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Bitcoin: Indonesia bars use by fintech firms
Indonesia’s central bank has issued a regulation banning use of cryptocurrencies by financial technology companies involved in payment systems, and said it is examining whether there’s a need to regulate trading on virtual currency exchanges.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Apple Pay takes on China’s internet kings in mobile payments
In an early boost, China’s biggest lender, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC), was among the banks that said earlier this week that customers would be able to use Apple Pay from Thursday.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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The Clear Blue Water on the Other Side of the Digital Divide
Digital financial exclusion represents both a development challenge for poor customers, and a missed opportunity for providers, says MicroSave founder Graham Wright. While providers fight for a share of the most profitable and easiest-to-reach markets, they often overlook the vast commercial potential of lower-income communities – in territory that is largely not competed. Wright explores how to tap into this "fiercely loyal" market.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Safaricom adds voice control to m-Pesa
In what the company hailed as a world-first, its customers will be able to check balances before and after making transactions by dialling a number from the handset connected to their account and entering a code.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Why America could miss out big time on India’s fintech revolution
There’s an old trope in the West that India is like Indian trains — exotic, lurching and slow.
But tropes can be bad as a business strategy — and this trope is causing American companies to miss out on Indian moonshots and trillion-dollar opportunities.- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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John Mcafee and Kohli Brothers all set to launch India’s biggest blockchain company
BitIndia Wallet is a blockchain wallet, which is a reorganised platform for the people of India, where they can store and make payments via digital currencies. BitIndia has its eyes set on bringing more Indians into the blockchain, by making them aware about cryptocurrencies, and offering a reliable and assured platform for the trade of blockchain and digital currencies in India.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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WorldRemit nabs $40M at a $670M valuation to boost its money transfer business
WorldRemit, a London-based startup with some 2 million users that offers a quick way for people to send money to each other with a focus on developing markets, has raised more funds to help it take on the likes of Western Union in the remittances market, estimated by the World Bank to be worth some $596 million globally this year, and ramp its user number to 10 million.
- Categories
- Finance
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The Environmental Case Against Bitcoin
No one may be using Bitcoin, but we’re all paying for them. Bitcoin analyst Alex de Vries, otherwise known as the Digiconomist, reports that the coin’s surge caused its estimated annual energy consumption to increase from 25 terawatt hours in early November to 30 TWh last week—a figure, wrote Vox’s Umair Irfan, “on par with the energy use of the entire country of Morocco, more than 19 European countries, and roughly 0.7 percent of total energy demand in the United States, equal to 2.8 million U.S. households.”
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Finance
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