Are global giants powering India’s next banking boom?

ITC shines, Google backs Anthropic, and L&T builds big on mining.

🗓 Morning, folks! It’s a new week & we already miss the festivals.

💡 Spotlight: $7B rains on India’s financial sector 💸

India’s financial sector has seen deals worth over $7 billion this year, led by a flurry of blockbuster investments from global heavyweights like Blackstone, Emirates NBD, Warburg Pincus, and Sumitomo Mitsui.

The latest splash was Federal Bank’s ₹6,196 crore deal with Blackstone, giving the US giant up to a 9.99% stake. This follows Emirates NBD’s ₹26,853 crore takeover of RBL Bank, Sammaan Capital’s $1 billion fundraise from Abu Dhabi’s IHC & more.

Global investors are clearly betting big on India’s financial ecosystem, drawn by strong growth, better regulation, and rising credit demand

🛣️ On a different note:

We took Filter Coffee off the internet this week and hit the road. Our first stop: Kadapa, a quiet town in Andhra Pradesh where India’s next retail story is quietly unfolding.

At first glance, it looks like any other small Indian town, narrow lanes, dusty kiranas, handwritten bills. But step inside a SuperK store and you’ll see something different: clean aisles, digital billing, branded goods stacked like a metro supermarket, only this one’s owned and run by locals.

We caught up with SuperK’s Co-founder, Anil Thontepu, to learn how he’s turning kiranas into tech-enabled supermarkets and why he believes India’s retail future will be built in small towns, not big cities.

Full story here 👇

Let’s hit it!

1 Big Thing: Can ₹6,196 crore from Blackstone boost Federal Bank? 💰

Federal Bank just landed a major foreign investor as New York’s Blackstone will pick up a 9.99% stake worth ₹6,196 crore through its affiliate Asia II Topco XIII.

What’s going on: the deal will happen through a special share sale where Federal Bank will give 273 million warrants to Blackstone, each worth ₹227, which can later be turned into shares.

Once the warrants turn into shares, the firm will officially own nearly 10% of the bank and even get the right to nominate a board member, provided it holds at least 5% equity.

Federal Bank, which has no promoter and is entirely publicly held, gains a strong institutional backer at a time when global liquidity and foreign interest in Indian financials are soaring.

Zoom out: It’s raining big foreign money in Indian banks.

Emirates NBD’s $3 billion RBL Bank buy, SMBC’s 24% in Yes Bank, and IHC’s $1 billion in Sammaan Capital show the trend.

With over $7 billion in deals this year alone, India’s banking sector is becoming the new playground for global capital.

2. Can Anthropic race ahead with Google’s 1M AI chip boost? ⚡

Google will supply up to 1 million of its custom AI chips (TPUs) to Anthropic, in a deal reportedly worth tens of billions of dollars.

FYI, this is one of the biggest bets in the ongoing AI hardware race.

The deets: the tensor processing units (TPUs), Google’s custom-built chips designed to accelerate machine learning tasks, will go live in 2026. They’re expected to add over 1 gigawatt of capacity, roughly enough to power an entire city.

The deal cements Google’s dual role as both a major investor, having pumped in over $3 billion so far and a core infrastructure partner for Anthropic. Meanwhile, Amazon, another Anthropic backer, has pledged up to $8 billion and provides its own AI chips through AWS.

Why it matters: as AI costs skyrocket, powerful chips have become the new oil everyone’s fighting for. Anthropic’s deal lets it reduce dependence on Nvidia’s GPUs, which dominate the market but are expensive and supply-constrained.

By locking in Google’s advanced TPU network, Anthropic gains scalability, while Google strengthens its cloud ecosystem and challenges Microsoft and Amazon in the AI infrastructure game.

Big theme: the global AI chip market is expected to soar from $56.8 billion in 2023 to nearly $928 billion by 2034.

