April, 2021

• 19 April

  Smart Dubai launches new ‘Zakat’ service on DubaiNow App

  

  Dubai / WAM Smart Dubai announced it collaborated with the UAE Zakat Fund to launch a new and secure Zakat payment service on the government service application DubaiNow in time for the Holy Month of Ramadan. The new service allows users to calculate their Zakat amount per Islamic Sharia law, and then pay the full amount or part of it. ...

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• 19 April

  Gas is new coal with risk of $100b in stranded assets

  

  Bloomberg Natural gas is falling out of favour with emissions-wary investors and utilities at a quicker pace than coal did, catching some power generators unaware and potentially leaving them stuck with billions of dollars of assets they can’t sell. Citigroup Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co are among the banks that strengthened their financing restrictions on thermal coal under pressure ...

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• 19 April

  London needs a tech IPO hit to forget Deliveroo debacle

  

  London is finally getting a proper test of its appetite for loss-making, high-growth technology stocks. The impending initial public offering of cybersecurity startup Darktrace Plc fulfills many of the criteria that much-hyped Deliveroo Holdings Plc didn’t, but investors are still being asked to overlook some issues that would likely be less of a concern in the US. Deliveroo’s experience made ...

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• 19 April

  Can big data collect debt in India?

  

  A 2021 remake of Get Shorty might not have much use for John Travolta’s Miami mobster character. The debt collector role could go to a bot. You can test this hypothesis in a most unlikely place to roll out a new technology: the Indian countryside. The setting is perhaps not as odd as it seems, with about 5% to 10% ...

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• 19 April

  How Covid-19 revealed power of live video

  For years, video consumption was rising — from television to streaming apps to social media platforms. But one of the most thrilling parts of entertainment was mostly missing from the video world until the pandemic hit: the power of truly “live” streaming content. But with large gatherings off-limits during the pandemic, musicians and arts organisations started putting together live performances ...

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• 19 April

  EU bond bonanza will change capital markets

  The fixed-income landscape is set to be transformed as the European Union revs up to borrow $1 trillion by selling bonds in its own right. While talk of creating a market to rival US Treasuries is overblown, the forthcoming flood of securities will offer investors a genuine alternative to German bunds as the region’s debt benchmark. The EU will issue ...

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• 19 April

  China must take ‘decisive’ steps to boost domestic demand: US

  

  Bloomberg The US said China continues to focus its policies on exports, and called on its biggest economic rival to implement forceful measures to boost domestic demand. “China’s recovery has been highly imbalanced” since the hit from the coronavirus pandemic, the US Treasury Department said in its semiannual foreign-exchange report. “Stringent containment measures enabled China to quickly resume manufacturing while ...

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• 19 April

  India’s Razorpay triples valuation to $3 billion

  

  Bloomberg Razorpay, an Indian startup that facilitates digital payments, is raising $160 million from Sequoia India, Singapore’s sovereign fund GIC Pte and others, tripling its valuation to $3 billion in six months. The Bangalore-headquartered company, which helps businesses to automate their payment systems, will use the funds to expand into banking and lending, make acquisitions and add services in Southeast ...

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• 19 April

  HK billionaire Fungs weigh sale of luxury bagmaker

  Bloomberg Hong Kong billionaire brothers Victor and William Fung are exploring selling their stake in Delvaux, a 192-year-old Belgian luxury leather bagmaker, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Fungs are working with advisers and have reached out to prospective suitors on the potential divestment of the asset, the people said. A sale could value the bagmaker at around ...

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• 19 April

  SoftBank’s $120m Norway deal includes high-pay theme to it

  

  Bloomberg After spending $120 million on a stake in an online grocer in Norway, SoftBank Group Corp is laying out the business logic of targeting a market that boasts Europe’s highest hourly labour costs. The deal is an example of how countries that pay average workers really well often come up with some of the smartest technology, according to Paul ...

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