Bourses trade flat with positive bias in late afternoon session

The Indian benchmarks traded flat with positive bias in late afternoon session led by buying in IT stocks. The broader indices, the BSE Mid cap index and Small cap index were trading in green. Traders took support after private report stated that India and the United Arab Emirates have started settling bilateral trade in their local currencies with India's top refiner making payment in rupees for purchase of a million barrels of oil from the Middle Eastern nation. India in July signed an agreement with the UAE allowing it to settle trade in rupees instead of dollars, boosting India's efforts to cut transaction costs by eliminating dollar conversions. On the global front, all Asian markets were trading lower on concerns about the Chinese economy and after stronger-than-expected US retail sales data increased the likelihood of a further Fed rate hike. European markets were trading mostly in green as investors assess U.K. inflation data.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 65471.24, up by 69.32 points or 0.11% after trading in a range of 65032.89 and 65476.36. There were 16 stocks advancing against 14 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.17%, while Small cap index was up by 0.56%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 0.97%, Utilities up by 0.89%, Industrials up by 0.86%, IT up by 0.83% and Power was up by 0.73%, while Metal down by 1.03%, Telecom down by 0.88%, Consumer Durables down by 0.59%, Bankex down by 0.23% and Energy was down by 0.08% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Ultratech Cement up by 2.43%, Infosys up by 1.77%, NTPC up by 1.69%, Tata Motors up by 1.33% and Larsen & Toubro up by 1.16%. On the flip side, Tata Steel down by 1.95%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.32%, Bajaj Finserv down by 1.04%, Bajaj Finance down by 0.82% and Indusind Bank down by 0.78% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has unveiled the development of a Public Tech Platform for Frictionless Credit. The Platform is being developed by Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH), a wholly owned subsidiary of RBI. The Pilot of the Platform shall commence on August 17, 2023.

With rapid progress in digitalization, India has embraced the concept of digital public infrastructure which encourages banks, NBFCs, FinTech companies and start-ups to create and provide innovative solutions in payments, credit, and other financial activities. For digital credit delivery, the data required for credit appraisal are available with different entities like Central and State governments, account aggregators, banks, credit information companies, digital identity authorities, etc. However, they are in separate systems, creating hindrance in frictionless and timely delivery of rule-based lending.

The Public Tech Platform would enable delivery of frictionless credit by facilitating seamless flow of required digital information to lenders. The end-to-end digital platform will have an open architecture, open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and standards, to which all financial sector players can connect seamlessly in a ‘plug and play’ model. The Platform is intended to be rolled out as a pilot project in a calibrated fashion, both in terms of access to information providers and use cases. It shall bring about efficiency in the lending process in terms of reduction of costs, quicker disbursement, and scalability.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 19436.50, up by 1.95 points or 0.01% after trading in a range of 19317.20 and 19443.75. There were 23 stocks advancing against 27 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Ultratech Cement up by 2.31%, Apollo Hospital up by 1.95%, Infosys up by 1.69%, NTPC up by 1.64% and Tata Motors up by 1.34%. On the flip side, Tata Steel down by 1.99%, HDFC Life Insurance down by 1.68%, Hindalco down by 1.34%, Adani Ports down by 1.33% and Bharti Airtel down by 1.23% were the top losers.

All Asian markets were trading lower, Taiwan Weighted lost 8.02 points or 0.05% to 16,446.78, Straits Times fell 24.7 points or 0.77% to 3,208.04, Shanghai Composite weakened 26.05 points or 0.83% to 3,150.13, Jakarta Composite plunged 35.63 points or 0.52% to 6,879.47, KOSPI dropped 45.23 points or 1.79% to 2,525.64, Hang Seng declined 251.81 points or 1.37% to 18,329.30 and Nikkei 225 was down by 472.07 points or 1.49% to 31,766.82.

European markets were trading mostly in green, France’s CAC rose 27.81 points or 0.38% to 7,295.51 and Germany’s DAX was up by 36.44 points or 0.23% to 15,803.72. On the flip side, UK’s FTSE 100 was down by 5.97 points or 0.08% to 7,383.67.