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Chinese Game-Makers’ Long Winter Begins to Thaw
Gaming companies can finally breathe a sigh of relief now that 80 games have received approval for release in China, after a 10-month freeze in the world’s largest gaming market.
The list of newly approved titles was made public Saturday by the country’s National Radio and Television Administration.
Caixin reported on Dec. 21 that an initial group of titles had been approved and were awaiting receipt of official publication numbers. But an official urged companies to be patient due to a big backlog of applications, saying that digesting the backlog would take some time.
China’s gaming industry is the world’s largest with over 620 million players, almost double the entire U.S. population. But this year, Beijing made one of the harshest policy changes in recent memory, leaving many smaller players on the brink of bankruptcy.
The authorities stopped approving licenses for new game releases beginning in March, following a major reorganization of government departments. The regulator further stepped up restrictions by announcing in September that it would cap the total number of games on the market, and explore a mechanism to restrict the amount of time minors spend on games.
Most titles on the Saturday list are from mid- and smaller-sized developers such as Giant Network Group Co. Ltd., Wuhu Shunrong Sanqi Interactive Entertainment Network Technology Co. Ltd. and Shenzhen ZQGame Co. Ltd. Missing from the list were the top two players — Tencent Holdings Ltd. and NetEase Inc.
Two industry watchers told Caixin that it’s surprising to see the biggest two players missing from the list. But the regulator’s move has at least ended the dry spell begun in March, they said.
“My impression is that they are sending the message that they are supporting small and midsized domestic game companies,” said an executive at a foreign game developer that’s active in China. “Another interesting point is that a relatively large number of PC games (were approved), probably due to the fact that there is a demand for that in the market.”
A third source told Caixin that inclusion in the new approval list could be based on application submission dates, and that the list wasn’t targeting any particular company.
Amid headwinds, the Chinese games market is expected to see total revenue grow 5.3% this year, a slump compared with its 23% expansion in 2017, according to a report by industry tracker Gamma Data and the Chinese Game Publishers Association Publications Committee.
Industry revenue is expected to hit 214.4 billion yuan ($31.1 billion) this year, from 203.6 billion in 2017.
Yang Ge and Tang Ziyi contributed to this report.
Contact reporter Jason Tan (email@example.com)
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- 1Power To The People: Pintec Serves A Booming Consumer Class
- 2Largest hotel group in Europe accepts UnionPay
- 3UnionPay mobile QuickPass debuts in Hong Kong
- 4UnionPay International launches premium catering privilege U Dining Collection
- 5UnionPay International’s U Plan has covered over 1600 stores overseas


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There are reports that Nokia will soon announce it final Symbian phone ... ever! The mystery handset is going by the title Nokia 803 and it will apparently employ Nokia's largest image sensor for any smartphone camera.
Just how big will this image sensor be? Well, the source of this information stops short of outright calling this "the largest image sensor in a smartphone ever", so it will at least be 16 megapixels, on par with the HTC Titan II. Of course, maybe the source is referring to the physical size of the sensor and not the maximum resolution. In which case we could see an 8- or 12-megapixel camera that shares the pixels over a larger surface area, and that takes better photos as a result.
Rumours also suggest a 4-inch AMOLED display, presumably using Nokia Clear Black technology, near-field communication connectivity and expandable memory.
While the "largest image sensor" speculation does pique our interest, Nokia will likely have a difficult job winning over current Symbian fans in Australia after delaying the local release of the Symbian Belle firmware update.

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“Amplitude is revolutionizing product analytics through the behavioral layer something previously only companies the size of Facebook could afford to do. Companies like Square, Instacart, Intuit, and LogMeIn rely on our Gen3 analytics platform to identify specific behaviors that will help them drive long-term retention and profits.”In its spirit of extending its efforts, Amplitude has launched a product by the name ‘Pathfinder’ which is aimed at showing the different ways that users navigate through a website or app. It serves as a funnel and can also investigate how certain segments or behavioral sects of users behave differently. It has also added another resource tool, Retention Playbook that entails data-backed retention strategies, frameworks, and best practices for user retention. The company claims to have a client base of over 150 enterprise customers including Square, LogMeIn, Instacart, and Thumbtack.
