BlackBerry, Windows in trouble over new PayPal Update

PayPal has just driven another nail into the coffin of BlackBerry, Windows Phone, and Amazon mobile operating systems by announcing it is dropping support for all three platforms with the latest update to its mobile application. In a May 25 blog post announcing the upgrade to Version 6.0 of the PayPal app, Joanna Lambert, the company's vice president of global consumer product and engineering, noted that Amazon Fire or Blackberry users will be no longer be able to use the app on June 30, the date it will be discontinued. 

However, she noted customers using those devices would still be able to log into PayPal on these phones through the company's mobile Web interface. In addition, Blackberry users will continue be able to use the BBM app to send peer-to-peer payments through PayPal.

"It was a difficult decision to no longer support the PayPal app on these mobile platforms, but we believe it's the right thing to ensure we are investing our resources in creating the very best experiences for our customers," Lambert wrote. "We remain committed to partnering with mobile device providers, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our customers."

Starting on June 3, and going through June 30, customers using older versions of the PayPal mobile app on Google Android and Apple iOS devices will be required to upgrade to the newest version of the app.

The newest version of the app is currently supported on Android devices running OS 4.03 or greater and Apple devices running iOS 8.1 or higher, iPhone 4S or greater, iPad 2 or greater, and iPod Touch fifth generation or greater.

The latest version, announced in February, was built using an interative platform to make it easier to customize and localize the PayPal app for the 145 markets where the app is live. It includes simplified features to make it easier to send and receive money. In addition, a revamped home screen provides transaction details, allows users to pay pending requests, or send payments to recent contacts.

Other features include a fine-tuning Android fingerprint authentication for more devices, separation of account activity by pending and completed transactions, and quicker access to the friends who users send money most often. "As the digital payments landscape evolves, we will continue to innovate and make enhancements to PayPal's mobile experiences to give our customers the best possible ways to manage and move their money," Lambert wrote.

Those sentiments will provide little comfort to the app's users on BlackBerry, Windows Phone, and Amazon devices. BlackBerry in particular has suffered a series of setbacks, with major app providers ending support for the platform.

In March, Facebook made the decision, along with the messaging app the company owns, WhatsApp, to discontinue support of its essential APIs for BlackBerry 10 and BBOS at the end of 2016, which means Facebook Messenger will no longer be supported on BlackBerry.

BlackBerry's handset sales figures show the operating system is already on life support, something that looks unlikely to change soon. Company CEO John S. Chen has said numerous times that if BlackBerry can't make a profit selling hardware, it will stop selling hardware altogether -- something that seems more and more like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Rwanda and Ericsson partner to build national interoperability switch

Ericsson and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning for Rwanda have signed a breakthrough agreement for the launch of a national interoperability switch based on the Ericsson M-Commerce Interconnect solution. The solution will enable financial and payments service providers in the country to connect to one common platform for seamless and real-time payment transactions.
This agreement supports the Government of Rwanda’s objective to create a digital economy and drive greater financial and social inclusion for its society and citizens, through:

• Collaboration to support greater financial and social inclusion for all Rwanda citizens through improved use of new information technology and software.
• The Government of Rwanda enacting clear financial and payment services policies to create a neutral, interoperable and viable market place, (supported by the Ericsson Interconnect Solution).
• Rwanda aims to become Africa’s first truly digital economy, leveraging on Ericsson M-Commerce Interconnect for seamless financial services
  

