Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday allowed regional rural banks (RRBs) to access the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF), marginal standing facility (MSF) and call or notice money market, aimed at facilitating better liquidity management for these lenders. At present, RRBs are not permitted to access the liquidity windows of the RBI as well as the call or notice market.

IEX has expanded its delivery-based Green Market with the launch of two new products - Green Daily Contract and Green Weekly Contract. Trading in the new contracts in both solar and non-solar segments will commence with immediate effect. The IEX Green Market now has four contracts, and offers greater choice to market participants to buy renewable energy on the same day and up to 11 days ahead.

In view of the ongoing stress and the heightened uncertainty on account of the pandemic, RBI said it is imperative that banks continue to conserve capital to support the economy and absorb losses, if any. In April, RBI had announced that scheduled commercial banks and cooperative banks shall not make any dividend payouts from profits pertaining to the financial year ended March 31, 2020.

On Friday, while announcing the monetary policy, the RBI governor Shaktikanta Das announced enhanced limits for contactless card payments and e-mandates on cards (and UPI) for recurring transactions to Rs 5,000 from Rs 2,000. These digital modes of transactions are well-suited to make payments in a safe and secure manner, especially during the current pandemic.

DHL Express has said it can transport COVID-19 vaccine to any of the 220 countries it operates in, within 5 days. This includes the vaccine that is being developed by Pfizer and BioNtech that needs to be stored at -70 degrees. Like in India, globally too, the company is in talks with manufacturers of critical accessories such as syringes and vials, that will be needed in the whole supply chain.

Airtel share price jumped over 3 percent intraday on December 4 after the telecom major pipped Reliance Jio in new mobile subscriber addition in September after a gap of four years. Bharti Airtel led mobile subscriber growth in September 2020 with a net addition of 3.77 million new customers. Reliance Jio led the market in terms of overall mobile subscriber base with 404.12 million customers.

Shares of IRCTC today zoomed amid high volumes as covid vaccine related optimism continue to boost travel related stocks. IRCTC shares rose 11% to ₹1530.50. Shares of India's biggest airline operator InterGlobe today surged 5% to ₹1732 while SpiceJet jumped 9% to ₹88.25. IRCTC shares have rebounded sharply from its March lows of ₹774.

Fitch Ratings on Thursday affirmed its 'BBB-' on India's four state-run lenders, SBI, BoI, BoB and PNB with a (-)ve outlook. Issuer default rating (IDR) of IDBI Bank is affirmed at 'BB+' (lower than ‘BBB-‘) with (-)ve outlook. According to Fitch, the operating environment for Indian banks remains challenging despite a moderate revival in economic activity due to gradual easing of the lockdown.

IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta on Thursday announced that the airline will remove its LWP program for senior employees from Jan 1. On May 8, IndiGo had also implemented pay cuts for its senior employees ranging from 5-25% . The pay cuts are still in place. In an email sent to employees on Thursday, he said, "At this point of time, it looks like we are on a path to a graduated and measured recovery..."

India’s economy, severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic, is gradually recovering, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday. India’s economy recovered faster than expected in the September quarter as a pick-up in manufacturing helped GDP clock a lower contraction of 7.5 per cent and held out hopes for further improvement on better consumer demand.

A bankruptcy court on Thursday approved Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd’s resolution plan for Reliance Infratel Ltd, in some relief for lenders who stand to receive about ₹4,400 crore for its tower and fibre assets. Reliance Infratel is a unit of bankrupt Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom). Reliance Jio, owned by Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, had bid for only this subsidiary of RCom.

India's economy will return to growth in 2021-22, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told Reuters. “I would think 2021-22 will be very big, good traction year for achieving a really good rate of growth that itself is going to be a launching pad for 4-5 years of growing at a good speed, provided we do enough on the budget and spend on infrastructure,” she said.

Fintech startup Stripe said on Thursday it has partnered with Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Citigroup Inc, among others, to launch banking services. The software, known as Stripe Treasury, embeds financial services using application programming interfaces (APIs) onto Stripe's platform, allowing its customers to send, receive and store funds, the company said.

IT major Cyient on Thursday said it is seeing “significant acceleration” in 5G rollouts, and telecom carriers are bringing forward  their investment plans to roll out network for the high-speed service. Cyient Senior Vice President and Head (Communications and Utilities) Prabhakar Atla said Communications is one of the company’s largest business verticals and is an area of strategic focus.

Domestic carriers are expected to post losses to the tune of Rs 21,000 cr this fiscal as against a net loss of Rs 12,700 cr last fiscal, ratings agency Icra said. The recovery in domestic passenger traffic is contingent on factors such as containment of the COVID-19 pandemic, willingness of consumers to undertake leisure travel, recovery in macroeconomic growth, and recovery in business travel.