analytics platform, Amplitude has secured a $15 million Series B investment. The round was led by Battery Ventures with participation from existing investors Benchmark, Data Collective, Merus Capital and Quest Venture Partners. Amplitude provides mobile and web-based analytics and will be using the investment in hiring new personnel to expand its sales and marketing team. Currently, it has a team of about 40 employees and is eying to take up the team count to 70 by the end of the year. As a part of the deal, Neeraj Agrawal, General Partner at Battery Ventures, has joined the board of directors. It also includes Eric Vishria, General Partner at Benchmark who joined the crusade after the $9 million Series A funding by Benchmark in 2015. Till date, the company has raised a total of $26 million. “With billions of smartphones in use around the world, mobile has emerged as the leading way to access information and services. Amplitude was an early pioneer in recognizing not only the importance of mobile but also the crucial role that analytics would play in helping companies achieve sustained growth,” said Agarwal. Founded in 2012, the organization took shape out of Y Combinator as a voice-recognition company called Sonalight before its founders introduced an analytics suite. Today, it competes against companies like Mixpanel and other analytics providers to tracks user behavior for enterprises. The Analytics suite is built on the Nova platform which gives companies access to user behavior analytics for mobile and reach better retention, engagement, and conversion results. According to the claims, it can “processes over 75 billion events per month and returns over 95% of queries in under 3 seconds”. It will help customers track and leverage data with point-and-click analytics that lets one perform queries that would’ve once required teams of data scientists. Spencer Skates, Co-founder and CEO, Amplitude, said:
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A Business Insider report has suggested that Apple tried to buy Palm before HP successfully completed its $1.2 billion takeover back in April.
The report hints that Apple was interested in Palm's intellectual property, which included 450 patents and 400 further patent applications, and threw in a $600 million bid for the Sunnyvale based company. The report also states that this was the second time Steve Jobs had tried to get his hands on Palm after failing with a buy-out when the company was owned by 3Com.
The report says that there were 15 other interested parties as well including Google (who were only interested because Apple were) and RIM, who apparently blew the deal after initially bidding more than HP.
Lenovo were the leading candidate to win the battle for Palm at one point, although surprisingly Nokia were never involved in the bidding.
HP got the deal done in the end, as we all know, and now we're waiting for a raft of WebOS devices to hit the shops.
Kinda makes you wonder what Apple would have done with the company though doesn't it?
The iPhone 5 could have been a smart-superphone with all the best ingredients of WebOS and iOS chucked in together. You never know, it may have even been able to keep its signal.


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Consumer lending is a cornerstone of peer-to-peer finance, but with fears of a personal debt crisis and fierce competition, should platforms be worried?
PEER-TO-PEER lending is a pretty diverse sector, with dozens of platforms out there offering everything from domestic loans of a few hundred quid at one end to full-blown commercial facilities of several million at the other. It attracts an equally diverse range of investors to fund those loans, ranging from retail money looking for better returns than a savings account to increasingly sophisticated institutions building substantial portfolios.
But one of the biggest divides remains the one between the platforms offering unsecured consumer loans, and those which operate in the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) space. So what are the characteristics of a consumer lender, and how do their models and operational priorities differ from platforms making business loans?
P2P has built its name on doing things better, faster and cheaper than traditional players, says Nick Harding, chief executive and founder of Lending Works, which means in turn that the quality and speed of the technology platform is especially significant for consumer lenders. “Tech is absolutely more important in consumer lending,” he asserts. “You have to operate at scale in consumer and to do that you really need good tech.”
Lending Works opened its doors in 2014 and has made just over 18,500 loans since, with an average loan size of £6,039, according to the platform’s statistics. It has sustained annual growth of over 100 per cent each year, and this year is running at 125 per cent to date, a hectic pace which, Harding says, it could not have achieved without fast and reliable automation of as much of the process as possible.
By comparison, SME loans tend to be substantially larger – the average loan size in 2018 for the largest SME platform Funding Circle is just over £65,000, down from a peak of £74,000 in 2016, according to data from P2P analysis firm Orca Money. And while – with loans of £3bn under its belt – you can hardly accuse Funding Circle of lacking scale or ambition, Harding’s point is that size is not so much of an existential factor for SME lending in general. Many smaller platforms in that market still provide a strong offer both to borrowers and investors whilst servicing a relatively modest number of loans.
The nature of competition in the consumer market also favours lenders whose balance on the fintech spectrum is more ‘tech’ than ‘fin’. “We are using APIs to connect, and to drive a slick customer journey,” says Harding. “Many mainstream banks are simply not interested in that, we have had categorical feedback from them on that point.” Perhaps at least partly because their well-known legacy tech issues (TSB anyone?) make it that much harder for the banks to engage on the same level, he adds.
