SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son and Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, two of the world’s biggest tech tycoons, are parting ways after a long partnership, marking an end of an era for the global tech industry.
On the other hand, US President Donald Trump’s work permit suspension could end up benefiting its neighbour Canada
1. Masayoshi Son steps down from Alibaba board
Masayoshi Son is stepping down from the board of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba after 15 years. This move comes a month after Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma disclosed his plan to leave SoftBank’s board last month following a 13-year stint. Both the resignations are effective Thursday.
What’s the significance?
Alibaba has been SoftBank’s most lucrative investment so far. In 2005, Masayoshi Son had invested $20 million in Alibaba, a stake that is now reportedly worth more than $150 billion. SoftBank also used a portion of its 25% Alibaba stake to raise much-needed capital earlier this year after facing major setbacks from several of its high-profile investments.
What are they saying?
Son dismissed any fallout with Ma, saying that his departure was “perfectly amicable” and he sees the move as “graduating” from Alibaba Group’s board in the same way Jack Ma was “graduating” from SoftBank’s board.
Alibaba thanked Son for his “entrepreneurial inspiration over the last 20 years” and appreciated the continued support of its longest-tenured institutional shareholder. Read more
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2. Indian engineers eye Canada move
After US President Trump suspended H-1B and other non-immigrant work permits until December 31, more Indians are eyeing a move to Canada, which has a more open policy on immigration. Canadian staffing firms have seen a sharp rise in enquiries over the last few weeks
Canada’s big push
Prior to the Covid-19 induced lockdown, Canada had said it would like to attract 1 million permanent residents between 2020 and 2022. Of the 74,000 permanent residents added by the country in the first few months of this year, 24% were Indians.
Last year, about 85,585 Indians opted for permanent residency in Canada, a jump from 39,705 in 2016, as per data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Canada Read more.
3. Google Pay‘s SME Lending rollout
Google is rolling out a credit feature for small and medium enterprises on its payment platform Google Pay by the end of this year. The Internet giant has partnered with top Indian lenders to help over 3 million verified merchants avail instant credit on the app, if they are deemed creditworthy by bank partners.
This is after recently rolling out its ‘Nearby’ Spot feature, which enables small businesses to create a digital storefront on the payments app.
Big tech’s SME push
This move comes amid increased competition among Internet giants to capture the country’s lucrative, yet underpenetrated SME sector by rolling out a range of offerings. In April, Facebook backed Jio Platforms and its popular messaging app WhatsApp is looking to build an ecosystem for smaller retailers by facilitating commerce through JioMart and payments through WhatsApp Pay.
Amazon also announced in April that the company will be growing its ‘Local Shops on Amazon’ initiative to enable offline stores to do more business through its platform.
Domestic fintech companies, such as Paytm, PhonePe, Pine Labs, and BharatPe, are also pushing out value-added services to attract unbanked and undigitized merchants – who are looking to take their physical business online – onto their respective platforms. Read more.
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4. Boost for private space firms
India’s space agency ISRO is moving all its operational satellites, rockets, and applications to its commercial arm, New Space India Ltd, allowing the private sector to commercially exploit the assets it has built so far.
The newly set up Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (In-Space) will regulate the country’s space industry, said chairman K Sivan.
In the works
Sivan said the government is working to update the remote sensing data policy as well as the Satcom policy to include the activities of the regulator, apart from formulating a new navigation policy. Isro will primarily focus on building technologies and undertake deep space missions and human space flights. Read more.
5. Tighter norms for online lending
Reserve Bank of India has tightened the norms on using online lending platforms by banks and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), following concerns on various practices used by these platforms
What’s new?
Banks and non-bank lenders have to disclose the names of all digital lending platforms engaged as agents on the websites of banks and non-bank lenders. Digital lending platforms who are engaged as agents of mainstream banks and NBFCs also need to disclose the name of the lender on whose behalf they are engaging with the customer. The onus of compliance with regulatory instructions also rests solely with banks and non-banks. Read more.
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