New Delhi, September 15
A fall in food prices pushed headline inflation to a five-year low of 3.74% in August but analysts cautioned that the base effect of last year may not help it sustain.

The August inflation, measured by Wholesale Price Index (WPI), declined from 5.19% in July, while the same was 6.99% in the same month last year. The August WPI inflation is the lowest since October, 2009 when it stood at 1.8%.

With WPI inflation coming down to five-year low level, India Inc has raised the pitch for lowering of the interest rate to boost industrial output that slipped to four-month low of 0.5% in July.

Ruling it out, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, however, said prices across the board have to come down to enable the central bank to cut key rates.

“There is no point in cutting interest rates to see inflation picking up again,” he said, adding that right now he thinks the RBI is continuing the way it proposed recently.

Analysts have cautioned that the drop in inflation may not sustain. Aditi Nayar, senior economist, ICRA, said the drop in primary food inflation in August should be interpreted with caution, as it benefited from a favourable base effect, with inflation at a high 19.2% in August last year. Lower and delayed sowing this year as compared to 2013 remains a concern for crop yields and food prices.

Industry body FICCI said with prices softening across all major sub segments, this is the lowest headline inflation rate seen in almost five years. “The WPI inflation rate is gradually softening with food and fuel prices, the two key pressure points, showing signs of easing. This is definitely a good sign”, said Sidharth Birla, president, FICCI.

Indranil Pan, chief economist, Kotak Mahindra Bank, said a significant portion of this softening trend was due to the base effect factor from the previous year, especially with respect to food products.

Expressing disappointment over moderate growth in exports in August, M Rafeeque Ahmed, president, FIEO, said the five-month low growth in exports shows that global recovery is weak and non-uniform.

New Delhi: Growth rate of India's exports slipped to five-month low of 2.35% in August at $26.95 billion, pushing up the trade deficit to $10.83 billion. Gold imports jumped significantly to $2.03 billion last month, from $738.7 million a year ago. Trade 
deficit in August was highest in the past four months. — PTI

With the boom in the e-commerce space, multi-partner loyalty formats like Payback are offering new avenues for consumer shopping. Rahul Rana, CEO, Payback India, talks about the loyalty format, partnerships with brands and the trends in e-commerce space.

Q: How does multi-loyalty programme like Payback work?

A: Payback is a multi-partner reward programme where several brands have come together to improvise customers’ shopping experience. It has a huge network of partners at national, regional and local levels. Most partners are market leaders across all consumer segments, including food/travel and entertainment.

Partners display the Payback logo at their outlets or websites and members can earn points by quoting their card number when transacting at these places. Members also doubly benefit when they transact with different partners from one same source and yet earn points from all of them.

Payback points earned by members across various partners in the network get accumulated under their membership account. From a global perspective, people use points to splurge. We categorise consumers as point seekers and point hoarders. Point seekers are those who earn and spend. Point hoarders save points and use them to splurge.

Q: How does a consumer participate and benefit through these tools?

A: Payback members can use a variety of offers as part of the programme. With a single card, members can collect Payback points at over 3,000 partner brands in-store and at more than 50 partner brands online and then redeem these points quickly.

Most of the partners are market leaders in their sectors. In-store partner brands run by partners — companies with a strong market presence — can be found in both large cities and small towns, which means that customers can collect points easily while doing their daily shopping.

Q: What are the partnerships that it has?

A: We have two types of partners — online and offline. Some of our key offline partners include Big Bazaar, Brand Factory, Central, E ZONE, Fashion @BB, Food Bazaar, Food Right, Food Hall, Home Town, Pantaloons, Formulae 1, UniverCell, HPCL and ICICI Bank.

Our online partners include some of the biggest names in the e-commerce industry like eBay, Myntra, Jabong, Flipkart, Amazon, Makemytrip.com, Bookmyshow.com, FirstCry, Naaptol, UniverCell and Vodafone among many others.

Q: What is the importance of loyalty in the e-commerce industry today?

A: At Payback we aim to provide a large value proposition to the end consumer. The power of aggregation helps consumers accumulate a lot of points and also redeem these points conveniently. The cycle of earning to burning is extremely simple.

