Instant Finance Updates

August Set to Witness a Strong IPO Wave India's primary market is expected to witness a busy August, with more than two dozen companies preparing to launch their Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). Collectively, these companies are expected to raise around ₹35,000 crore, reflecting renewed momentum in the capital markets after a relatively subdued first half of the year.

If you have a healthy balance in your Employees Provident Fund account, you may be tempted to use that, instead of getting a home loan. Don't - say experts - it may end up costing you 5 times more! And your retirement corpus will have a severe setback! (FE)

British Coffee chain brand, Costa Coffee has shrunk its store count to 198 in FY26, down from 220 a year ago. This is the first decline in store count in five years. (BS)

UPI is here to stay, but Cash-on-Delivery (CoD) is not going away anytime soon. CoD payments account for 60% of e-commerce orders, while in Tier-2 cities it goes up to 75%. (FE) Is it because buyers don't trust sellers, or don't trust e-commerce platforms?

Stock market lovers, there's an IPO boom coming up, with 9 issues opening this week. More than a dozen firms will raise ₹25,000 crore in August. (FE)

The expiry of a three decades old World Trade Organisation agreement that allowed a duty-free electronic transmission of digital services is likely to upset global trade in such services. Countries could potentially impose duties as they please. Fortunately, India exports more digital services, than it imports. (BS)

Trump abruptly paused strikes on Iran. Iran reciprocated by halting its strikes. Let's hope diplomacy wins this time! (DH)

Back from the brink of extinction, the GI-tagged Rasabale Banana is making a slow and sure comeback. It's grown in the Nanjangud belt of Mysuru district of Karnataka. (TOI)

If you're walking, standing, sitting, or even sleeping on the pavement, and you get hit by a vehicle, it's the fault of the vehicle driver, says the Delhi High Court. (TOI)

The cybercrimes continue... in different forms. A 28-year old woman fell to a fake loan scam that cost her ₹48.5 lakhs. (TOI)

Remember that $81 billion deal where Paramount Skydance beat Netflix to get Warner Bros. Discovery? Well, it's stalled till the middle of next year! (WSJ)

The crisis in West Asia is far from over. Both sides have been regularly striking a number of targets across the region. (WSJ)

Measles cases in the US in the first seven months of 2026, have reached a decade high! MMR vaccination rates among kindergarten kids have been falling in some US States like Utah and South Carolina, contributing to a majority of these cases. (WSJ)

Meet George Yancopoulous, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of the 4 decade old, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. He has 1,000 patents to his name and has decided to give away the latest invention for free... a gene therapy that restores hearing to children born of a rare genetic disease.(WSJ)

The EU has fined Alphabet's Google $1 billion for breaching its digital competition rule. It said Google unfairly favoured its own services on its search engine and also restricted app developers from steering users to go outside Google Play Store. (WSJ)

The Manipal (Hospital group) IPO will be India's biggest in health care. Over half of the ₹9,275 crore being raised will go towards repaying its borrowings. (BS)

Credit Card spending crossed the ₹2 trillion mark, in June - the 2nd month in a row. HDFC Bank, the country's largest credit card issuer posted a 16.2% y-o-y gain. (BS)

How has India fared since the liberalisation of its economy in 1991? This is a neat comparison with its peers: South Korea, China, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. Per capita GDP in USD current prices has increased nine-fold! (BS)

There are Courts and then there are: Fast Track Courts and also Fast Track Special Courts. But the pendency in those "faster" ones has also been increasing! There are 880 such fast courts, and the overall pendency is 1.33 million cases! UP accounted for 72% of pending cases. (BS)

The Supreme Court has barred posting of its proceedings on social media, without prior permission. This comes after a video clip of a litigant throwing his legal papers and hurling abuses went viral. (BS)