- Arvind's Newsletter
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- Arvind's Newsletter
1.Google Pay Enters Lending Business In India
Google said that it will introduce five new credit initiatives:
-Linking Rupay credit card with the UPI app and credit line on UPI in partnership with HDFC Bank Ltd. and ICICI Bank Ltd.
-Personal loans with Axis Bank Ltd. and DMI Finance Ltd.
-Merchant financing via DMI Finance, ICICI Bank and Indifi to be launched.
-Sachet loans to be launched in partnership with DMI Finance, from Rs 15,000. -Merchant credit line in partnership with ePay Later.
Google Pay is the second largest UPI app in India after PhonePe. In September, Google Pay accounted for 378 crore UPI transactions worth Rs 5.41 lakh crore.
Loans aimed at smaller merchants will aid Google to enter India's merchant financing market. Currently, large payment firms like Paytm and BharatPe are already offering such services to merchants, while also providing them with digital payment
Read more at: https://www.bqprime.com/business/google-pay-enters-lending-business-in-india
2.Yesterday we had discussed the low diversity of Indian Inc based on Mint analysis. Prime Data base analysis presented in Economic Times, reported that, “After 10 years of the enforcement of Companies Act 2013 that made it mandatory for companies to have at least one woman director on their boards, one in every five board members on average in Nifty-500 companies is a woman.”
Five years ago, one in eight directors was a woman, and ten years ago, the proportion was one among twenty members, Prime Database research showed.
Globally, one in three directors on the boards of S&P 500 companies is a woman. But this is not to law mandating women on board but on the back of pressure from investors and efforts by the companies towards having gender diversity at the board level
Read more at:
3.Gaza hospital: What video, pictures and other evidence tell us about Al-Ahli hospital blast, as reported by BBC.
A deadly blast at the crowded Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City is feared to have killed hundreds of people.
The Hamas-controlled Palestinian authorities in Gaza immediately blamed Israel, claiming it was a deliberate air strike. Israel has denied involvement.
Amid the claim and counterclaim, getting to the truth is harder than ever.
BBC Verify is trying to unravel what is and isn't known - looking at video footage, still imagery and other evidence, including eyewitness accounts. In addition, a BBC journalist has been to the blast site, where there is limited access. So far evidence is inconclusive. Read on, for full details.
4.OpenAI has officially launched internet browsing for ChatGPT, taking the chatbot a step closer to becoming a “multimedia generative search engine”; the company is also in talks to sell shares at a valuation of $86 bn, per Bloomberg.
5.Ozempic is arguably the world’s most famous drug, a diabetes treatment turned miracle weight-loss cure that’s rocketed up the sales chart despite supply constraints. This may only be the beginning. Recent studies have started to illuminate the far-reaching benefits of Ozempic and other medicines in the same class, known as GLP-1 agonists reported Bloomberg. The drugs appear to have a protective effect on the hear, liver and kidneys in addition to help people lose weight.
But Quartz reported its potential side effects. Semaglutide and its cousin tirzepatide may also come with an increased risk of thyroid cancer, possible emotional dysregulation, and the threat of too much weight loss. Because researchers only observed trial participants over two years of use, they can’t yet detail all of the pros and cons of the medications. But as semaglutide becomes more popular, the list of possible complications grows. In late September, the FDA updated Ozempic’s label with a new warning—this time, for blocked intestines.
Ozempic in numbers:
9 million: Number of Ozempic and Wegovy prescriptions US doctors wrote in the last three months of 2022
15%: Average amount of body weight patients lost in a trial studying the maximum dose of Wegovy
66%: Average amount of weight patients regained in the first year after they stopped using Ozempic or Wegovy
$7 billion: Earnings of Danish pharma company Novo Nordisk, who manufactures Wegovy and Ozempic, in the first half of 2023
2.3%: Share of Manhattan’s poshest residents taking Ozempic or Wegovy in 2022
$2.1 trillion: Annual cost it would be to offer every American classified as obese semaglutide at its current price