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Vodafone and Microsoft's 10-Year Deal in AI and Payment Systems

Vodafone and Microsoft’s 10-Year Deal in AI and Payment Systems

Leave a Comment / Artificial Intellegence, News, Tech News / By

In order to provide generative AI, digital services, enterprise solutions, as well as cloud services to more than 300 million customers and enterprises throughout its European and African regions, Vodafone and Microsoft have formed a ground-breaking 10-year cooperation.

Vodafone is investing $1.5 billion in the creation of customer-focused AI as part of this partnership, utilising Microsoft’s Copilot and Azure OpenAI capabilities. As part of the cooperation, physical data centres will be replaced with more affordable and scalable Azure cloud services.

Microsoft Will Purchase Stock in Vodafone's IoT in Exchange

In exchange, Microsoft will purchase stock in Vodafone’s operated Internet of Things (IoT) platform, which is expected to go independent by April 2024. Microsoft will also contribute to the African expansion of Vodafone’s mobile finance platform.

Vodafone and Microsoft's 10-Year Deal in AI and Payment Systems

Image Source: voi.id

Luka Mucic, Chief Financial Officer of Vodafone, highlighted how Microsoft’s AI leadership, especially through its OpenAI partnership, is revolutionising the telecoms company’s consumer services. Mucic announced the introduction of the Microsoft AI-driven TOBi chatbot, which is expected to provide more consistent and perceptive answers to consumer inquiries.

Microsoft’s Chief Commercial Officer, Judson Althoff, emphasised the strategic importance of Vodafone’s IoT and financial services capabilities. In order to test process changes in the cloud, he highlighted the crucial role that Vodafone’s IoT assets play in solving sustainability concerns. Microsoft’s “digital twins” are used to mimic industrial settings.

“The IoT assets are critical in helping us address the sustainability needs of so many of our customers in hard-to-abate sectors,” Microsoft’s Chief Commercial Officer Judson Althoff said.

“Vodafone’s IoT stack allows us to go into those environments, model the environment, create large-scale data stores, and use AI to help customers meet their sustainability goals,” he said.

cnbc.com

Microsoft’s goals in the area, which centre on financial decision-making and digital literacy, are in line with Vodafone’s M-PESA mobile money platform, which operates in African nations including South Africa, Tanzania, and Kenya. The collaboration intends to use generative AI capabilities to enable clients to make knowledgeable financial decisions.

Also Read: Uber Announces Closure of its Alcohol Delivery Service Drizly

This partnership is an all-encompassing attempt to fuse Microsoft’s technological capabilities with Vodafone’s vast telecom reach, generating synergies in the domains of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and financial services. A common vision for the development of digital services and innovation in the telecom industry is reflected in the partnership’s commitment to a 10-year term.

RBI

As A Result Of The RBI New Payments Rule, Tech Giants Brace For The Fallout In India.

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As the central bank of the world’s second-largest internet market imposed a new directive. for how recurring payments are processed in this country, Apple, Sony, Google, Zoom, PayPal, and dozens of other technology companies, as well as dozens of banks, have warned customers and partners in India to expect an increase in rejected transactions.
The RBI has issued a directive that requires banks, financial institutions, and payment gateways to obtain additional approval from users for auto-renewable transactions worth more than 5,000 Indian rupees ($67) by providing notices, mandates, and Additional Authentication Factors (AF). The directive affects all those transactions for debit and credit cards.
The directive, which was first proposed in 2019, was supposed to go into effect in April of this year, but it was postponed until September 30 after banks and other stakeholders said they weren’t ready to comply.
Before deducting amounts for recurring payments, banks must now obtain account holder approval. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced new self-debit rules on Friday as the next step in securing digital credit or debit card transactions. Recurring automatic payments for various top-ups and bills must now be protected with additional authentication factors under the new rules (AFA).
All banks, including RRBs, NBFCs, and payment gateways, have been ordered by the central bank to stop processing recurring domestic and cross-border transactions using cards, prepaid payment instruments (PPI), or Unified Payment Interfaces (UPI) without AFA.
Before deducting funds for certain purposes, banks must now get account holders’ permission. The new guidelines require banks to send customers a one-time password for recurring payments over $5,000.
Because banks were not yet ready to implement AFA, the deadline had to be pushed back several times. Recurring payments to utility service providers, as well as recharging of telephone, DTH, and OTT services, are all covered by the new car rule. The RBI directive on implementing AFA will cover all of these payments because they are now made through recurring deductions from registered bank accounts, UPI IDs, or digital wallets.
The new rules have been communicated to most banks’ customers. If you missed the announcement, here are five things to know about the RBI’s new automatic billing rules.