The app-ification of so many of their daily needs also means that consumers increasingly demand Uber or Deliveroo-style speed and simplicity from their loan providers, too. “Consumer customers are really impatient and they just won’t wait,” explains Harding. “If you can say to your customers ‘Plug in your details and you’ll get a decision in two or three seconds’, that’s really powerful. But if you say ‘Someone will call you in 24 hours’ – well, maybe another lender will have said yes to them by then.”
Despite coming under the same catch-all P2P umbrella, there’s no doubt that consumer and SME lending are pretty distinct from one another, says Iain Niblock, co-founder and chief executive of Orca Money. “We are always saying that building a diverse portfolio across P2P is valuable, because SME and consumer loans are not closely correlated,” he comments.
The advantages of operating in the consumer space, he adds, are the size of the market, plus the fact that consumers tend to resemble each other more closely in terms of credit profiling than businesses do. “It’s a massive market, so there are huge opportunities especially if you can find the right partners,” he says. “And the majority of consumer lending is done off scorecards, so it’s about automation, there is less underwriting required than in business lending.”
But those potential rewards come with a few inherent challenges attached. “Funding Circle’s market share in SME lending is more than Zopa’s or Ratesetter’s in consumer,” he says. “There is less competition in business lending.” The main reason for that is that SME platforms face less competition from conventional lenders than those in the consumer market. “It costs a bank the same to write a £50,000 loan as it does to write a £3m loan,” Niblock adds.
Consequently, banks tend to focus on larger loans to more established businesses and leave the smaller end of the SME market to alternative players with lower cost bases.
That competition puts pressure both on margins for the platforms and returns for investors. “Consumer lenders are all fighting for super prime borrowers, and the competition has pushed down returns,” explains Niblock.
“On the business lending side they can afford a bigger spread. But at four per cent on a consumer loan, you have to give the lender a return on that and a margin for yourself – it can be challenging.”
It’s an issue which puts off some institutional investors which might otherwise be tempted to get into consumer platforms. “We are not against investing in consumer lenders in principle,” says Alison Harwood, senior vice president at Varengold Bank’s London office. “We see platforms with good credit discipline but the biggest challenge is seeing the yield.”
So despite backing P2P lenders including MarketInvoice and EstateGuru, Varengold has yet to put any money into a consumer platform. “Compared to, for instance, property-backed lending, there just isn’t the same yield at the safe consumer end of the market,” she adds.
The way to deal with lower margins is to have more customers, and one way in which P2P platforms do this is by offering loans through partners with access to large customer bases, such as mobile phone providers and financial comparison sites. Building such partnerships is now a key part of the growth strategy for most platforms.
But success is about smarts as well as size – making better and more nuanced credit decisions, according to Lending Works’ Harding. Consumers may be more alike than businesses, but there are still valuable distinctions to be uncovered if you know how to look. “The amount of data that we consume per customer is staggering, the checks are so much more sophisticated than they were even five years ago,” he reveals. “We do electronic income verification checks, affordability checks, fraud checks.”
That enables them to make better decisions, more quickly – but perhaps the biggest difference between a young and energetic start-up and an established traditional lender is one of attitude. Whereas a bank might get to a point where it is happy with its credit processes and leaves them be, the culture at businesses like Lending Works is about continuous improvement. “We are always looking to make our model better, and that never stops, we will be doing it forever,” affirms Harding.
He also refutes the idea that consumer lending is inherently less attractive to institutional investors than SME lending. “For every investor who says that, there is one who prefers consumer because SMEs are too volatile,” he asserts.
“We have institutions knocking out door down – we’re in well-developed discussions with four institutions and we have one live on the platform.”
One area where life is clearly more complicated for consumer lenders however is regulation. “Compared to SME lending, the consumer regulations are very strict on assessment and affordability, arrears handling and vulnerable customers,” says John Coley, director in the financial services risk regulatory practice at big four accountancy firm PwC.
Having taken over responsibility for consumer credit only four years ago, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is very active in overseeing the sector. “The regulator is still sitting forward in its seat and consumer lending is very much under the spotlight,” he continues.
“A phrase used a lot by the regulator is ‘consumer harm’, and that can be more prevalent in consumer lending.”
An energetic regulator means plenty of changes to stay on top of. For example, the FCA is working, says Coley, on a new definition of vulnerable customers which will be based on making an assessment of people’s financial resilience – the more resilient, the less susceptible to harm. It’s also investigating the use of technology such as voice analytics to try and spot callers who might be confused, or have misunderstood what lenders are offering them. “Keeping up with the sheer volume of regulations can be a challenge,” says Coley.
