SBI has reported its highest ever net profit of £645.1 million for the quarter ended March 2021 - an increase of 80% over £358.1 million in the corresponding period last year. The bank also reported its highest ever full year net profit of £2.04 billion, which is 40% over the previous year. The bank has proposed a dividend of Rs 4 per share, which works out into a payout of £356.9 million. The government, which has a 57.6% stake in the bank, will receive over half of the sum. The bank ended the fiscal year with deposits of £368 billion - a 13.5% increase over £324 billion as of March 2020. Advances during the same period rose 5% to £245 billion from £233 billion earlier. The net profit also got a boost with a 17% drop in provisions for bad loans, which dipped to £991.4 million during the quarter from £1.18 billion in the previous year.
Sebi fines Cairn, ex-directors of £600,000
Market regulator Sebi has imposed a fine of £570,000 on Cairn India (now merged with Vedanta) and some of its erstwhile directors for irregularities in its buyback programme during the first half of 2014. Sebi imposed a fine of over £520,000 on Cairn India and Rs 150,00,000 each on former directors P Elango, Aman Mehta and Neeraj Sharma. According to Sebi’s order, between January and July 2014, Cairn India had launched a buyback programme to mop up over 170 million shares at a maximum price of Rs 335 each. Sebi launched an investigation into the process and found that on several days the company refrained from bidding on NSE and BSE even though the share price was favourable to the offer price.
Microsoft to shut Internet Explorer in ’22
Microsoft is pulling the plug on its once omnipresent browser, Internet Explorer, next year as it prepares to battle market leader Chrome with its slicker Edge browser. Launched in 1995, Internet Explorer became the dominant browser for over a decade as it was bundled with Microsoft's Windows operating system that came pre-installed in billions of computers. The browser, however, started losing out to Google's Chrome in the late 2000s and has become a subject of countless internet memes for its sluggishness in comparison to its rivals. Microsoft launched the Edge browser in 2015 that runs on the same technology as the Google browser. As of April, Chrome has a 65% share of the global browser market, followed by Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) Safari, with an 18% share, according to web analytics firm Statcounter.
