Roshni Ankola

UPI, RuPay Cards To Soon Be Accepted In France As Payments.

After revolutionizing digital payments in India, the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) is about to go live in France. NPCI Overseas, the international arm of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Lyra Network of France for the adoption of UPI and RuPay Cards in the country.

Unified Payments Interface and RuPay cards will soon be accepted in France, according to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) on Thursday with French payment services business Lyra Network. The announcement comes months after NPCI collaborated with firms such as Discover Financial Services (DFS) of the United States, Bhutan’s Royal Monetary Authority (RMA), Japan Credit Bureau (JCB) of Japan, and Network for Electronic Transfers (NETS) of Singapore to spread UPI and RuPay beyond India. The payments division’s parent business, NPCI International, announced on Twitter that it has collaborated with Lyra Network to launch UPI and RuPay cards in France.

“Considering India doing 5.5 billion UPI transactions per month, this strategic partnership will definitely prove to be a game-changer in the digital payments ecosystem,” IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a statement.
Source: gadgets360.com

The minister also stated that the collaboration will be a step toward making Unified Payment Interface available to the rest of the world.

In April 2020, the NPCI Board of Directors and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) created NIPL as a subsidiary of NPCI to increase the deployment of UPI and RuPay solutions outside of India. Since then, the worldwide body has collaborated with many organizations, payment networks, and banks in several countries to expand NPCI’s digital payment offerings.

NIPL collaborated with Bhutan’s central bank RMA in July of last year to enable QR-based Unified Payment Interface transactions in the country. It was an increase in NIPL’s presence in the Bhutanese market, as it had previously accepted and issued RuPay cards. This launch was expected to assist over 200,000 Indian tourists who visit Bhutan each year.

In February of this year, NIPL also collaborated with payments gateway Gateway Payments Service and fintech firm Manam Infotech to facilitate UPI-based payments in Nepal.

In May 2022, UPI recorded 6 billion transactions totaling $134.3 billion.. (INR 10.4 Lakh Cr). Transaction volume on the payments platform increased by 6.6 percent month on month (MoM) beginning in April 2022. It has surpassed about 80% of the transaction volume of 2021 in the first five months of 2022.

NPCI International joined the UAE market in April after forming a partnership with Mashreq Bank’s payment arm, NeoPay. With the collaboration, NPCI enabled Indian visitors in the UAE to make seamless payments using UPI at NeoPay-enabled shops and merchant stores. Along with expanding RuPay and UPI in global markets via NIPL, the Central government is taking steps to expand the reach of NPCI’s payments offerings within India.

The NPCI granted WhatsApp’s request to expand its UPI-based payments capability to 100 million users in April. It also introduced UPI Lite as a solution to allow small-value transactions to take place offline. Similarly, it launched the ‘123Pay’ UPI service in order to offer UPI to feature phone customers.

While NPCI was established in 2018, NPCI International was established as a wholly-owned subsidiary of NPCI in 2020. The international arm works on RuPay and UPI deployment outside of India.

The RBI recently declared that credit cards would be able to be linked to the UPI. The central bank stated that the service would initially be available solely on RuPay cards. Till now, only debit cards were authorized to be associated with the payment system. The change is likely to increase credit card transactions as well as boost the use of UPI.

Roshni Ankola

I am a second-year student pursuing Liberal Arts from Nmims. I am a painter, I love reading and have a great interest in cooking. I am also a trained kickboxer. I’ve always had a passion for writing and hence in my free time, I work as a freelance writer.

Jio-Bp Partners With Zomato To Make 100% EV Fleet By 2030.

Jio-Bp, Reliance Industries’ and London-based BP’s fuel and mobility joint venture, established a partnership with Zomato on Wednesday to deliver electric vehicle (EV) mobility services to the food aggregator in support of its aspirations to have a 100 percent EV fleet by 2030. The new statement comes just days after Jio-Bp revealed plans to establish EV charging and battery-swapping facilities in 12 locations throughout North India. The company will establish its shop on the assets of real estate developer Omaxe. They announced an agreement to support the food delivery company in its ‘The Climate Group’s EV100’ effort.

Jio-bp will provide EV mobility services to Zomato, as well as access to ‘Jio-bp pulse’ branded battery switching stations for last-mile deliveries, according to a company release.