Peter Heuman, VP and Head of M-Commerce for Ericsson, said: “Africa has been a main driver for innovative mobile financial services. Ericsson M-Commerce Interconnect advances existing efforts by seamlessly linking banks, mobile operators, money transfer organisations, and payment and financial services providers, making the promise of true financial inclusion achievable.
“The work we are doing with the Government and people of Rwanda on this initiative is imperative for the country and region and we look forward to continued collaboration with countries throughout Africa and globally to build upon these important efforts.”
Ericsson’s Rwanda Interoperability Switch (RIS) will connect financial and payment services providers within the country and enable end-user to enjoy, in real time, a range of digital payments possibilities across all financial platforms and service providers. Further, the inclusion of informal sectors such as savings cooperatives and micro finance players in the ecosystem, allow previously excluded citizens to participate in mainstream financial services, thereby increasing financial inclusion.
Claver Gatete, Rwanda minister of finance and economic planning, added: “Mobile payment technology has the potential to advance financial inclusion and help people build savings while giving government, as well as the private sector, a more cost-effective, efficient, transparent and safer means of disbursing and collecting payments.”
Ericsson M-Commerce Interconnect links Rwandan financial stakeholders to create a real-time, irrevocable financial transactions processing solution with 24/7 availability. Ericsson will also lead on-boarding and integration of Rwanda payment service providers and financial institutions. The Rwanda Interoperability Switch is expected to be operational by early 2017.
Fredrik Jejdling, Ericsson head of region, Sub-Saharan Africa says: “More inclusive mobile financial services solutions could directly impact the UN sustainable development goals by increasing economic growth and reducing inequality within and among countries. This partnership is a great testimonial to how collaboration between the public and private sector can transform the financial sector for the better. This deployment places Rwanda on track to becoming the first truly cashless society in Africa and we are very pleased to be part of making history on the continent.”

SMEs in Africa to benefit as lenders tap mobile technology

Finca, a US microfinance organisation, and First Access, a New York-based data analytics company, have formed a partnership to start making loans over east Africa using credit scores derived from mobile phone data.

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. This kind of uncollateralised lending has already started to transform Kenya’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) sector. Hundreds of thousands of loans worth more than $150m have been issued since March 2015 when Kenya Commercial Bank, the country’s largest bank, and M-Pesa, the mobile money platform of Safaricom, the dominant telecoms company, began collaborating.

The vast majority of borrowers were previously considered uncreditworthy because of their lack of credit history and access to financial services. However, KCB-Mpesa accepts about 80 per cent of applicants, with an average loan size of Ks4,000 ($40) and a default rate of just under 2 per cent.

“It’s much more efficient and accurate than the old system and we’re seeing much earlier repayments,” said Joshua Oigara, KCB chief executive.

Growth is proving exponential. “Every second a new loan is issued, and we’re only a year into this service,” said Bob Collymore, chief executive of Safaricom.

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. Now Finca, which serves 1.8m people in 23 countries, said it would roll out this kind of lending in six African countries by the end of the year having completed a pilot study in Tanzania.

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. Andree Simon, co-chief executive of Finca Microfinance Holding Company, said the partnership will give the organisation “more objective information to form a credit recommendation and more time to improve the quality of our relationship with our clients”.

Shivani Siroya, chief executive of InVenture, a US start-up that launched its Mkopo Rahisi loan service via an Android app in March 2014, said it took 20 seconds to scan someone’s phone and determine whether they were creditworthy.

Like the other providers, InVenture is using increasingly detailed data to make credit decisions. For example, the Santa Monica-based company found that if at least 40 per cent of an applicant’s contacts were organised with both first and second names they were 16 times more likely to repay on time.

ICS Participates at Dot Finance Africa Event...as GTB upgrades software

ICS Financial Systems (ICSFS), the global software and services provider for banks and financial institutions, has showcased its Awards wining universal banking and financial software; ICS BANKS, at Dot Finance Africa event that was held at the Visa Oshwal Centre, earlier this May, 2016.

The two-day event included more than 400 high-quality attendees and 50 exhibitors in attendance. Dot Finance connected senior executives of Africa's top banks & financial institutions with leading financial technology vendors from across the globe such as ICSFS, which was exhibiting in booth stand number B3.

ICSFS’ Executive Director for Business Development Mr. Wael Malkawi said;

“It was great to see so many attendees exploring our booth and taking advantage of this opportunity to discover what ICSFS technologies has to offer. We were overwhelmed by the great demand on our ICS BANKS and ICS BANKS ISLAMIC solutions.” Mr. Malkawi continued “26% of our customers are based in Africa and are using our universal banking solution ICS BANKS. We are keen to grow our customer base across the Sub-Saharan region, as we are now investing and building solid partnerships in East Africa; such as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.”

ICSFS showcased its flagship; ICS BANKS solutions, which provides a complete suite of banking business modules with a rich sweep of functionality and features, addressing business needs and automating accounting processes, as needed, to improve a bank’s business performance. ICS BANKS has always been a pioneer in utilizing the latest technology to serve financial institutions. In addition to its embedded Service-Oriented-Architecture (SOA), ICS BANKS is deployed in a multi-tiered setup that runs on a web thin client.

