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 Firspost Dated 30.11.2020 Traders’ body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said in a letter to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman that banks act in collusion with e-commerce companies to provide incentives to customers, which goes against the Reserve Bank of India’s Fair Practices Code. “In the present case, it has been noticed that several Banks including State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, ICICI Bank,, Axis Bank, Citi Bank, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HSBC Bank, RBL Bank and others have entered into an unholy alliance with e-commerce companies prominently with Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, forming a cartel and thereby granting 10 percent cash back and other incentives in lieu of making payments using respective bank cards while purchasing goods from online portals,” wrote Praveen Khandelwal, National Secretary General, CAIT. However, the letter said these banks don’t provide the  same benefit to shoppers  who use online mode of payment while buying di...

 Amazon.com Inc., which won interim relief against Future group in a Singapore court, is likely to move an Indian high court by next week to enforce the verdict if Future declines to pursue arbitration proceedings in the city-state, two people aware of the development said. Amazon and Future have a week’s time to mutually agree on whether to continue with the arbitration proceedings at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre failing which, a long-winding legal tussle between both sides is likely, the people said seeking anonymity.The Singapore court restrained Future from selling its assets to Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) on Sunday. The dispute between the two parties relates to Future’s sale of its retail, wholesale and warehousing assets to Mukesh Ambani’s RIL for Rs24,713 crore. Amazon, which owns a 5% indirect stake in Future Retail Ltd, has contested the sale in the Singapore court, claiming that its 2019 investment agreement bars Future group from selling its assets t...

Hindustan Times July 09, 2020 Tarush Bhalla and Asit Ranjan Mishra The government is keen to make it mandatory to display ‘country of origin’ of products sold on e-commerce platforms starting August 1, but online retailers have pushed back saying the deadline may not be feasible. The department for promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT) on Wednesday held a second meeting on the matter after the initial consultation two weeks ago, attended by close to 30 e-commerce players. DPIIT made it clear that it is looking to have ‘country of origin’ available for new listings on e-commerce platforms by August 1, and for legacy listings by the end of September, two officials of e-commerce companies present in the meeting told  Mint  under condition of anonymity. “We heard the views of the e-commerce players. A date for implementation of the ‘country or origin’ proposal has not been finalized yet. We will consult with the department of consumer affairs before taking...

Deccan Chronicle May 26, 2020 Author: ANNIE THOMAS Weeks after Mukesh Ambani signed a deal between JioMart and Facebook, the self-declared kirana store aggregator has launched its services in 200 cities, including small cities such as Bhatinda, Mysuru and Dehradun, but without taking the neighbourhood stores on board. A pilot project launched last month in Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan, all suburbs of Mumbai, included kirana stores as well as JioMart’s own warehouses; but now with the national launch, the kirana stores are nowhere in the picture at present. Currently, grocery orders placed on the JioMart website are serviced by Reliance Smart and Fresh stores and Reliance Retail’s Sahakari Bhandar stores, not neighbourhood shops, PTI quoted the financial services company Credit Suisse as saying. “Just prior to the national launch, Reliance Retail tapped the WhatsApp customer base in the three pilot regions to source orders. In our view, it was just a test phase ...

Live Mint January 09, 2020 Paytm (One 97 Communications Ltd) has spent nearly  ₹ 14,500 crore to convince Indians to substitute digital payments for cash. For a few months after demonetization in November 2016, it seemed like the company was on the cusp of victory. But now, Paytm is in danger of having its lunch eaten by newer payment apps, even as cash remains the preferred choice of payments for most Indians. Though digital payments are still expected to grow to $1 trillion by 2023 compared with $200 billion in 2018, according to a 2018 Credit Suisse report, digital wallets, where Paytm has established a monopoly, may soon become obsolete. Growth in digital payments is now being led by the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform. Dozens of large companies and small startups from Reliance Industries to Facebook to Razorpay are launching UPI-based products. Two newer payment apps, in particular, are threatening to topple Paytm. For many months now, Walmart-owned Pho...

Business Line New report says e-comm can boost firm productivity, diversification of production and exports. E-commerce can become a driver of growth across South Asia and boost trade among the region’s countries, but its potential remains largely untapped, says a new World Bank report. This report,  Unleashing E-Commerce for South Asian Integration , notes that although e-commerce has grown significantly in South Asia, online sales accounted for a mere 1.6 per cent and 0.7 per cent of total retail sales in India and Bangladesh, compared to 15 per cent in China and around 14 per cent globally. Increasing the use of e-commerce by consumers and firms in South Asia could potentially help boost competition and firm productivity, and encourage diversification of production and exports, the report added. Like the European Union’s Digital Single market proposal, South Asia could aspire to have a regionally integrated Business-to-Consumer (B2C) e-commerce market, the report...