“The collaboration is poised to accelerate EV adoption in the rapidly growing Indian delivery and transportation segment,” it added.
Source: businesstoday.in

Zomato last year joined the non-profit The Climate’s worldwide electric mobility program EV100, with the goal of having 100% EVs in their fleet by 2030. EVs are already available on the Gurugram-based company’s platform in cities such as India Delhi, Bengaluru, and Mumbai.

“The current EV fleet is a small fraction of the active fleet of delivery partners, and we understand that getting to 100 percent adoption of EVs will not be easy, but is essential in the long run,” Zomato Founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said in June last year when the company announced its EV-focused plans.
Source: gadgets360.com

The lack of charging infrastructure and restricted battery range are two major obstacles for Zomato in expanding its EV fleet. This could be rectified as a result of the most recent collaboration. Jio-Bp’s Pulse brand provides consumers with EV charging infrastructure.

Earlier this month, the Indian affiliate of British automaker MG Motor joined together with oil manufacturer Castrol to explore mobility options for EVs in the nation with Jio-Bp. TVS Motor and Mahindra Group are also significant automobile businesses in the joint venture, which will develop solutions for a variety of consumer and commercial EVs. In addition to Jio-Bp, Zomato has local vendors in select locations such as Zypp, Eveez, and Bud-e to facilitate its continuous transition to an EV fleet.

Reliance BP Mobility, which runs under the Jio-Bp brand, collaborated with Zomato’s archival Swiggy last year to create an ecosystem for EV battery-swapping stations across the country. Reliance BP Mobility Limited (RBML) is an Indian fuels and mobility joint venture between Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and bp that operates under the brand ‘Jio-bp.’ The JV established one of the country’s largest EV charging stations in Delhi in January 2022, as the partners expand their fuel retail network, including several fuel options as well as EV charging infrastructure. The collaboration also aims to assist in the development of greener and more cost-effective delivery fleet options.

Jio-bp built and launched two of India’s largest EV charging stations last year. The Jio-bp pulse brand represents the JV’s electric mobility company, which provides charging infrastructure to Indian consumers. Customers can use the Jio-bp pulse mobile app to identify nearby charging stations and charge their EVs seamlessly.

Jio-bp also announced as part of the arrangement that it will set up EV charging and switching infrastructure at various Omaxe properties across 12 cities. Delhi, Noida, Greater Noida, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, New Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Patiala, Amritsar, Jaipur, Sonipat, and Bahadurgarh are among them. It will do so incrementally.

Roshni Ankola

Worldline – Providing Payment And Transactional Services.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Roshni Ankola

Worldline is a corporation that offers payment and transactional services. It operates in four segments: Merchant Services, Financial Services, terminal, Solutions, and Services, and Mobility and e-Transactional Services. Terminals and point of sale, online payments, omnichannel commerce, issuing and acquiring solutions, account payments, digital banking, connected services, customer interaction, cloud services, and other services are available from the organization. Worldline serves the retail, financial, manufacturing, transportation, and public sectors, among others.

About The Company

Worldline SA, originally Atos Worldline SAS, the payment and transaction services provider is based in France. The organization has operations in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. The headquarters of Worldline is in Paris, France. The company develops and operates digital platforms that handle all transactions between businesses, their partners, and their customers. It provides a variety of financial services, including acquiring processing and value-added services, issuing processing, online banking, and software licensing. It serves the banking, transportation, retail, healthcare, financial services, insurance, media, and telecommunications industries.

Worldline’s Story

The story of Worldline begins in 1996, when Axime offered to buy Sligos, culminating in the successful merger of the two firms under the new name Atos. Atos quickly acquired more companies and rose to prominence as a leader in payment software and integration activities. The corporation established the new subsidiary Atos Worldline in 2004 to focus only on payments and transactional services.

Two years later, the business purchased Banksys, which is in charge of safeguarding and insuring electronic payments in Belgium, as well as BCC, which operates payment systems linked to the two main credit card networks, Visa and Mastercard. In 2013, the Atos Worldline segment obtained autonomy, and a year later, Atos floated Worldline as a standalone company for 26.59 percent of its interests, for 575 million euros, valuing Worldline at 2.1 billion euros. With over 11,000 workers and services in over 30 countries, Worldline rose to become the European Payment Champion. Worldline merged its electronic financial transaction processing services with the Dutch payment processing company Equens in November 2015 to form equensWorldline. The debut in 2016 established Worldline as the European payment services market leader.