This is coming on the heels of the recent upgrade of its solution by leading financial powerhouse in Nigeria, Guarrantee Trust Bank Plc. GTBank, one of the largest banks in Africa and the multiple awards wining bank that was named “Africa’s Most Innovative Bank for 2015”, successfully upgraded to the latest version of the awards winning solution ICS BANKS from ICS Financial Systems Limited (ICSFS).

GTBank has gone through one of the most successful and seamless major upgrades in the industry, completed at GTBank’s headquarters that is located in Nigeria, where it upgraded to the latest version of ICS BANKS. The project started on June of 2015 and ended in October of 2015, where the migration had near-zero-downtime.

High level of performance was achieved by ICS BANKS, where a new record of the entire end-of-day activities for 250 branches serving around 8M customers & 13M accounts & 4M daily transactions are being completed in a record time.

Flip phone lovers hail Motorola’s new RAZR ad...hopes for comeback!

Once the best-selling flip phone in the world and one of the best selling mobiles full stop, the Razr was a style icon but as technology advanced and the all-conquering iPhone brought a new must-have look to phones it fell out of favour.

Motorola got tongues wagging recently with a nostalgic 90s-themed ad featuring teens flaunting the old school RAZR flip phone but comes with “Flip back to the RAZR days of yesteryear and get ready for the future,” reads the new 45-second spot’s tagline.

“We will transform mobile again on June 9," a Motorola rep cryptically told The Daily News, noting that the company is not re-releasing the original RAZR.

But “Hello Moto” maniacs are still hoping that an upgraded flip phone is on the line. There’s certainly an audience for it. When Sarah Lisovich’s iPhone broke, she dug up her hot pink V3 RAZR flip phone that she’s held onto for 10 years as a replacement. The simplified device was a welcome change.

Now, however, Motorola has hinted that the flip phone could be returning. The video’s title refers to the date of the Lenovo Tech World conference, where an announcement on the replacement for Motorola’s flagship Moto X is expected.

Motorola is saying little else at the moment but industry experts believe that the video could indeed be a precursor to a new clamshell phone. Whatever form the new handset takes it’s guaranteed to be a massive step up from the original Razr.

Stylish it may have been but its 2.2-inch non-touch screen, 0.3 megapixel camera and rudimentary web access are woeful in today’s world of octa-core beasts with multiple cameras and endless connectivity possibilities.

The new handset is expected to run Google’s Android operating system and come with specifications to take on the big players in today’s mobile market such as Apple and Samsung.

While flip phones declined in popularity in Europe, they have remained popular in Japan and the market is, in fact, growing. Analysts believe that a growing number of older users who don’t want all the bells and whistles of most modern smartphones could be driving up the demand and that Europe could follow in Japan’s footsteps.

Flip phone and “dumb” phone sales grew by 2 million in the U.S. last year, for a total of 24.2 million sold, according to research firm IDC. Smartphones are still far more popular, but their growth remained flat in 2015. And Apple reported its first loss in 13 years last month as iPhone sales dropped 16%.

Basic handsets are making a comeback. Trendsetters such as Anna Wintour and Rihanna have been seen rocking the throwback devices. Adele featured a flip phone in her hit “Hello” video last fall. Robert DeNiro told People he still has a flip phone because “they’re easy to use!” Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne said he “felt far more alive” after dumping his iPhone last year. And Mayor Bill de Blasio reminded us in January that “I love my flip phone.”

True, a dumb phone can’t hail an Uber, order sushi on Seamless, stream “Game of Thrones” or post a photo to Instagram or Facebook. But as a result, the pared-down handset is much cheaper, because there’s no data plan. The battery can last for weeks, not hours. And the sturdy device survives falls better than a smartphone’s exposed glass screen.

View 4 screens in-one with new Dell 43-inch 4K with 1080p panels

Running multiple display monitors on the same PC, with each of them capable of showing its own specific content, is definitely something that someone can get used to in a hurry if they have a lot of PC-related work to cover.

