Business

ISLAMABAD: The government on Tuesday approved immediate disbursement of Rs25,000 each to 4.125 million families affected by the recent rains and floods, involving an additional fiscal impact of Rs103 billion, and ordered 1.6m tonnes of wheat imports to meet higher needs arising from the natural disaster. The decisions were taken at a meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the …

Indian industrialist Gautam Adani became the world’s third-richest person on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Tuesday, the first time an Asian has ranked in the top three. The self-made billionaire has seen his net worth more than double to $137.4 billion in the last year, rising 20 spots on the index to now rank just behind Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, Bloomberg News reported. …

Oil prices were stable on Tuesday as the market balanced supply concerns with fears that an inflation-induced weakening of global economies would soften fuel demand. Brent crude futures for October settlement fell 9 cents, or 0.09 per cent, to $105 a barrel by 0841 GMT, after climbing 4.1pc on Monday, the biggest increase in more than a month. The October …

PostEx, a fintech primarily catering to e-commerce players and providing them credit, announced on Monday that it had acquired Call Courier, one of the country’s leading third-party logistics providers. “Following the transaction, PostEx will now service 1.3 million users with over 8,000 merchants across 500 cities in Pakistan, on track to becoming the largest fintech in Pakistan with a monthly …

Pakistani e-commerce platform PriceOye.pk has raised $7.9 million in a seed funding round led by US-based JAM Fund, it emerged on Tuesday. It also brought a number of unicorn founders to its cap table, most notably Peter Thiel who founded PayPal and Palantir Technologies — making it his first investment in Pakistan. Beenext, an early investor in Indonesian e-commerce platform …

NEW YORK: Elon Musk has formally subpoenaed a Twitter whistleblower to share information about spam accounts at the social network, as the billionaire fights in court to back out of a massive buyout deal. Musk has tried to pull out of the $44 billion agreement by saying Twitter misled him on the number of false accounts, or bots, prompting strong …

ISLAMABAD An initial report suggests that the data stolen from the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan’s web­site recently was mainly due to the absence of a proper and updated cyber security mechanism. A group of hackers scrapped off data of the commission’s directors by using a weak digital link at its website. The initial report, however, suggested the hacking …

WASHINGTON: The executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meets on Monday (today) to consider a bailout package for Pakistan as Islamabad claims tying up at least $37 billion in loans and investments. If the board approves the deal, the IMF will immediately disburse about $1.2 billion to Pakistan and may provide up to $4 billion over the remainder …

The United States dollar surged to a 20-year high against a basket of currencies on Monday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signalled interest rates would be kept higher for longer to bring down soaring inflation. The dollar index scaled to a fresh two-decade peak of 109.44 in the Asia trade, with greenback strength pushing other major currencies to new …

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) opened the week in the red on Monday, with the benchmark KSE-100 index shedding points shortly after trading began. By 10:46am, the benchmark had lost 652.13 points, or 1.53 per cent, to reach 41,939.38 points. Head of Research at Intermarket Securities, Raza Jafri, said the KSE-100 index was affected by the performance of equities globally. …