When Atos shareholders approved the plan to divide 23.4 percent of Worldline shares to their owners in May 2019, Worldline became an independent business. The company expanded its international reach and inked a long-term strategic commercial acquiring agreement with Australia’s third-largest acquirer, ANZ Bank, at the end of 2020. One aspect of Worldline’s objective was to establish and enable an ecosystem with simple financial technology integration for as many businesses as feasible. As a result, Worldline fortified its position in 2017 by acquiring Digital River World Payments (DRWP) and First Data Baltics. This gave Worldline control of ANZ’s merchant acquisition business, allowing them to provide value-added products and services to its merchant customers. The Australian market is significant because it is the world’s 14th largest economy and is witnessing rapid expansion in digitalization. Worldline’s tale continues in May 2021, when we bought 92.5 percent of Cardlink’s share capital in order to build Worldline’s Merchant Services business in one of the world’s most promising markets. Cardlink is Greece’s top network services provider, with exclusive access to the country’s leading payment acceptance network. This transaction will provide with a greater presence in southern Europe a country that is rapidly adopting electronic payments.

CEO – Gilles Grapinet

Since July 2013, Gilles Grapinet has served as Worldline’s Chief Executive Officer. Soon after taking over, he led the company through a successful IPO in 2014, which resulted in Worldline’s listing as a public company on the French stock exchange. The company has more than doubled in size, geographical reach, and revenue since 2013. Mr. Grapinet, a fervent supporter of corporate social responsibility, launched the TRUST2020 program in 2016 – an ambitious roadmap that ensures trust is at the heart of all Worldline interactions.

Worldline, which became entirely independent of Atos on May 3rd, 2019, is now the n°1 electronic payment services provider in Europe and n°4 internationally and has been a member of the CAC40 leading French index since March 2020, with a market valuation of over 21 billion euros (March 2021).

Roshni Ankola

HP Spectre x360 16 and Spectre x360 13.5 Laptops Launched In India.

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Roshni Ankola

HP launched the Spectre x360 16 and Spectre x360 13.5 in India on Tuesday. Both of the new HP laptops are 2-in-1 convertibles with a 91 percent screen-to-body ratio. The laptops use Intel Core processors from the 12th generation and come preinstalled with an HP Auto Frame camera and artificial intelligence (AI)-based privacy alarms. Both the HP Spectre x360 16 (2022) and Spectre x360 13.5 are built on Intel’s Evo platform, which is designed for high-end devices with competitive performance and a sleek appearance. HP Presence and GlamCam are also included in the Spectre x360 16 for improved voice and video calling experiences.

Specifications – HP SpectreX360 16 (2022):

The HP Spectre 16 (2022) has a 16-inch 4K OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and runs Windows 11. Touch inputs and gestures like pinch-to-zoom, double-tap, and press and hold to create and draw sketches are also supported on the display. An optional MPP 2.0 tilt pen can be used to take notes or sketch. A 12th-generation Intel Core i7 processor with Intel Arc graphics power the Spectre 16 (2022). The Spectre x360 16 (2022) comes preloaded with a feature called Backlight Adjustment, which is designed to automatically fix video images while on the phone. To improve video and audio call quality, the laptop has directional beamforming microphones and quad speakers, as well as bi-directional AI noise reduction.

To make things easier, the Spectre x360 16 (2022) has walked away the lock and wake-on approach. Screen distance and screen time reminders are also included as well-being features. The laptop also boasts an HP Auto Frame camera, which is said to keep users in focus at all times. The HP Presence and GlamCam features for voice and video calls have also been pre-installed by the business.

Wi-Fi 6e and Thunderbolt 4 are among the connectivity options on the HP Spectre x360 16 (2022).

The HP Spectre x360 16 (2022) is said to have a battery life of up to 16 hours on a single charge. Fast charging is also supported, with up to 50 percent charge delivered in 30 minutes. HP has included a Power Saver option to help improve the battery life even further.

The In-bag detection feature on the Spectre x360 16 (2022) works with Intel Dynamic Tuning Technology to decrease processing power to avoid overheating or battery waste when the laptop is in a bag, according to the company.

Specifications – HP Spectre x360 13.5

The HP Spectre x360 13.5 has a 13.5-inch display, unlike the Spectre x360 16 (2022). It does, however, include an Intel Core i7 processor from the 12th generation. Wi-Fi 6e and Thunderbolt 4 connectivity are also available on the Windows 11-based laptop. The Spectre x360 13.5 also comes with a 5-megapixel Infrared (IR) webcam and AI-powered capabilities like Auto-frame and Noise reduction.