Well, for those who have been doing something like this for years with multiple HD PC monitors daisy-chained together across your work space, the new Dell Multi-Client 43 inch 4K UHD monitor simplifies things enormously while saving plenty of space across your physical desktop.

Dell’s newest P4317Q (also known as the Dell 43 Multi-Client Monitor) is designed to alleviate these problems. While the display can run as a single monitor at 3840×2160, its real strength is as a bezel-less option to display up to four separate desktops, each at 1080p.

Multi-monitor desktops are popular with both professional computer users and enthusiast gamers who want a more immersive widescreen experience, but setting up these systems can be somewhat difficult. It’s generally recommended that you use three of the same display to minimize issues related to mixing and matching different resolutions, as well as to avoid differences in color gamut and calibration from changing how work appears from one monitor to the other.

Dell designed the Multi-Client Monitor with the finance industry in mind, but it's able to run four independent clients of any kind at once. Plus, it gets rid of the cable nightmare that comes with manually setting up four monitors on a single desk.

The P4317Q costs $1,350 and is available to purchase right now. It's certainly an impressive piece of technology, but maybe that high price point is meant to offset expected lower sales of Dell's multi-monitor stands.

Dell has been a leader in office computing needs for years now and apparently the company clearly understands that having access to multiple screens at the same time is something a lot of developers, traders and other professionals who stay glued to their PCs will find extremely useful. With this in mind, the single giant 43 inch P4317Q Multi-Client is ready right out of the box to handle up to four different decent-sized Full HD display spaces.

Though we have seen even better giant 43 inch 4K monitors in terms of overall specs and connectivity options, the P4317Q is an impressive tool indeed as far as workflow requirements go, with a total screen resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels of 4K glory that can play at a 60Hz refresh rate and a solid, rich contrast ratio of 1000:1, with a maximum brightness that sits at a stunningly luminous 350 nits.

On top of this the P4317Q offers up an 8ms response time, wide IPS panel display viewing angles of 178 degrees and multiple standard connectivity options which include HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2 and Mini DisplayPort 1.2 along with a VGA port. Furthermore, Dell has given the new P4317Q Multi-client a built-in audio capacity that’s definitely above average for a mere PC monitor, with two internal 8-watt speakers. There’s also a robust 4-port USB 3.0 hub built into the P4317Q.

Finacle partners Onegini, Samsung SDS, for mobile security and Mobile Banking

Infosys Finacle, part of EdgeVerve Systems, a product subsidiary of Infosys, and Onegini has announced a partnership to integrate the Onegini mobile security platform with Finacle banking solutions.

The integration will allow banks to provide their customers enhanced security to access and transact across channels. Using this solution, banks can offer customers an option to select advanced authentication methods, including fingerprint, facial, eye and voice recognition as well as multi-factor authentication for added security as they transact on devices. The end-user will be presented different authentication methods depending on device, location and type of transaction.

Also in a move that is seen in the industry as complimentary, Infosys Finacle has also teamed up with Samsung’s services subsidiary in a new mobile banking partnership. Samsung SDS will be providing its FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Authentication tool into the bargain, which allows banking customers to use the device of their choice and mobile application creators the ability to create device-agnostic services.

The use of FIDO, says Infosys Finacle, will also “help to advance and simplify micro payments and enable financial inclusion in developing markets where mobile devices are the dominant form of internet access.” Users of FIDO will be able to scan their fingerprints, use facial recognition technology and other forms of biometrics to complete payments and transactions.

Andy Dey, President of Customer & Operations at Infosys EdgeVerve, said, "A bank is no longer somewhere to go - you carry it with you. This offers a new level of convenience, but at the same time our customers demand secure solutions. Through this partnership, we aim to provide advanced security with convenience to customers."

According to him, “Customers are becoming far more accustomed to accessing and spending their money via mobile,” says Andy Dey, President of Customers and Operations at EdgeVerve, the parent company of Infosys Finacle.

“As such, financial services providers should be empowered with mobile solutions where they never have to choose between providing a good user experience and robust security.

EdgeVerve, he adds, wants to enable banking without passwords “wherein people can authenticate transactions by using flexible biometric options such as facial recognition and fingerprints.” The partnership with Samsung SDS and Origini are part of that vision.