3. ITC Hotels checks into profit paradise 🏨

ITC Hotels had a blockbuster quarter as Q2 profits soared even as growth in room and dining revenues stayed steady. The stock ended 0.5% higher following the result update on Friday.

By the numbers:

Net profit at ₹133 crore, up 74% YoY
Revenue from operations at ₹839.5 crore
Hotel segment revenue at ₹822.8 crore

The how: the profit jump is the result of a few smart plays coming together at the right time.

First, the travel and hospitality boom is real. Second, the company has been tightening costs.

Improved operational efficiency, better procurement management, and leaner staffing structures have helped the company keep expenses in check even as revenues grew only 8%. Essentially, it’s earning more while spending smarter.

Third, a strong performance from flagship properties and food & beverage segments added to the momentum.

Zoom out: going forward, expect ITC Hotels to ride the wedding season and festive travel wave, especially in Q3 and Q4.

4. Wint Wealth bags $20M to make bonds interesting again 💸

Wint Wealth is raising $20 million in a fresh round led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India.

The company lets everyday investors put their money into corporate bonds and debt products that earlier only big financial players could access.

The deets: the money will help it grow its lending arm (Wint Capital), improve its tech platform, and launch more investment options for users.

The company recently got SEBI approval as an Online Bond Platform Provider and an NBFC licence via its acquisition of Ambium Finserve.

Quick insights: for years, regular investors stuck to fixed deposits and mutual funds, while products like bonds and debt instruments were reserved for big institutions. Platforms like Wint Wealth are changing that by making fixed-income investing simple and accessible, with entry points as low as ₹1,000 and returns between 9–12%.

Big theme: as of 2025, India has over 100 million retail investors, and that number is growing by nearly 15% every year.

Until recently, investing in bonds, debt products, and alternative assets was something only HNIs and institutions could do. But new-age platforms like Wint Wealth, Dezerv, Stable Money, and Grip Invest are breaking that wall & offering retail investors access to fixed-income products.

5. WazirX is back after a 15-month hiatus 💸

Crypto currency platform WazirX just announced that it will resume its operations after receiving approval from the High Court of Singapore. It will now allow the users to trade on its platform at 0% charges.

WazirX is owned by the Singapore-based Zettai Pte which manages and oversees the company’s operations because of which Singapore’s top court adjudicated the matter.

What is happening: the crypto trading platform fell prey to a cyber attack in July 2024, causing the company to halt operations and lose roughly $230 million including 45% of its assets.

What is changing: to ensure safety, it is partnering with BitGo, a digital asset protection company. Besides, it will only trade select tokens like crypto-to-crypto or INR/USD.

The company has also worked a scheme where they will repay the old creditors in the form of cash/crypto and ‘‘repayment tokens’.

These are digital tokens that represent a creditor’s claim over assets.

Big picture: India once was the leading nation for crypto adoption. But the government sentiment on the asset class has kept shifting. Plus, breaches like these stifle investor confidence.

Still, with the comeback of WazirX and government initiatives like the National Blockchain Framework, Indian investors can widely trade in crypto and become a key destination for this currency.

6. Stock that kept us interested 🚀

1. L&T bags ₹5,000 crore metals orders from Hindalco, Tata Steel ⚙️

L&T bagged multiple large orders worth ₹2,500–5,000 crore from Hindalco, Tata Steel, and others to build major aluminium, steel, and mining projects across India.

What’s happening: Hindalco tapped L&T to build a 180 KTPA aluminium smelter and gas treatment centre for its new Odisha plant.

Basically, the company is building a big factory that can make lots of shiny metal (aluminium). The stuff used in cars, planes, and soda cans and it will also clean the air and gases it makes.

The company also got several projects to supply and set up big mining machines the ones that move, crush, and load heavy materials.

India’s base metal mining market is on a steady climb, expected to hit $17.6 billion by 2030. The push for infrastructure, EVs, and renewables is fuelling demand for metals like aluminium, copper, and zinc, making mining one of India’s quiet but powerful growth stories.