The other factor that is never far away from any discussion about the prospects of consumer lending, is the UK’s rising level of debt. According to a report published by Coley’s PwC colleagues late last year, unsecured UK consumer debt grew at 11 per cent in 2017 to hit £300bn, some 30 per cent more than its pre-2008 crash peak. That’s an average of £11,000 of unsecured debt per household.
That’s a lot of debt. But for everyone who thinks it is too much, there are others for whom it’s simply the natural consequence of wider factors. “Why is debt rising? It’s the low interest rate environment,” says Orca’s Niblock. “The government is keen to encourage spending, and more lending means more money in circulation and more spending. So that’s a clear reason – interest rates are low and so the cost of debt is low.”
Lending Works’ Harding adds that no lender can afford to be complacent about the wider credit conditions. “There has been some commentary about inflated credit, and I never take commentary from trustworthy sources like the Bank of England or the regulator lightly,” he states.
But he also points out that the type of debt – and debtor – is important in assessing those conditions. “There’s always an immediate concern ‘Is this the start of the next cycle?’” he adds. “But it’s not as negative as it’s been painted – the flipside is that the regulator has also said that credit is growing in the right places, with prime borrowers who can afford to pay it back.”
After all, providing easier access to better products and services for customers and investors is what everyone in P2P wants, regardless of whether they are consumer or business lenders.
This article featured in the July edition of Peer2Peer Finance News, now available to read online.


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LOS ANGELES – November 8, 2015 — (UPI) — A guitar used early in the Beatles’ career by John Lennon sold for $2.41 million in an online auction.
The acoustic guitar, a Gibson J-160E, was lost for 40 years and sold for three times the expected price of $800,000 on Julien’s Live auction block site Saturday. The buyer wished to remain anonymous. The sale was a record, even for a guitar considered part of music history.
Lennon bought the guitar in September 1962 at Rushworth’s Music House in Liverpool for $450. Lennon wrote the hits “Love Me Do” and “Please Please Me” on it and used it in the recording of the Beatles’ first two albums.
The guitar went missing in December 1963. How exactly is not known. The Gibson was bought by Tommy Pressley at a music store in San Diego in 1967. Pressley had no idea the guitar belonged to Lennon.
A few years later, Pressley sold it to his friend John McCaw who owned the instrument for several years. McCaw got curious about the instrument’s history in 2008, which eventually led to Saturday’s sale.
Lennon’s guitar was only half the Beatle items for sale. Ringo Starr‘s drumhead — emblazoned with the Beatles name — used on the Beatles first appearance on TheEd Sullivan Show, first U.S. concert and other dates on the band’s first U.S. tour sold for $2.13 million. The sale price was double the estimated selling price of $1 million.
Also a baseball signed by all four Beatles in 1966 sold for $100,000.
Other significant items sold during the auction were Kurt Cobain‘s green cardigan worn during Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance sold for $137,500 and a 24K gold leaf piano from Elvis Presley‘s Graceland mansion sold for $600,000.


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Lyft says it will turn EBITDA profitable by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021
- Lyft says it will turn EBITDA profitable by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021.
- The ride-hailing company reports £376.45 million of revenue in Q3.
- Lyft's adjusted per-share loss stood at 67.05 pence in the third quarter.
Lyft Inc (NASDAQ: LYFT) published a better than expected earnings report for the fiscal third quarter on Tuesday that resulted in a 6% gain in its stock in after-hours trading.
Including the price action, Lyft is now exchanging hands at £28.67 per share that translates to an over 10% year to date in the stock market. Shares of the company, however, have picked considerably from the low of £12.09 per share in March when COVID-19 restrictions were at their peak.
Lyft’s Q3 financial results versus analysts’ estimates
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According to FactSet, experts had forecast the company to print £365.15 million of revenue in the third quarter. For loss per share, they had estimated 70.06 pence. In its report on Tuesday, Lyft topped both estimates posting a higher £376.45 million in revenue and 67.05 pence of adjusted per-share loss in Q3.
At £346.55 million, the ride-hailing company’s net loss in the recent quarter was almost the same as £348.81 million in the same quarter last year. In the prior quarter (Q2), Lyft had revealed £335.38 million of net loss, as per the report published in August.
