BOT), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), and Reserve Bank of India on June 30, 2024, in Basel, Switzerland, according to an RBI statement.

Indonesia, which has been involved from the early stages, continues to be involved as a special observer.

The RBI has been collaborating bilaterally with various countries to link India’s Fast Payments System (FPS) – the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), with their respective FPSs for cross-border Person to Person (P2P) and Person to Merchant (P2M) payments.

“While India and its partner countries can continue to benefit through such bilateral connectivity of Fast Payment Systems, a multilateral approach will provide further impetus to our efforts in expanding the international reach of Indian payment systems,” the RBI said.

The platform can be extended to more countries, going forward. The platform is expected to go live by 2026. Once functional, Nexus will play an important role in making retail cross-border payments efficient, faster, and more cost-effective, the RBI statement added.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 1 (IANS) The overall Indian Public Cloud Services (PCS) market is expected to reach $24.2 billion by 2028, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.8 per cent, a report showed on Monday.

The revenue from Indian PCS market reached $8.3 billion in 2023, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).

The PCS market includes infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions.

“While enterprises continue to modernize IT on IaaS offerings, core business applications have a shifting trend to SaaS models on public cloud. These offerings are further enhanced by GenAI technologies to improve user experience and productivity,” said Rajiv Ranjan, Associate Research Director, Cloud and Artificial Intelligence, IDC India.

The top two vendors continued to hold more than 40 per cent of the India PCS market in 2023.

Public Cloud adoption in India continued to rise as enterprises preferred public cloud services for their digital transformation initiatives, application modernization, and productivity enhancements.

“Moreover, the increased focus on cost optimisation in recent times has accelerated the move towards as-a-service consumption models, thus driving public cloud adoption,” said Harish Krishnakumar, senior market analyst, IDC India.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 1 (IANS) India’s manufacturing activity picked up momentum in June on the back of rising consumer demand leading to the fastest rate of hiring in 19 years, according to HSBC’s final India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), compiled by S&P Global, released on Monday.

“The Indian manufacturing sector ended the June quarter on a stronger footing. The headline manufacturing PMI rose by 0.8 percentage points to 58.3 in June, supported by increased new orders and output,” said Maitreyi Das, global economist, HSBC.

The performance of the consumer goods industry was especially strong, although substantial increases were also noted in the intermediate and investment goods categories, the report stated.

Export growth is also likely to be better compared with the previous year as the 400 firms surveyed for the index recorded another month of strong growth of new export orders, with Asia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Europe and the US being the driving economies.

Input inflation remains above the long-run average. However, manufacturers were able to pass on higher costs to customers, as demand remained robust, resulting in improved margins,” said Das.

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has projected that India’s goods and services exports are likely to increase by 3 per cent to surpass $800 billion in 2024-25.

Reserve Bank of India recently revised India’s growth forecast upward to 7.2 per cent from 7 per cent earlier.

–IANS

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