An exciting journey awaits the nascent fintech industry as marriage of finance and technology, once a budding romance, is now in full bloom.

- By Ajay Chandra Pandey, AGM and Faculty, State Bank Academy

As we enter 2024, it's worth reflecting on how fintech has revolutionized financial services. Remember that time when finance was stuck in a stuffy old office building and technology swept in to help it out. The marriage of finance and technology, once a budding romance, is now in full bloom. Leveraging a spectrum of technological advancements, fintech companies have not only revolutionized financial services but also dismantled traditional models, democratizing access and convenience through mobile platforms. From banking to borrowing, fintech has disrupted the industry with game-changing innovations like mobile wallets, peer-to-peer payments, and alternative lending.

To replace its arch rival China from the high pedestal of global manufacturing, India is pinning much hope on its nascent yet hugely successful 'Production-Linked Incentive' (PLI) scheme. But can it alone ensure the country a ticket to the manufacturing big league?

- By Surbhi Singhal (CA, CS) , Independent Senior Research Analyst, New Delhi

For years, China's dominance in manufacturing has been the talk of the town. We've seen "Made in China" tags on everything from electronics to clothes, marking a colossal shift in global production. Think about it-those gadgets in your hand, the appliances in your home, chances are many of them have roots tracing back to China's factories. They've been the powerhouse, the go-to site for manufacturing on a massive scale.

GenAI will lead in 2024 the same way Chatbot and ChatGPT headlined last year.

By Jeff Kagan, Wireless Industry Analyst, Atlanta, GA, US

After giving the matter much thought, I would say artificial in telligence (AI) was the technology of the year in 2023. That will only continue and in fact, accelerate in 2024. However, the AI we focus on will continue to change and grow. In 2023, growth was focused on Chatbot technology like ChatGPT from OpenAI, which was introduced about one year ago. The year 2024 will also focus on generative AI (GenAI) as well. And that will be what we are focused on in 2024. AI as a technology has been with us for more decades than we can remember. Then, suddenly one year ago it was pushed onto the front page with new and different Chatbot technology called ChatGPT from OpenAI. This captured our imagination and is still in its very early days.

To achieve the goal of self-reliance in critical minerals, India would need a multi-faceted approach, which includes scaling up its green technology manufacturing, besides boosting investments in sustainable models.

- By Manish Vaid, Junior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi

COP28 emerged as a pragmatic summit that recognized the pivotal role of fossil fuels in the global economy while advocating for an equitable and phased transition that prioritizes inclusion for all. India's stance, emphasizing that singling out coal as the primary contributor to climate change is oversimplified, resonated strongly with numerous developing nations reliant on coal for both energy security and progress. Moreover, India urged affluent nations for increased financial and technological assistance, underscoring the necessity for support to facilitate their shift towards low-carbon alternatives.

Nifty 50 breached 21,000 in a historic high" goes the headline! Good or bad, stock market stories always revolve around the index, be it Nifty 50 or Sensex. The role of an index goes beyond creating daily headlines. Producing and maintaining an index has become a huge industry for capital market players, especially fund managers and index providers. In simple terms, index represents the performance of a group of stocks based on a certain criterion.

The year 2023 turned out to be another dry year for the Indian startup ecosystem-the third-largest globally. According to a study by the data intelligence platform, Tracxn, funding to the new-age ventures hit a five-year low in 2023. As per its study,"Tracxn Geo Annual Report: India Tech 2023", the domestic startups could raise a mere $7 bn across 1,000 funding rounds last year, which was a steep drop compared to $25.8 bn in 2022, hit by a worsening global macroeconomic environment amid rising geopolitical tensions. It is to be mentioned that, globally, startups raised a little over $189 bn with the United States accounting for a lion's share of $107 bn, followed by the United Kingdom ($12 bn). China emerged third with the total start-up funding amounting to $11.5 bn, while India occupied the fourth spot.

With continuous innovations and swift technological progress in health insurance, the insurtech landscape is poised for significant disruptions.

- By Layak Singh, Co-Founder and CEO, Artivatic.AI

The rapid evolution of technology and digitization has dramatically reshaped consumer behavior across sectors. This transformation has fueled an era of technology-driven advancements across the financial services landscape, especially in the insurance sector. The global pandemic upheaval has altered perspectives on financial security, bringing in a noticeable shift in attitude toward insurance. This shift is especially evident in the heightened demand for health and life insurance, particularly health insurance.

The risk-reward in large caps is now reasonably attractive vis-a-vis mid and small caps.