E-commerce is a booming space. With increasing competition in the online space, market leaders are constantly innovating and scouting for programmes to build customer loyalty and customer retention. While the first wave of e-commerce was focused on customer acquisition, the second wave will primarily be focused on increased customer engagement and retention. We have partnered with the global and local leaders in e-commerce.

Q: What is the outlook for the industry?

A: The concept of loyalty programmes in India is still at a nascent stage as compared to the other markets. Our constant focus is on areas such as growth in capabilities, understanding partners, and providing value to our users. We also plan to bring on board, players in segments that are currently not represented in the coalition. We are working towards newer, smarter ways to identify customer segments and ensure we reach out to them, to help them get the best out of our services.

New Delhi, September 15
Cognizant today said it will acquire US-based TriZetto Corporation for $2.7 billion in an all-cash deal, a move which will help the IT services firm tap the lucrative healthcare IT software and solutions market.

The acquisition will create an entity with more than $3 billion in combined healthcare revenue, serving around 245,000 healthcare providers (hospitals, clinics, etc) and about 350 payers (health insurers).

TriZetto is a provider of healthcare IT software and solutions. Founded in 1997, TriZetto has 13 offices in the US and two in India. 

Through the deal, the New Jersey-based Cognizant aims to tap the rapidly changing healthcare marketplace, which is about 17% of the US GDP of over $17 trillion. — PTI

Stockholm, September 15
Microsoft Corporation said on Monday it has agreed to acquire Stockholm-based games developer Mojang and the company's wildly popular Minecraft video game franchise for $2.5 billion.

Microsoft said it expects the acquisition to break even in fiscal year 2015 on a GAAP basis. The deal is expected to close in late 2014. — Reuters

Bangalore, September 15
Apple Inc said it received a record four million first-day pre-orders of its new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, meaning many customers will have to wait until October for their new phones.

Apple said a significant number of orders will be delivered to customers beginning Friday, but many will be shipped in October as demand outstrips supply.

The first-day pre-orders for the new iPhones, which feature larger screens, were double the two million orders for iPhone 5 models in 2012.

"We attribute this (pre-order numbers) to the large pent-up demand for larger screens on the iPhone ...," Janney Capital Markets analysts wrote in a note.

The brokerage raised its unit sales estimate for the latest iPhones to 37.4 million for the fourth quarter and 60 million for the first quarter. — Reuters

BRIEFLY

Govt sacks all independent directors of MRPL
New Delhi: The government has sacked all five independent directors of MRPL, leaving the company Board with no powers to take any large investment decision. With this, the Board has lost its power to pass accounts, or take any large investment decisions. All the five directors were appointed by the previous UPA regime. — PTI

Google unveils Android One phone at Rs 6,399 for India
New Delhi: Google Inc on Monday launched Android One phone in India at Rs 6,399. Powered by Google's operating system, the handsets, made by Micromax, Karbonn Mobiles India and Spice Mobility, will be available online on Amazon's India website and at Flipkart and Snapdeal. The smartphone features a MediaTek quad-core processor and a 4.5-inch screen. — PTI

Dabur recommends interim dividend of ~1.25 per share
New Delhi: FMCG firm Dabur on Monday said its Board has recommended an interim dividend of Rs 1.25 per share for 2014-15. "Continuing with our payout policy, the Board has proposed an interim dividend of Rs 1.25 per share, aggregating to Rs 256.8 crore, including dividend tax," Dabur India group director PD Narang said. — PTI

Vodafone boosts network in flood-hit Kashmir areas
Chandigarh: Vodafone on Monday made live its six out of eight Base Switching Centres in Kashmir and paired them with Jammu to boost network. The service for free 60 local/STD minutes for all the users will continue till Tuesday. Also, special SIMs have been created that are being issued to public without proof of identity or residence. — TNS

Gold, silver rebound
New Delhi: Gold staged a comeback to close higher by Rs 80 to Rs 27,450 per 10 gram in the national capital on Monday amid a firming trend overseas. Besides, buying at prevailing levels by jewellers also supported the upside. Silver followed suit and recovered by Rs 250 to Rs 41,500 per kg on increased offtake by industrial units and coin makers. — PTI