Author: Akin Naphtal

The winners of Apple’s App Store Awards for 2022 have been announced as well as the list of the most downloaded ones. BeReal, a social media app, took the gong for the App of the Year for iPhones. As its name suggests, BeReal urges users to be and look like themselves without filters. In a statement, Apple said this year’s winners “represent a diverse community of developers from around the world whose apps and games were selected by Apple’s global App Store editorial team for delivering exceptional experiences and making a profound cultural impact”. But BeReal was not the only…

New appointment underscores Toronto-based fintech’s commitment to provide fast, secure and affordable cross-border payments to businesses worldwide.Canadian Fintech Buckzy Payments Inc has appointed Seema Rai Nair as its new Vice President of Customer Success and Network Expansion. In her new role, Seema will be responsible for expanding Buckzy’s global network of partners, including banks and other financial service providers, fintechs, businesses and eCommerce platforms. Commenting on the appointment, Buckzy CEO Abdul Naushad said, “Businesses around the world are looking for alternative cross-border payment solutions that are faster, more efficient, and less costly than current offerings from incumbents. Seema has an…

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a variety of changes in our daily lives, including a further shift away from using cash to pay for purchases and a greater reliance on contactless forms of payment such as credit cards and debit cards. In fact, many merchants stopped accepting cash altogether during the pandemic, and continue to follow such policies. This reality caused a significant spike in the number of credit card transactions taking place in the United States. According to November data from the Nilson Report, consumer and commercial credit, debit, and prepaid general-purpose cards generated $9.7 trillion in transactions in 2021:…

HP plans to cut between 4,000 and 6,000 jobs by the end of 2025, making it the latest global tech firm to announce workforce reductions. The tech giant says the job cuts are part of its “future-ready transformation plan” that will help it save at least $1.4bn annually by the end of its 2025 fiscal year HP announced the job cuts in its recent earnings report (November 22) and will join the slew of tech companies laying off employees after a hiring spree during the pandemic. The company foresaw a global downturn in demand for its products in the first…

Maersk and IBM are to shut down the TradeLens blockchain platform for global supply chains in the face of market apathy towards the project. Commercially-available since December 2018, TradLens enabled participants to digitally connect, share information and collaborate across the shipping supply chain ecosystem. In closing the project, Rotem Hershko, head of business platforms at Maersk, says: “TradeLens was founded on the bold vision to make a leap in global supply chain digitization as an open and neutral industry platform. Unfortunately, while we successfully developed a viable platform, the need for full global industry collaboration has not been achieved. As…

East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust has announced the launch of Enquire, a new intelligent virtual assistant powered by IBM Watson Assistant on IBM Cloud, to support its human resources team’s ability to handle queries from its 6500 staff.Enquire has been created specifically for East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust to alleviate the administrative workload of Human Resources employees, freeing up their time for more complex, value adding tasks, while providing a 24-7 support service for all staff.According to the report, enquire has been designed to continuously improve its ability to satisfy employee requests. Any unresolved queries will be considered…

Now in its sixth year, the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking, produced by the IMD World Competitiveness Center, measures the capacity and readiness of 63 economies to adopt and explore digital technologies as a key driver for economic transformation in business, government and wider society. Based on a mixture of hard data and survey replies from business and government executives, the digital rankings help governments and companies to understand where to focus their resources and what might be best practices when embarking on digital transformation. Denmark took the top position in the digital rankings and the United States fell to…

Australia’s New South Wales government is set to pilot photo verification technology to give people more control over their personal data while maintaining secure online identity verification. NSW minister for customer service and digital government Victor Dominello says the decentralised digital ID strategy is moving to a pilot phase. “The technology will always be opt-in and will put customers in charge of their personal information like never before.” “A recent spate of cyber attacks has brought to light the importance of preserving consumer control over private information, as well as the importance of avoiding disclosure of personal information.” says Mr…

Mastercard introduced The Belle Block™ in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), during the 11th edition of the Mastercard LAC Innovation Forum. The Belle Block™ is a community launched in June 2022 to educate and empower women and non-binary individuals to benefit from Web3 technology and crypto. This expansion to the region comes in partnership with WAGMI LatAm, an education initiative aimed at bringing 5 million Latin women into Web3 by 2030. Mastercard believes in the power of technology and its ability to build a better future that includes everyone. This new group focuses on delivering on key building blocks:…

Creating a new partnership aim is to accelerate the use of virtual cards for business-to-business travel payments. This partnership is between texas-based travel technology company Sabre (SABR) and the UK’s Conferma Pay, having worked together on virtual payments technology for travel firms since 2011. This was long before they made it official last August, when Sabre acquired the business payment software company for $72.5 million. American Airlines (AAL) had founded Sabre more than 60 years ago, in 1960. It became its own entity in 2000. READ ALSO: Tech Firm Zoho Plans to Open New Office in South Africa in Q1…