Lyft also said in its financial report on Tuesday that it had 12.5 million active riders in the fiscal third quarter that represents a 44% growth as compared to Q2. The San Francisco-based company recorded £30.05 of revenue per active rider.
On average, analysts had predicted 11.9 million active riders for Lyft in the recent quarter. On a year over year basis, active riders were still down roughly 44% in Q3. Lyft announced to have secured immunity from California’s employment reform earlier this week.
CFO Brian Roberts’ comments on Tuesday
Lyft now expects to turn EBITDA profitable by Q4 of fiscal 2021. CFO Brian Roberts commented on the financial results on Tuesday and said:
“Our Q3 revenue grew by 47% quarter over quarter driven by a meaningful recovery in Active Riders, and we successfully limited our adjusted EBITDA loss, outperforming our most recent outlook by $25 million. These results reflect the ongoing recovery as well as our progress towards reducing costs and improving our underlying unit economics.”
Lyft debuted on Nasdaq in March 2019 at a per-share price of £59 but concluded the year at a much lower £34.53 per share. At the time of writing, the American ride-hailing company has a market capitalisation of £8.48 billion.


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Fast-fingered con artists used to dupe people with the old shell game at county fairs and carnivals – but the con has now gone corporate… and moved inside the offices of government regulators.
Agribusiness powers are currently playing a shell game with the “fresh” meat sold in stores across the country. One clear sign of freshness that we consumers rely on is the meat’s red color, right? Well, no more. The industry has come up with a fast-fingered deception that keeps the meat red not just for a few days – but for months! The meat can go bad, but you won’t know it, because a little spritz of carbon monoxide and other gases inside the plastic-wrapped package prevents the tell-tale browning that’s a sign of spoilage.
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In 2004, federal food regulators properly expressed alarm that this gassing trick was a consumer deception that could mask dangerous meat. But industry lobbyists quickly moved in and, only one month later, the regulators reversed themselves, okaying the perpetually-red meat for sale. Our so-called watchdogs did not conduct any studies, instead relying on industry data – nor did they bother notifying us consumers that the redness of meat should no longer be trusted.
At last, the Democratic congress is now moving to require that this color-altered meat be labeled as such, so we consumers can make up our own minds whether we want it. Once again, though, industry lobbyists are on the prowl, claiming that such labels would be “alarmist” and “unfair.”
Why unfair? Because, they say with a con man’s sly grin, the regulators have okayed the gassing process, so consumers have no need to be informed! Thus the shell game comes full circle – industry colors our meat to deceive us, writes the regulation to allow the deception, then cites the regulation as reason to keep deceiving us.
To help stop this con, call Consumer Federation of America at 202-797-8551
“When you buy red meat, looks can be deceiving,” USA Today, October 1, 2007
“Packaging produces benefits,” USA Today, October 1, 2007


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Samsung has announced the SE370, a new PLS monitor that comes with a wireless charging pad for your mobile devices.
Intel just announced the new Thunderbolt 3 standard that uses the USB-C port and it will be compatible with other protocols such as USB, DisplayPort and PCI Express.
ASUS has announced two new ROG gaming monitors that will support NVIDIA’s G-Sync technology. There’s the 34-inch ROG Curved and the 27-inch ROG Swift PG279Q. More details about these new monitors inside.
ASUS has announced the local availability of the 27-inch Designo MX27AQ IPS monitor. Find out more about its price and specifications after the jump.
The ASUS MG279Q now officially supports AMD FreeSync. Read on to uncover more details about this 27-inch, IPS gaming monitor.
Dell has announced the 24-inch P2416D IPS monitor, targeted at a broad mainstream audience that includes office users, photo enthusiasts and gamers. Sporting a Quad HD (2560 x 1440) resolution, the monitor aims to bring crisp, high-quality displays to its customers at a more affordable price.
AMD FreeSync promised open standards and more affordable monitors that would allow gamers to enjoy reduced input lag and the elimination of screen tearing. Fortunately, we've now gotten wind of more FreeSync-capable monitors and their prices from the likes of Acer, BenQ and LG.
Curved displays are all the rage now so it's little wonder that major manufacturers like Samsung are releasing their products fast and furious. The latest in the Korean giant's arsenal? The SE790C and SD590C monitors.
Rumors surrounding the existence of a 12 inch MacBook Air persist, with photos of the alleged display for the machine circulating online. Want a peek at what Apple's new baby might look like?
