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Showing posts with the label Fintech

Meet the Ukraine Minister who uses Tech against Missiles

U kraine’s Minister for digital transformation Mykhailo Federov is heavily relying on technology to brave Russian attack.  Mykhailo Federov operates from an underground shelter in a concealed site in Kyiv, while Ukraine’s President Voldymyr Zelensky joins the military forces for physical confrontation above. Federov turned the sedate government Twitter handle into a social media mortar that’s persuading world’s authoritative tech companies to close business in Russia as a protest against Russian incursion in Ukraine. Federov is urging tech-gurus like Elon Musk to deploy satellites for the benefit of Ukrainians. He uses his smartphone to reach out to the world. His tweet triggered Musk to react within 48 hours and attuned his pattern of Starlink satellites and dispatched a volume of internet-ready Starlink terminals to Ukraine. The service is crucial in the stability of internet services should the telecommunication networks be dismantled. However, Musk warned that Russian missiles migh

Largest Cypto Heisty Raises Concerns over Future of DeFi

T here have been increased rates of hackers targeting DeFi sites. In what Reuters news has reported as the largest crypto heist, Jump Cypto announced that it had restored $320 million that was stolen from their site.  The unregulated Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platforms enable users to borrow, lent and safe in crypto form rather than using traditional financial institutions such as banks. However, the bypassing of regulated financial institutions comes with great risks. Many investors are lured to DeFi owing to low interest rates with the expectation of high returns. However, fraud and theft has continuously hit DeFi sites and no hacker has been brought to book. Elliptic research reveals that in 2020, DeFi sites lost an excess of $10 billion. The huge loss makes DeFi to be the most vulnerable branch of cryptocurrencies.  In 2018, digital tokens worth $530 million were stolen from Coincheck, a Tokyo-based Crypto platform. This was after an earlier loss of a half a billion to hackers i

China’s digital Currency Set to Challenge US Dollar in Global Popularity

The digital currency dubbed Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) that is supported by China’s central bank is projected to challenge the dollar in global popularity. Preliminary reports indicate that the virtual cash will help the relevant authorities to have greater control of cash flows. The Chinese digital yuan will be used to simulate various banking transactions like receiving deposits, payments and withdrawal from the digital wallet. Before the official inception of the cryptocurrency, China had launched a second trial of electronic cash that saw the distribution of over $3 million, through lottery, among 100,000 natives living in Shenzhen. The number of participants in the second trial was almost double than the initial one. China Daily reported that Beijing was to distribute 10 million yuan, where each winner will bag 200 yuan, via a lucky draw ahead of the Chinese New Year break. China plans to distribute $1.5 million in Lunar new year for digital currency t

China in Fast-Paced Race to Create Super Apps, as Mobile Apps Surge

There are many applications deployed on Smartphones and IPhones . As the number of mobile applications augments, there has been consistent race to create mega applications to perform a variety of functions. Super apps serve as a one-stop portal to access a variety of virtual products and services. Super-apps enable the usage of a single app to perform several tasks such as booking a cab, ordering for pizza, chatting with your friends, funding utilities and even purchasing a flight ticket.  WeChat was among the super apps pioneers. The Chinese tech firm was found by Tencent in 2011 as a messaging platform. Currently, the Company offers over a million services through third party functional plugins.  However, BBC reports indicate that most of the services offered by WeChat are only available in China. Another Company that adapted the supper-app system is Ant Group’s Alipay . The firm offers at least 120,000 mini programmes. Just like WeChat, Alipay has over a billion act

How Technology is Leveraging Financial Inclusion in Africa

When the continent was struck with the pandemic, many African countries struggled to adjust to the new norm as their economies were disrupted. Unlike other continents, Africa was less hit by the pandemic. Despite the fewer fatalities, the continent struggled a lot to overcome the effects of the Covid-19 global pandemic. Lockdown sanctions, travel restrictions and home working led to dwindling economies. But thanks to the technological breakthrough that saw the increased overreliance of e-commerce platforms and mobile money transfer. Covid-19 accelerated the rate at which most African countries embraced digital banking. Agency banking significantly increased during Covid-19. Mobile money transfer shot by a marginal magnitude as people avoided using tangible currencies. Bank charges and mobile transfer services cost were scaled down to cushion the less income earners. For example in Kenya , the Central Bank directed all agencies to zero-rate sending money below a thousand