Daybreak - Daybreak Friday: UPI blinks, Google faces a $4.7B fine, LIC to shoulder India's oil bill, and more

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

When a bill arrives, what do you pay it with? That's the question running underneath this week's Daybreak roundup. The government of India is answering it with slices of LIC and other PSUs, because the American war in Iran has kept oil expensive and the budget is straining. OYO's parent is answering it with money from public investors, most of which will go straight to its lenders. Google spent eight years arguing it shouldn't have to answer at all, until Europe's top court settled the matter this week. And then there's UPI, which has never sent anyone a bill in its life. Its June numbers just hinted at why that might not last forever.Tune in.*We want to get to know you a little better. Tell us what you think about Daybreak here.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hello, it is Friday the 3rd of July and today we are doing a roundup. Four stories from the week and running underneath all of them is a single question. When the bill arrives, what do you pay it with? The government of India is answering that question which shares in some of the country's largest public sector companies. Oyo's parent company is answering it with money from investors it hasn't even met yet. And Google spent eight years arguing that. that it should not have to answer this question at all. And this week, Europe's top court disagreed.

And then there is UPI, which has never sent anybody a bill in its life and whose latest numbers hint at why that might eventually become a problem. Let's start with a company that probably ensures somebody in your family. LIC is the country's largest insurer and its biggest shareholder by a very long way is the government of India. Bloomberg reported yesterday that the government is speeding up plans to sell small slices of its holding in eight public sector companies.

Only two have been named so far, LIC, where a sale could bring in as much as 10,000 crore rupees and Hindustan zinc, which could add another 5,000 crore rupees. The rest are state-owned banks where the government has more than 90% shares. Business Standard has reported that the plan includes Punjab and Sindh, Indian Overseas Bank and Yuko Bank. And this is an acceleration of something that was already in motion. The government had sold 1.6% shares of Hindustan zinc as recently as November last year for about 3,500 crore rupees. And it has set itself a target of 80,000 crore rupees this year from stake sales and public assets.

So why the hurry? The answer is kind of obvious. Oil. India imports most of its crude, and the American War in Iran sent Brent past $100 or barrel earlier this year as strikes and ship attacks choked exports out of the Gulf. There is a ceasefire now, but prices have not come back down to comfortable levels. But here is the twist. The government doesn't actually need oil as an excuse.

You see, Sebi requires every listed company to keep at least 25% of its share. with the public. Several PSU banks are nowhere near that. And a deadline arrives this August, and it has already been extended twice. LIC has until May 27 to get its public flow to 10%. So on paper, every one of these sales is actually just compliance, except the deadlines have not moved, and the pace of selling suddenly has. But all this hurrying actually has a price too. Offers or sale usually go out at a discount. The more urgently the government needs the money, the cheaper each slice risks getting. From the state selling equity to a startup doing the same.

You know, Oyo, the big red logo on budget hotels in every Indian city and one of the most famous startups that this country has produced. The company behind it is now called Prison. And this week, Prison filed its updated IPO papers with Sebi. It wants to raise 6,650 crore rupees, all of it through new shares. No existing investor is selling and the company is presenting this as a vote of confidence. Now, look at where the money is going to go. Nearly 5,000 crore of this, which is three quarters of the raise, is earmarked to repay debt.

So basically, the public is being invited in largely so that the lenders can be paid off. To be fair, the business is now in a better shape than during its last two attempts at listing. Revenue for the first nine months of this financial year was nearly 7,000 crore rupees, and that is more than the whole of last year. Profit roughly tripled to 748 crore rupees. But here is the part that might surprise you. The company is barely Indian anymore. More than 84% of its revenue comes.

from outside of India. The United States alone accounts for over half of its global gross booking value after Oyo bought G6 hospitality, which is a chain of American budget motels. So, the startup listing in Mumbai as one of India's most awaited IPOs is operationally an American budget hotel company with a portfolio of European vacation homes attached. And finally, there is also the valuation. In 2021, Oyo wanted a valuation of nearly $12 billion, but now reports peg it to $7 to $8 billion. And now on to something that you probably used this morning.

UPI, the country's famed payments system. NPCI, its parent, released its June numbers this week, and for the first time in a long time, they fell. Transaction values dropped 3% from May to 28.9. $92 trillion rupees and volumes slipped by 2% to $22.72 billion rupees. Now, before you panic,

some context. May was actually the biggest month in UPI's history. June was still up more than 20% compared to the same month last year and the daily numbers were basically flat. So this looks like a breather after a record.

And that is how I would like to read it to for now. But this dip raises a question that the ecosystem prefers to postpone every time. Every UPI payment is free. Merchants pay nothing and neither do you or I the users. The economics of this arrangement rest on one assumption. Volumes keep growing forever and scale eventually pays for the infrastructure. A month where the curve flattens, even for seasonal reasons, is a preview of a harder moment.

which is the moment someone has to decide who actually funds India's payment rails. That debate has been deferred for years and June's numbers are a gentle reminder that this exists. I even covered this on a daybreak episode a while ago. It was called UPI can be forever or free. Not both. I will link it to the show notes of this one. From a bill that nobody wants to send to a bill that took eight years to arrive. Yesterday, Europe's top court ordered Google to pay 4.1 billion euros in one of the biggest

antitrust fines in history. So, what did Google actually do? Here is the simple version. You see, Android is free for phone makers to use. But if a Samsung or a Xiaomi wanted the play store on its phones and no phone really sells without it, Google attached conditions. The maker had to pre-install Google search and Chrome 2 front and center. So when you bought a phone, Google's apps were already there, and rivals instead had to convince you to download theirs. Europe's regulator called this an abuse of dominance in 2018 and handed down the fine. Google fought it through two layers of courts.

A lower court trimmed it slightly in 2022, and this week, the Court of Justice dismissed the final appeal and the road seems to have finally run out. If this sounds familiar, it should because long-time listeners of Daybreak might remember an episode from the early days of the podcast in January 2023 about India's version of this fight. The CCI or the Competition Commission of India find Google over the same playbook, which is the compulsory bundle. These are the apps on your phone that you cannot uninstall even if you want to. Google's defense in India even included the argument that our regulator, which is the CCI,

had copied entire portions of the European ruling. That case has traveled from the CCI to the appellate tribunal to the Supreme Court where the appeals are still pending. Which is why yesterday's judgment matters here. The ruling Google said India copied has now been upheld at the highest level. Brussels has shown that these cases can be won, but it has also shown how long winning takes. That's all for today. Thank you for tuning in and we will catch you again on Monday.

Please do not forget to fill the form. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of a subscriber-only offerings and a full subscription offers daily long-form feature stories. newsletters and a whole bunch of premium podcasts. To subscribe, head to the ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by my colleague Snitha Sharma and edited by Rajiv CN.