Despite the demonetisation of 2016 and the rise in digital transactions that followed, the economy's dependence on cash has remained as high as ever. So when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) introduced a pilot project of its version of digital cash - called the central bank digital currency (CBDC) - on December 1, many questions were asked. Can the CBDC replace physical cash, even partially? Can it match cash in terms of convenience? Are CBDC transactions truly anonymous?
Not only is this hidden from the user, it's often unrelated to the app's purpose.
After gaining 300 million mobile wallet users in India, the firm has now expanded operations to Japan via PayPay Corporation, a joint venture established by SoftBank Corp and Yahoo Japan Corporation.
The state has decided that from Monday it will allow the plying of private buses along with the opening of electronics, stationery, tea stalls, and paint and hardware stores, reports Avishek Rakshit
Nearly 92% of the 250-mn smartphones run on Android.
E-learning and work from home have forced a section of feature phones users to shift to smartphones.
Installing a new app? Rediff.com's Ashish Narsale shows you how to do it safely.
In the worst-case scenario, it will be next to impossible for tech companies like Amazon and Google to run any service that requires user biometrics.
Google launched Wallet in 2011.
Mobile application stores, or app stores as they are known, have become the biggest news for cellphone users this year.
'We're seeing major Bollywood celebrities, fashion icons, and even movie studios all wanting to build Metaverse experiences'
70 per cent of surveyed respondents have experienced job related issues in the past 3 months.
Palo Alto-based electric carmaker Tesla has initiated talks with the government on the modalities of setting up fully-owned retail outlets. The company needs to comply with the foreign direct investment (FDI) guidelines related to single-brand retail, including local sourcing norms, to sell directly in India. At least two other foreign majors - Apple and Ikea - were engaged in talks with the government long before the sourcing norms were eased under the single-brand retail route.
'According to the survey, ideological issues like Article 370 and Ayodhya received only 14 and 12 per cent voter-backing, respectively.' 'It could well imply that hardline Hindutva issues have only that much voter-purchase, compared to Modi's overall popularity of 52 per cent -- putting the man way above the mission,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Motorola has given just one buying option to a consumer which is sort of a walled gardened approach at a time when all of Motorola's competitors are selling their products via multiple online shopping portals and physical stores.
The exponential number of downloads can be attributed to a call by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking people to have the app on their mobiles, combined with the government's push for downloading of the app through other channels, reports Neha Alawadhi.
Five people in the know narrate the sordid story that is fast exploding into a pornography scandal, allegedly involving businessman Raj Kundra.
RIL is setting up infrastructure for a full-fledged horizontal e-commerce offering - internally called the New Commerce - to simultaneously launch pan-India by October-November.
Chinese mobile brands are deeply entrenched in the Indian market. A move to bar them may send a bold diplomatic message. But its cost for the local industry is anybody's guess. In the event that Chinese brands face curbs, two handset makers - Samsung and Apple - squarely stand to gain.
When Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) was conceived last December, the idea was to reduce the dominance of e-commerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart. It was also to bring in a level-playing field for small merchants in India's fragmented but fast-growing $1-trillion retail market. However, those goals have changed now as large e-commerce players such as Flipkart, Amazon and Ecom Express are in various levels of talks with the ONDC team. They want to form partnerships like integrating with the network as well as providing their expertise to build it, according to the industry sources.
Five years after demonetisation, which sought to curb black money and reduce cash circulation in the economy, 70 per cent of respondents said they paid a large component of the total payment towards a real estate transaction in cash. About 16 per cent said they paid over half the amount in cash, observes Shyamal Majumdar.
Professor Masooda Bashir and doctoral student Tanusree Sharma from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign analysed 50 COVID-19-related apps available in the Google Play store for their access to users' personal data and their privacy protections. The researchers noted that it is disconcerting that these apps are continuously collecting and processing highly sensitive and personally identifiable information, about health, location and direct identifiers like name, age, email address and voter or national identification of a user.
As a result, vehicular traffic and movement of people on roads saw a consequential increase in most parts of the state including rural regions, the State capital and key cities like Coimbatore, Madurai, and Tiruchirappalli.
Festive season is the mainstay of most brick and mortar retail chains.
After a recent fall in profit, Masayoshi Son of SoftBank announced that the Japanese tech investor will look at dramatic cost-cutting. Before he does that, investments in India for calendar year 2022 (CY22) will fall radically, observed sources in the know. Last year, the company had invested around $3.2-3.5 billion in the Indian start-up ecosystem - almost 10 per cent of the total investment the sector received. For CY22, the investments may not even touch $1 billion.
India's e-commerce market is poised to grow by 84 per cent to $111 billion by 2024 on the back of accelerated adoption of digital technologies amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a report by fintech firm FIS said on Wednesday. The report noted that countries, including India, have seen a shift in consumer behaviour caused by COVID-19, and new payment trends are shown to be on the rise. FIS, in its 2021 Global Payments Report, examined current and future payment trends across 41 countries. India's e-commerce market is projected to grow by 84 per cent between now and 2024 to about $111 billion (from about $60 billion in 2020) driven by mobile shopping, which is projected to grow 21 per cent annually over the next four years, the report said.
Users well-versed in privacy laws or those concerned with their data would be worried; it could well be that many of us have already accepted the end user agreement without ado, points out Ashish Narsale.
The firm will invest over Rs 1,000 crore in marketing, cash backs and promotional spends
The Delhi Police on Friday said it has recovered 105 oxygen concentrators during raids at two upscale restaurants and arrested four people.
The UIDAI said rumour mongers attempted to tarnish the image of Aadhaar for a Google's inadvertent act that led to appearance of its old helpline number 1800 300 1947 in the contact list of several mobile phone users.
In spite of a severe second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, and a widespread disruption in public life therefore, India's fast-moving consumer goods (FMGC) sector seems to have emerged as one of the most resilient segments of the economy. The early numbers and estimates for the April-June quarter indicate a steady recovery in FMCG players' business, which is now set to exceed the pre-pandemic level. Amid nationwide lockdowns because of the first Covid wave, FMCG revenues had been severely affected in mid-2020.
Apple has removed hundreds of apps from its App Store over concerns that they gathered personal information from phones.
Trump said the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by the companies in China continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the country.
These consumer-friendly gadgets are designed to make your life simpler.
Of the 2,562 customer complaints received between January 2020 and March 2021, a majority relate to illegal apps. At least two dozen suicide cases have been reported, perpetrated by the harassment by loan app operators, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'Malicious files can silently sit in your phone and relay data to hackers without your knowledge.'
Stock clearing to rain discounts on consumers in June ahead of GST rollout.
Almost all banks that issue contactless cards provide users with a 100 per cent liability cover.
Their startup investments number 13 so far, compared to 17 deals in 2020.
Customised tailoring: How Raymond, Aditya Birla Group are luring customers with bespoke services to fit the bill.
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