RBI
Image source: www.trustnodes.com

Early Accountholder Alert

Before deducting the amount from the registered account for recurring payments, banks must notify account holders 24 hours in advance. The reason for this is to ensure that customers are fully informed about all transactions involving their accounts. The bank will not be able to forward the money to the service provider unless the customer has acknowledged and completed the recurring payment.

One-Time Registration

If customers want to complete future transactions without additional authentication factors, they must first complete the registration process. Users will be able to make future transactions without having to repeat AFA, despite the fact that it appears to be an extra step. They can also specify a transaction’s validity period in the future.

OTPs For Auto-Debit

In accordance with the new direct debit rules, the bank must send a one-time password (OTP) to the account holder for recurring payments exceeding $5,000.

Choice To Opt-Out

Customers are not obligated to use AFA for recurring payments and can opt out at any time. The pre-debit notification that the bank will send to the customer to confirm automatic billing will also include a link that the customer can use to disable AFA. However, this will negate the additional security it provides.
Auto-Debits out of AFA
The new automatic debit rules will not affect permanent instructions to use an existing bank account for mutual funds, SIPs, or Equivalent Monthly Installment (EMI) for loans.

authorize.net

How Jeff Knowles Created Payment Gateway History by Founding Authorize.Net

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Almost everyone agrees that the future is digital. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that most organizations want to move their sales online, to maximize sales. In the field of e-commerce, one of the most crucial parts of going digital is creating a secure payment portal. Having a robust, credible and easy to use payment portal ensures efficient sales and revenue generation. Therefore, for an e-commerce company to sustain itself, it must employ an efficient payment gateway. We would not have been able to enjoy the choice and freedom we have now, concerning online shopping, if not were such technologies. Being able to secure such a gateway ensures that companies can enable financial transactions peacefully. This time around, we will be taking a look at one of the most successful payment gateway companies in world-Authorize.net founded by Jeff Knowles.

Early Payment Gateway Prior To Authorize.Net

While we see several options in front of us now, things weren’t always this easy. Before 1996, there were hardly any reliable options in the market. Then came Jeff Knowles, with his idea for a payment gateway that forever changed the way payment gateways function. Jeff has a degree in computer science and business from Brigham Young University and the University of Phoenix respectively. Jeff began his career as an engineer at WordPerfect. In 1995, he left this job to begin working as a sales agent for a particular ISO, while attending business school. While working here, he met several non-retail customers who were looking for a desktop-based solution. Prior to this, most people relied on Trans330 or Zon-Jr for this function. The only solution he saw was either selling clients PC-Authorize, ICVerify or CyberCash, all of which were difficult to use and lacked flexibility. Since he had a background in software engineering, Jeff decided to handle the problem his way. So, he began to explore new ways by which to process financial transactions. This would not only help his clients save money, but also improve the company’s overall efficiency. Meanwhile, around the world, the internet era was coming to life. Around the same time, Netscape grew to become an important browser, while ISPs cropped up all over the US. Hence, this essentially became the dawn of e-commerce around the world.

Process of Developing Authorize.Net

Jeff began by contacting First Data to understand how they work and gather data regarding financial transactions. He researched POS systems and then analyzed how various channels work, in order to gain an insight into how these systems function. Using these specifications, Jeff started to beta-test sending messages using this line. The initial development phase led to the formation of Authorize.Net, and then followed the hiring of other software engineers.

The idea then grew into and became a rudimentary plan to create a gateway service for enabling transactions between merchants. However, the initial plan took several hours to process and respond too, and wasn’t very successful. However, the idea proved to become extremely successful, with many clients wanting to try this idea out. Within a few weeks, the team built a system that could send transactions safely. They then designed an interface and API for the same and then encrypted it to provide security. A year later, in 1997, Authorize.net, allowed merchants to connect via https protocol and SSL encryption. Over the next two years, the team kept releasing timely updates to create a more well-rounded system.

The initial investment of $100,000.00 came from the friends and family of the team members themselves.

Success and Further Development

Authorize.Net grew exponentially, and the system quickly spread to various merchants, agents and sales agents across the country. All these individuals were anted such a product as they made it easier to make transactions online. The system later grew to include ACH payments, and within two years Go2Net bought Authorize.Net. Twenty years later, the payment gateway industry has undergone a tremendous overhaul, and yet Auhtorize.Net stays relevant. By 1999, Authorize.Net was making over 90 million dollars and its shareholders couldn’t be happier. Go2Net was bought by InfoSpace, three years later for US$4 billion, while Authorize.Net went to Lightbridge for US$82 million and later to CyberSource by 2007. Visa then acquired CyberSource three years later for US$2 billion. As of 2014, this payment gateway was serving over 450,000 customers, making it one of the world’s most popular gateways.