The Indian rupee closed nearly flat on Wednesday, trailing behind its Asian peers as the impact of a weaker U.S. dollar was blunted by strong demand for the greenback from foreign banks, likely on behalf of custodial clients.

The Nifty IT index closed 0.69 per cent up at 37540.1.

IDFC First Bank s shareholders have rejected a special resolution to appoint a nominee director from Warburg Pincus due to concerns over the absence of a minimum shareholding threshold. Despite this, Warburg Pincus and ADIA are still set to infuse ₹7,500 crore into the bank through a preferential equity issue.

The Reserve Bank of India has proposed new guidelines capping regulated entities (RE) investments in Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) at 15% of total lender investment. While unrestricted investments up to 5% of an AIF s corpus are permitted, exceeding this limit and having downstream debt exposure triggers a 100% provisioning requirement.

Graphite electrodes are mainly used in steelmaking and by chemical firms. China is the world s leading producer of graphite, used for military applications and the making of electric vehicle batteries.

Blackstone has made a $1.5 billion offer for Statkraft India. This marks Blackstone s first renewable energy acquisition evaluation in India. The offer competes with bids from KKR-backed Serentica Renewables, Sembcorp, and BlackRock. Statkraft is selling its India unit, which includes wind, solar, and hydropower assets, in four packages.

Protean eGov Technologies shares plummeted 20% following the announcement that it is no longer in the running for the PAN 2.0 project. Analysts downgraded the stock, citing the significant revenue contribution from PAN services, which accounts for 50% of the company s earnings.

It also lowered rates more on long-tenure deposits, perhaps indicating both the receivable time-lines of Bajaj Finance s assets and stiffer competition for shorter-tenure commitments in a falling rate cycle. This is the second such reduction by Bajaj Finance.

RBI accepted bids worth ₹19,203 crore at this OMO, lower compared to the notified amount of ₹25,000 crore. RBI had received bids worth ₹50,369 crore. This is first FY26 OMO auction where RBI accepted a lower amount.

Artificial intelligence (AI) utility tokens are not merely a digital currency. These are AI agents based on real-world use cases and can act autonomously. AI coins built on blockchain are catching investor attention, but inherent risks of autonomy still persist, writes Himanshi Lohchab.