Price and Availability – HP Spectre x360 13.5, HP SpectreX360 16 (2022)

In India, the HP Spectre 16 x360 f-1003tu costs Rs. 1,39,999, while the HP Spectre 13.5 ef-0053tu costs Rs. 1,29,999. Both new versions are available in a Nightfall Black with Pale Brass accents and Nocturne Blue with Celestial Blue accents. The laptops are available with no-interest financing for up to 18 months.

An exchange advantage of up to Rs. 11,000 with an extra exchange top-up of Rs. 10,000 is included in the launch incentives for the HP Spectre x360 16 (2022) and Spectre x360 13.5, as well as a 10% cash back on select Amex credit cards up to Rs. 10,000. Customers who order the laptops through the HP website or select HP World Outlets, Croma, or Reliance stores will also receive exclusive pre-booking accessories worth Rs. 8,800. In addition, the laptops come with a complimentary one-month subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud as well as 20 Adobe software titles worth Rs. 4,230.

Pre-orders for the new Spectre x360 laptops are presently being taken on the HP website, in select HP World stores, Croma, and Reliance stores. In May, the Spectre x360 16 (2022) and Spectre x360 13.5 was introduced in the United States by HP.

Roshni Ankola

iOS 16: 5 Features Apple ‘Borrowed’ From Google’s Android OS.

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Roshni Ankola

Apple‘s annual WWDC event this week featured a number of announcements, with iOS 16 being one of the more notable. The latest version of the iPhone operating system includes a variety of useful features such as image segmentation for lock screen backgrounds, the ability to use machine learning to trim out subjects in photos, and real-time notifications on the lock screen.

iOS 16 provides a fresh coat of paint for iPhone owners, making your iPhone feel almost “new.” Originally unveiled at Apple’s WWDC The iPhone software update will be introduced as a public beta next month at the WWDC keynote, and will subsequently be broadly released later this year, around the same time. Apple’s iPhone 14 If you’re an Android user, though, some of the new features in iOS 16 don’t exactly seem ‘creative’ or ‘different’ from what you’ve had for years with Google’s mobile operating system. Here are some of the features Apple “borrowed” from Google and Android in iOS 16.

Live Captions:

Live Captions, which Apple announced in real-time for conversations, audio, and videos, is perhaps the most visible iOS 16 feature copied from Android. This is the same as Google’s Live Caption feature, which employs on-device machine learning to transcribe any audio playing on the device (debuting in 2019). Apple claims that Live Captions for iPhone, iPad and Mac can translate any audio content (FaceTime calls, video conferencing apps, or in-person chats) into English. With the release of Android 10, Google began pushing Live Caption services, which are now accessible in English on Pixel 2 and subsequent smartphones.

Shared Photos:

Shared photo capability has been available in Google Photos for a long time, allowing you to share albums with friends and family and have them contribute their own photos to the collection. Google’s service also allows you to add images to an album by face, so you can, for example, automatically add all of your grandmother’s photos to an album. It also proposes exchanging connections based on who’s in the picture.

Shared photo libraries are a popular feature in iOS 16 that consumers have been asking for for a long time. Finally, due to iCloud Shared Photo Library, Apple has made it simple to create a separate photo library that can be shared by up to five people. Since 2017, Google has had Shared Libraries, for those who are unaware. So, with a few minor tweaks, Apple’s iCloud Shared Photo Library functionality was deleted from Google’s page book. Each collaborator has permission to add, edit, favorite, caption, and delete photographs in the iCloud Shared Photo Library feature, which may be shared with up to five other individuals.

New Lock Screen Feature:

The addition of lock screen widgets, which allow you to access information such as the weather, events, time zones, and alarm from your locked display, was one of the main iOS 16 additions promised by Apple. You can even link various Focus profiles to separate lock screens. It sounds cool, but it’s yet another feature that was initially introduced on Android. The new lock screen on iOS 16 is beautiful, but it’s a feature that first appeared in Android with the release of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean in 2012. In reality, Google allowed users to customise the lock screen by adding a clock, calendar, and other elements. Google discontinued this feature with Android 5.0, but Samsung OneUI still has default lock screen widgets. To say the least, Apple drew a lot of inspiration for a smarter lock screen from Google.

Translate Camera:

Apple has incorporated machine learning in a number of ways, and iOS 16 demonstrates another intriguing application of the technology. Apple’s devices now have access to the Translate app’s translate camera feature, which allows you to aim your camera at text to get translations.

