Carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has confirmed that output at some of its manufacturing sites will resume on Wednesday, as it continues to recover from a serious cyber-attack.

Its production lines have been at a standstill since the start of September, following the attack.

The phased return of staff will begin at some sites in the West Midlands and Merseyside.

JLR has also announced a programme to fast-track payments to its direct suppliers, some of which had laid off workers after their revenues dried up following the hack.

Initially the scheme will be confined to the most critical suppliers needed for restarting production, but it will be expanded at a later date.

JLR says the phased restart will begin at its Wolverhampton engine plant in Wolverhampton and its battery assembly centre in Hams Hall.

Employees who work in facilities which prepare pressed metal bodywork at the company’s sites in Castle Bromwich, Halewood and Solihull will also be brought back in – as will those who work in the Solihull car plant’s body shop and paint shop.

JLR says this move will be “closely followed” by the resumption of vehicle manufacturing in Nitra, Slovakia. The Range Rover and Range Rover Sport production lines in Solihull are expected to restart later in the week.

It is not yet clear when output will resume at JLR’s Halewood plant on Merseyside.

Experts have warned that it is still likely to be several weeks before the production lines are running as normal.

JLR has also outlined an accelerated-payment scheme to help its suppliers, many of whom have been struggling financially.

So-called Tier 1 suppliers, with which the company has a direct relationship, will be able to get paid for new orders shortly after they have been placed, rather than up to two months after delivery. JLR says this will enable them to get funding up to 120 days earlier than normal.

There is an expectation that these companies will then offer similar terms to their own suppliers, allowing funding to flow rapidly down the supply chain.

The scheme is being funded by JLR itself, using credit provided by a commercial bank. It is not linked to the £1.5bn loan guarantee recently offered to the carmaker by the government.

Industry insiders have warned that the resumption of production, while welcome, does not end the crisis being experienced by many smaller suppliers. Some are heavily reliant on JLR and have had little or no income for the past month and a half, while bills have still had to be paid.

Last week, one leading contractor told the BBC that the help offered by the government so far was inadequate.

David Roberts of Evtec Group said: “We asked the government directly, at ministerial level, to directly support the sector. They listened, but they did nothing. It’s almost like they’ve turned a deaf ear to the needs of advanced manufacturing.”

Another supplier, Genex UK, a small company which presses metal parts, told the BBC it had been forced to lay off 18 staff because of a cash shortage.

Facial recognition and fingerprint authentication – these are the two new features that may be launched for payments made through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), according to a Reuters report.The National Payments Corporation of India, UPI’s operator, intends to display this biometric capability at Mumbai’s Global Fintech Festival, the report said.Users in India can authenticate payments through UPI using facial recognition and fingerprints beginning October 8, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the development quoted by Reuters.The verification process will utilise biometric information stored within the Government of India’s Aadhaar identification system, sources were quoted as saying.Following recent Reserve Bank of India directives allowing different authentication approaches, this change will deviate from the existing protocol that mandates numeric PIN validation for payments.NPCI’s UPI witnessed a reduction in transaction volume during September, whilst the transaction value showed a slight increase.NPCI data revealed that UPI handled 19.63 billion transactions in September, down from 20.01 billion in August. However, the total transaction value increased slightly to Rs 24.90 lakh crore from Rs 24.85 lakh crore in the previous month.Daily transactions averaged 654 million, with a daily value averaging Rs 82,991 crore.In comparison to the previous year, UPI demonstrated significant growth, with transaction volume increasing by 31% and value rising by 34%.September also saw declining trends across other digital payment platforms. The Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) recorded 394 million transactions valued at Rs 5.97 lakh crore, decreasing from August’s 477 million transactions worth Rs 5.98 lakh crore. The Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) transactions decreased to 106 million from 128 million.

Canara HSBC Life Insurance Company Ltd on Tuesday announced the price band for its upcoming IPO, setting it at the range of Rs 100 to Rs 106 per share, targeting a valuation of about Rs 10,000 crore at the upper end.The insurer’s Rs 2,516-crore public offering will open for subscription on October 10 and close on October 14. Bidding for anchor investors is scheduled for a single day on October 9, according to a public announcement.Canara HSBC Life’s IPO will be a full offer for sale (OFS), with promoters and an investor putting up a total of 23.75 crore shares. Canara Bank is set to sell 13.77 crore shares, HSBC Insurance (Asia-Pacific) Holdings Ltd will sell 47.5 lakh shares, while Punjab National Bank plans to offload 9.5 crore shares.As this is an OFS, Canara HSBC Life will not receive any money from the IPO, instead the proceeds will go entirely to the selling shareholders, PTI reported.Investors can bid for a minimum of 140 shares and in multiples of 140 thereafter. Canara HSBC Life is expected to list on the stock market on October 17.Since its incorporation in 2007, the company has grown into a leading bank-backed private player in India’s life insurance sector. For this IPO, 50% of the shares are reserved for qualified institutional buyers (QIBs), 35% for retail investors, and the remaining 15% for non-institutional investors. Canara HSBC Life is a joint venture promoted by Canara Bank, which holds a 51% stake, and HSBC Group’s HSBC Insurance (Asia Pacific) Holdings, which owns 26%. Canara Robeco Asset Management is also launching its IPO, open for subscription from October 9 to 13. In December last year, Canara Bank had received approval from the Reserve Bank to divest its stake in its life insurance and mutual fund businesses.