Indian stock market continues to scale new highs, driven by a spate of positive factors from a robust GDP-India continues to be the world's fastest growing major economy-to a resurgent manufacturing sector to the ever-growing services and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sectors. Besides, a vibrant startup ecosystem and emergence of new unicorns, some of which have been hitting primary markets at regular intervals, and a robust initial public offering (IPO) pipeline comprising stocks from new-age/emerging segments such as fintech, defense, Internet, etc., have all ensured the excitement continues to build. But is everything hunky-dory? Or, is it time to take a pause, reflect on what happened so far, and become a little more watchful as valuations look a little too stretched, while the situation on the macroeconomic front, particularly in the global context, too calls for a cautious approach? In a free-wheeling discussion with Amit Singh Sisodiya, Associate Editor, The Global ANALYST, Rahul Singh, an IIT-Bombay and IIM-L alumnus and CIO-Equities, Tata Asset Management, shares his perspectives on the factors that will likely impact the Indian stock market in 2024, future direction of interest rates and inflation, geopolitical situations, valuations, the forthcoming earnings season, and sectors/themes he is interested in, among a host of other issues. Read on >>>>>

After a tumultuous 2023, Europe stares at another miserable year ahead amid a plethora of challenges- old as well as emerging.

- By Michael Walton, Business Psychologist and Visiting Professor, UK

2023 was a terrible year for the Europe's economy, political developments, and the living standards and livelihoods of its people. There are over 500 million people in the geographical area of Europe, which includes the 27 member states of the European Union (EU), non-EU states of the UK, Norway, and Switzerland, but excludes those in the Russia-Ukraine warzones.

The beginning of a New Year is an appropriate time for business leaders to review progress over the previous twelve months and to consider what went well, what didn't go as well as had been expected, and what might need to change, moving forward.

- By Michael Walton, Business Psychologist and Visiting Professor, UK

Leadership and business life in general is a complex, complicated, convoluted, and on occasions a very emotionally-challenging endeavor. This is not surprising because the pressures of the working environment can place considerable strain on executives who have the responsibility for keeping the business successful and ensuring that it is 'in good shape'.

If we consider the present trends, the housing market in India is set to continue its bull run in 2024 as well.

- By Anuj Puri, Chairman, ANAROCK Group

The Indian residential segment remained unstoppable in 2023. If we consider the trends in the first nine months of 2023, housing sales reached a new peak and were all- time high. To put in numbers, as per ANAROCK Research, 9M 2023 saw total housing sales of over 3.49 lakh units-of which about 24% or approx. 84,400 units were luxury homes priced >1.5 cr-across the top seven cities which is 96% of the total sales recorded in the whole of 2022 despite the rise in both interest rates as well as housing prices.

A 'hard landing' looks most likely, as supported by a slew of broader economic indicators such as Purchasing Managers' Index, an unusually lengthiest yield curve inversion, and surging Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings, among others.

- By Shail Apte, Founder & CEO, Airtham, Ahmedabad

We now understand better how little we understand about inflation.

- Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve Chair of US

The Covid-19 pandemic brought about unprecedented challenges, prompting governments to respond with extraordinary measures due to the absence of any historical reference for such a crisis. One such extreme reaction was witnessed in the substantial fiscal and monetary stimulus injected into the United States economy. Unfortunately, this well-intentioned move resulted in the economy overheating, giving rise to inflation.

Artificial intelligence (AI) with its massive potential is set to transform the way people bank.

- By Thomas Mathew, Research Officer, SBIIT, State Bank of Indiat

n the ever-evolving landscape of the banking sector, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force, reshaping the way financial institutions operate, interact with customers and manage data. As we stand on the cusp of 2024, the role of AI in banking is poised to reach new heights, with ground-breaking advancements and unprecedented applications that promise to redefine the industry. In this article, we explore the multifaceted impact of AI on the banking industry, covering key areas such as customer service, fraud detection, operational efficiency and regulatory compliance.

The cigarette-to-consumer goods conglomerate is eyeing a bigger slice of the fast-growing 'cloud kitchen' or 'foodtech' market in its bid to move further away from tobacco, once its mainstay.

ITC, one of India's leading corporate groups with interests across multiple businesses such as paper, consumer goods and hospitality, among others, is moving up fast to scale up its cloud business or foodtech that it calls a new vector of growth, which will also ensure it moves further away from tobacco, a highly taxed and sunset business, while ramping up its presence in fast-growing, non-cigarette segments such as fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG)-a strategy that is also in sync with its overall environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives.

Public sector banks have made a strong recovery post the NPA crisis. But can they sustain their recent growth amid intensifying competition, particularly from fintechs?

- By Kavita Arya, Chief Manager (Research), State Bank Staff College, Hyderabad

It was a moment of celebration for all the policymakers and the bankers, when the public sector banks (PSBs) made an apparently remarkable recovery in 2022-23, and it was something that the entire economy has been looking forward to for a while. With the disruptive emerging technologies and the ever increasing competition from the private sector banks and the fintechs, this recovery was thought of as a farfetched dream, but a combined effort from all the stakeholders made this happen. It won't be an exaggeration to say that the revival story of PSBs is nothing short of an unbelievable feat. It is a known fact that the PSBs posted combined losses of 85,370 cr in 2017-18, 66,636 cr in 2018-19, and 25,941 cr in 2019-20, which accumulated to a humongous sum of nearly 1.78 lakh cr over those three financial years. Subsequent years saw turnaround and profits coming in, with the aggregate profits touching 66,543 cr in 2021-22 and 10.05 lakh cr in 2022-23.