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3 Key Takeaways From Facebook’s F8 Conference
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg put it simply at the annual F8 conference in San Francisco, California, this week. Facebook’s mission, he said, is to “give everyone the power to share anything with anyone.”
- Categories
- Technology
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Viewpoint: Much Hangs on Mobile Money in East Africa
From his shack in Kangemi, a slum at the western edge of Nairobi, Gilbert Onduko sells bare essentials to his neighbours. A blackboard above the hatch lists prices for ugali(maize cooked into a sort of porridge), farina (similar to semolina) and cooking oil. On the roof of the shack is a small solar panel, about the size of a tea tray, which powers two lights inside and a mobile phone. Since he got it, about a month before your correspondent visited, Mr Onduko has been able to keep his shop open until midnight rather than just in the daytime. He has also cut down his kerosene bill by 100 shillings (about $1) a day—a hefty saving in a Nairobi slum. “And now my phone is always charged,” he grins.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Africa’s Banks Work With Fintech Startups to Avoid Being Left Behind
Africa's banks are running scared. On a continent where traditional banking has clearly failed – 80 percent of the population, around 330 million adults, don't use formal or semiformal banking services – new services are emerging that could yet render banks redundant.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech
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Easypaisa, Nestle Collaborate to Facilitate Dairy Farmer Payments in Pakistan
Providing financial access to thousands of Pakistani dairy farmers as part of its mission of empowering societies, Easypaisa has collaborated with Nestlé Pakistan to make disbursement of milk collection payments swift, easy, and transparent.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
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Samsung Pay Joins China’s Trillion Dollar Mobile Wallet Market
With Apple already expecting China to be its biggest mobile payment market, it's no surprise that its biggest direct competitor, Samsung, also wants a slice of this piping hot pie. After a one-month public beta, today the Korean giant is officially launching its Samsung Pay service in China in partnership with UnionPay -- inevitably the same bankcard company thathelped launch Apple Pay locally. In other words, only UnionPay credit and debit cards -- up to 10 of them per device -- can be associated with local Samsung phones for the time being.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- fintech
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A New mHealth Device to Tackle Global Health
That global health is a puzzle that mobile health technologies can help to solve is not new. But it's always amazing to see entrepreneurs dream up new applications nonetheless.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
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Report: Facebook Is Turning Messenger Into a Mobile Wallet
Facebook has big plans to turn Messenger into an “Everything App”that will replace many others found on your smartphone, but one of the most important shifts will be turning it into an app that pays for things. Now code found inside Messenger suggests Facebook plans to turn on a feature to make digital transactions or even pay for physical goods in stores, according to a report in The Information.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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Smartphones Sales to See 60 Percent Growth in India: Assocham
Sales of affordable smartphones with in-built camera and internet-enabled features are set to shoot up to 160 million in 2016-17 from 100 million in 2015-16, an Assocham study said on Wednesday.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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