The Google Translate app on Android devices has had this capability for years, allowing you to point your phone camera at text and have a translation overlayed in the live viewfinder. Apple’s approach is more limited, as it essentially captures a photo and then overlays a translation onto the captured image’s text.

Schedule Sending Of Emails:

Apple also announced the option to undo email sending in the Mail app, as well as the ability to schedule email sending. The former is very useful if you realize you’ve made a mistake or accidentally sent the mail to the wrong individual.

Both of these capabilities were first introduced in Gmail a few years ago. Undo sending was really first revealed in 2009 as an experimental capability. This feature was first introduced by Google in Inbox, a beta version of Gmail. Inbox was unfortunately deleted by Google in 2019. In any case, these capabilities are available on Gmail for Android, PCs, and iOS, and you’ll be able to utilize them with iOS 16’s built-in Mail app.

Roshni Ankola

Jack Dorsey Announces ‘Web 5’, A New Platform Built On Bitcoin-Based Technology.

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Roshni Ankola

Bitcoin supporter Jack Dorsey has announced the launch of Web 5, a new online platform that is a combination of the centralized Web 2 and the decentralized Web 3. Square’s TBD subsidiary is developing a suite of BTC-based technologies to help modernize the financial system. The new platform, which is built on Blockchain, is described as a hybrid of Web3 and Web2.0. According to the report, the platform ensures that the security of individual data is a top concern and that no breaches occur. The Block Head or TBD – the Bitcoin-focused subsidiary of Dorsey’s Block (previously SQ) – presented its new concept for a decentralized internet layer on Friday at CoinDesk’s Consensus Festival in Austin, Texas. Let’s take a look at the Web5 platform announced by Jack Dorsey.

What is Web 5?

To put it in a way, the Internet of Things (IoT) means that everything in your life, and I mean everything, may talk to each other about you, in front of your face, behind your back, and without regard for your feelings. It was amusing to wake up to a robot in the guise of a kitty cat, but Web 5.0 would go even further. The Intelligent Web foreshadows what is to come with the emergence of smart devices that estimate your wants based on your patterns without including many clues. Symbiotic web algorithms will be able to analyze data on a more complicated emotional and cognitive level. This is the Web, which coexists with daily life in perfect harmony, operating without thought and spontaneously engaging with our actions. Computers can be turned into robotic assistants via digital realities. IoT can connect all household equipment to the internet, and it predicts that extremely intelligent interactions between machines and humans could be possible via chip implantation in human brains.

While the monetary layer of Web 5 will be based on Bitcoin, the other technologies that support it are drawn from a variety of cryptography and computer science fields.

“Identity and personal data have become the property of third parties. Web 5 brings decentralized identity and data storage to individuals’ applications. It lets developers focus on creating delightful user experiences while returning ownership of data and identity to individuals.” TBD said in a statement published with CoinDesk
source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

Group of Bitcoin Entrepreneurs the Block Head who reports to Jack Dorsey is in charge of Web5 development. To refresh your memory, Web5 is a platform that empowers people to manage their data and identities.

Although TBD’s new project was unveiled on Friday, it is currently under open-source development and has no set release date. Users will be able to engage with one another without the assistance of intermediaries on Web 5, just as they did on Web 3. In theory, this means that there will be no government censorship or centralized service outages, among other claimed benefits. Web 5 will also strive to provide users with a “decentralized identity,” allowing them to fluidly go from app to app without having to log in each time.

Web5 wants people to have the ability to “own their data,” according to TBH. Consider Riya’s digital wallet, which protects her identity, data, and authorizations for external apps and connections. Riya logs onto a new decentralized social media platform with her wallet. Riya, on the other hand, does not need to establish a profile because she has connected to the app with her decentralized identity, and all of the connections, relationships, and postings she makes through the app are saved in her decentralized web node. Riya can switch apps whenever she wishes using Web5, and her social profile follows her.

Another example is Arjun, a music fan who despises having his data tied to a single vendor. It forces him to re-create his playlists and tunes across many music apps on a regular basis. Fortunately, there is a way out of this maze of vendor-locked silos: Arjun can store this information in his decentralized web node. Arjun may give any music app access to his settings and preferences in this way, allowing him to take his tailored music experience with him everywhere he goes. As a result, Web5 will provide people w control over their data. Meanwhile, Mike Brock, TBD’s Product Lead, stated that “with web5, there are no tokens to invest in.”

Roshni Ankola

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