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PhonePe launches PulsePro to turn UPI data into business intelligence. Summarize with: New Delhi, July 30(APAC Media): PhonePe has expanded its payments business with the launch of PulsePro, a business intelligence platform that uses aggregated UPI transaction data to help companies analyse consumer spending trends and market activity. The new platform allows businesses to study category-wise demand, regional spending patterns and digital payment adoption at the district and postal code level. The data is aggregated and anonymised, meaning individual customer transaction details are not shared. The tool is designed to support decisions related to market expansion, retail planning, distribution strategies and identifying growth opportunities. The launch reflects a broader shift in India's fintech sector, where payment companies are increasingly using transaction data to offer analytics and enterprise services beyond payment processing. PhonePe had introduced PhonePe Pulse in 2021 as a free public platform for digital payment insights. PulsePro builds on that offering with enterprise-focused analytics, while the original Pulse platform will continue to remain free. The launch also brings renewed attention to data privacy. As payment platforms expand into analytics, the use of aggregated financial data is expected to face greater scrutiny to ensure consumer information remains protected. PhonePe said PulsePro relies only on anonymised and aggregated data and does not provide access to individual transaction records. Summarize with:

Eight Indian fintech firms feature in world's top fintech companies list for 2026. text_fields bookmark_border "Wealth technology" remained the second-largest category with 75 companies, accounting for 15 per cent of the list. Eight Indian fintech companies, including BharatPe, Paytm, and PhonePe, have been featured in the World's Top Fintech Companies 2026 list, reflecting India's growing presence in the global digital payments ecosystem. The Indian companies included in the list are BharatPe, Cashfree, Freecharge, MobiKwik, Razorpay, PhonePe, Paytm, and Skydo. All were recognised in the payments category. According to CNBC and research firm Statista, the payments segment accounted for 115 of the 500 companies on the list, making it the largest fintech category for another year. The report said payment firms are increasingly expanding beyond checkout solutions to focus on real-time domestic and cross-border money transfers. "Wealth technology" remained the second-largest category with 75 companies, accounting for 15 per cent of the list. Enterprise fintech and alternative financing each represented 12 per cent. Regtech was introduced as a separate category this year and, along with digital assets, was among the smallest segments, reflecting the growing emphasis on regulatory compliance as artificial intelligence introduces new operational risks. The rankings were compiled by Statista after evaluating 3,500 fintech companies using more than 25,000 data points, including revenue growth and employee headcount. The final list includes companies from more than 50 countries and territories and is presented alphabetically within each category rather than as a numerical ranking. Citing a McKinsey report, CNBC said the global fintech industry generated $650 billion in revenue in 2025, a 21 per cent increase from the previous year, compared with 6 per cent annual growth for the broader financial services industry. The report also noted that 31 fintech companies went public in 2025, taking the combined market capitalisation of listed fintech firms to a record $850 billion. CNBC said the industry is entering a phase where scale, profitability and regulatory maturity are becoming key differentiators, while artificial intelligence is reshaping financial infrastructure. The opinions expressed within this comment are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the comment do not reflect the views of Madhyamam and Madhyamam does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same

PhonePe expands fintech offering with integrated TaxBuddy filing partnership. According to a recent LinkedIn post from PhonePe, the company is highlighting a new partnership with TaxBuddy.com to offer an integrated tax filing solution within its app. The post suggests that this collaboration aims to simplify tax compliance for a large user base by combining PhonePe's distribution reach with TaxBuddy's advisory capabilities. * TipRanks has entered a new arena in the investing world, powering the index of an ETF based on its unique data now trading under the ticker RANK on the NYSE. * RANK tracks the performance of the TipRanks US Momentum Analysts Index, a rules-based index of 50 large U.S. companies. The LinkedIn post indicates that users can now access services ranging from automated tax planning to income tax return (ITR) filing without leaving the PhonePe platform. For investors, this move points to a strategic expansion of PhonePe's financial services stack, potentially increasing user engagement, improving retention, and opening up new fee-based or cross-selling opportunities in India's growing digital finance market. As shared in the post, positioning tax services alongside payments and other financial products may strengthen PhonePe's role as a comprehensive fintech ecosystem. This could enhance its competitive standing versus other super-app and fintech players, support higher transaction volumes around tax season, and contribute to long-term monetization and data-driven product development, although specific financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed. Conversation 0 Comments Your voice matters. Discussions are moderated for civility. Read our guidelines here. ASML's blockbuster Q2 and capacity upgrade shatter the AI bear case. Story Highlights * ASML's latest results show that AI-driven chip demand is broadening, with strong momentum across logic, memory, new systems, and high-margin services. * Even after its huge rally, the stock still looks supported by rising capacity, stronger guidance, and ASML's unmatched role in the semiconductor supply chain. The blockbuster Q2 from ASML Holding ASML -2.09% | and its recent capacity upgrade shatter the artificial intelligence (AI) bear case, at least as I see it. The idea that the hardware boom is narrow and already running out of road is getting difficult to square with the numbers. ASML beat its targets and raised its 2026 outlook again, while its order book now stretches well beyond next year. Demand came from both Logic and Memory and was evident across machine sales and the installed base business. * TipRanks has entered a new arena in the investing world, powering the index of an ETF based on its unique data now trading under the ticker RANK on the NYSE. * RANK tracks the performance of the TipRanks US Momentum Analysts Index, a rules-based index of 50 large U.S. companies. Thus, I remain bullish on this leading supplier for semiconductor companies, especially as it is adding capacity around a bottleneck its customers simply cannot bypass. High-Margin services power a Q2 masterclass. ASML delivered a masterclass Q2 report on July 15, mainly driven by its high-margin services. Net sales reached €9.326 billion, up 21.2% from €7.692 billion last year and well beyond management's €8.4 billion to €9.0 billion guidance. Revenue also cleared the €8.80 billion consensus. Net income reached €2.918 billion, lifting basic earnings per share (EPS) to €7.59. On the U.S. listing, EPS was reported at $8.68 per ADR, roughly 9.6% ahead of the $7.92 analyst estimate. The best surprise came from Installed Base Management, which includes service work and upgrades on machines already inside customer fabs. Sales reached €2.762 billion, nearly €300 million above guidance, while an especially profitable component mix helped lift gross margin to 54%. Management had guided for only 51% to 52%. This is great news because every system delivered today can become a long-lived stream of service and upgrade revenue tomorrow. The hardware mix was just as reassuring. Net system sales were €6.6 billion, including €3.8 billion from extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and €2.8 billion from non-EUV tools. Logic represented 51% and Memory 49%, forming an almost perfect split. ASML also recorded revenue from one High-NA EUV system. To me, this balance undercuts the idea that AI investment rests on a single customer or a single kind of chip. Foundries and memory producers are building the physical base for years of heavier computing demand. The €45 billion capacity signal. In the meantime, the €45 billion capacity signal was even more important than the quarterly beat. ASML raised its 2026 sales outlook to €43 billion to €45 billion, with a gross margin of 54% to 56%. Three months ago, the ranges were only €36 billion to €40 billion and 51% to 53%. For Q3, management expects €11 billion to €12 billion of sales and a 55% to 57% margin. At the midpoint, that implies a 23% sequential revenue jump, with profitability improving again. Accordingly, I think it's fair to say that the story has now moved beyond a typical upward revision. ASML expects over 60 Low-NA EUV shipments this year and plans to lift 2027 manufacturing capacity by around 30%, to about 78-80 systems. That expanded capacity is already close to fully covered by orders. Significant 2028 orders are also in hand, prompting ASML to investigate another 30% increase. Immersion deep ultraviolet (DUV) capacity, based on about 130 shipments this year, is being prepared for matching increases in 2027 and potentially 2028. Nothing demonstrates excellent demand as much as those commitments. Customers are expanding 3-nanometer production for AI accelerators and adding 4-nanometer and 5-nanometer capacity for the surrounding chips. They are also rapidly ramping up 2-nanometer nodes. In Memory, ASML now expects net system sales to rise by more than 75% this year as DRAM makers build for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and advanced double data rate (DDR) memory. Meanwhile, Intel's INTC -2.00% | use of High-NA EUV on selected 18A Panther Lake layers shows ASML's next platform moving into production. That should provide powerful visibility into the late 2020s. A premium ASML can outgrow. ASML is trading at a premium, yet one that I believe it can outgrow. The stock is up about 145% over the past 12 months, so nobody can call it undiscovered. Yet revenue growth accelerated from about 5% year over year in Q4 2025 to 13% in Q1 and 21% in Q2. The full-year outlook has also moved from €34 billion to €39 billion in January, then to €43 billion to €45 billion today. So this is not the market suddenly wanting to overpay for ASML, but rather that the earnings growth curve has changed. Today, ASML trades at around 40.32x this year's consensus EPS estimate of $43.34. That implies nearly 49% growth from last year's $29.11, followed by another 33% increase to $57.63 in 2027. Even if the stock goes nowhere from here, that would bring the multiple down to roughly 30.3x next year's earnings. I can live with that premium as ASML is the world's only producer of EUV lithography systems. Recreating its light source, optics, software, supplier network, know-how, and customer trust is practically impossible, as any expert in the space will tell you. High-NA extends that lead. Export controls and a semiconductor downturn remain genuine risks, and a somewhat rich multiple leaves little tolerance for mistakes. Still, few companies combine this moat with earnings growth of this scale. Is ASML a Buy, Sell, or Hold? ASML stock features a Strong Buy consensus rating on Wall Street, based on eight unanimous Buy ratings. No analyst rates the stock a Hold or a Sell. In addition, ASML's average price target of $2,421.36 implies about 38.5% upside potential over the next 12 months. Conclusion. ASML had a very strong Q2. Still, the part I keep coming back to is how far ahead its customers are booking capacity. These are not orders tied only to the next couple of quarters. They reach much further out, which hardly suggests AI spending is about to fall away. ASML is also squeezing more output from a supply chain that remains tight. The valuation is demanding, of course. However, with earnings growing this quickly and no real substitute for its most advanced tools, my ASML forecast remains highly optimistic.