Samsung, LG and Dell have announced their ultra widescreen, 21:9 cinemascope monitors in the last few days at CES, along with more 4K screens. Not surprisingly, the world's no.1 PC company is making sure they have equivalent models to quench the new trend.


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Motorola, Intel present ‘RAZRi’ to Puerto Rico market
The January marriage between Motorola Mobility — acquired last year by Google Inc. — and Intel has changed the way the former is designing its handsets, as it is now placing special emphasis on three key areas: speed, battery life, and integration of the Android operating system, Roberto Agostini, commercial director, Motorola Mobility Puerto Rico, said Wednesday.
Nearly ten months later, Motorola and Intel are introducing the product of their union to Puerto Rico — the Motorola RAZRi smartphone — available today.
“Puerto Rico is a market where consumers like advanced technology and are always looking for the best products,” Agostini said. “At Motorola, we believe this is a market we want to include among the first we reach. This device was unveiled in New York, London, Brazil and Chile within the last month, and now we’re bringing it here, on par with global launchings.”
The integration of Intel elements into the smartphone, which will be sold exclusively by Claro Puerto Rico, boosts not just its transmission speeds but the performance of its features, such as its 8-megapixel camera, said Guillermo Deffit, telecom business manager for Intel’s Latin America North region.
“The work Intel did for this smartphone goes beyond the [Atom] processor, it was also optimized for the Android operating system so that the user has the best experience,” he said. “We also included a graphic card in the processor, which powers the camera and supports high-definition imaging.”
That device is the first of many the companies have in the pipeline to draw consumers who are looking for reliability and performance in their handsets, they said.
“The Puerto Rican consumer, who is passionate about communication and technology, now has at its disposal a unique experience combining Motorola´s technology with the performance and reliability of Intel. This union is a milestone for Intel in Latin America,” Deffit said.
“The innovation in this Intel Atom processor ensures all the features that people want in a smartphone: it is fast, has extended battery life and high performance in application execution,” he said.
Agostini said Motorola’s relationship with Claro is key in pinpointing the exact products that Puerto Rico wireless consumers need. The company, he said, depends on carrier feedback to be able to develop “affordable, need-centric devices to guarantee market growth.”
Meanwhile, Claro Puerto Rico President Enrique Ortiz de Montellano said the addition of the RAZRi into its product portfolio is “important, because offering devices with the latest technology and real differentiators is a priority for Claro.


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Click above to watch the video
So far the only video footage we've seen of the new Ferrari California has been either computer animated or sitting still with a giant chin talking. But the fellas over at Autocar magazine in the UK made their way down to Maranello with video cameras in tow for an up-close-and-personal with the newest Prancing Stallion. After the jump you'll find some focus-changing fun angles of the new California, as well as a brief interview with product development director Roberto Corradi, who amusingly informs us that the car was made easier to drive and more softly styled to accommodate female customers. Seriously. Check it out after the jump... it's good for a laugh.
The video meant to be presented here is no longer available. Sorry for the inconvenience.


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For many years, designers were pushed – even expected – to build out fully-fledged lifestyle brands, ones that not only offered garments for one gender but for both and with accessories, sometimes even home goods, to go along with it. Need proof? Just look around.
Needless to say, many of these young brands that were pushing out ready-to-wear, outwear, underwear and house wares, could not offer one product or small group of products that were distinctly their own – like say how Joseph Altuzarra is known for his high-slit pencil skirts or Proenza Schouler – when they were starting out – for their must-have PS1 bag (which they have since spun off into covetable garments and footwear). And yet, many emerging labels were swept up in the trend of expanding quickly, before many of them were ready – or was prudent – to do so.
We have certainly seen causalities that serve to signify the difficulty that young brands – those roughly less than ten years old or so – face in the very competitive market.
This pattern of over-expansion is beginning to change, though, as indicated by a wave of younger brands that are shunning the lifestyle brand movement in favor of specializing exclusively – and building their brands – on one core product or a few core products that they perform really well.
The Mono-Product Brand Success Stories
This new(ish) wave of brand building likely comes as young talents look to the success of many of the mono-product companies that came before them. Take Spanx, for example. Sara Blakely, who now holds the title of the youngest self-made female billionaire in the U.S., started her brand based on a single heavily patent-protected hosiery product. Speaking about the advent of Spanx, Blakely says she “wanted to invent or create a single product that [she could] sell that was her own and not somebody else’s.” She also noted that she “wanted it to be something [that she] could sell to millions of people.”
Spanx, which was described for many years as a “one product wonder,” has since expanded its offerings – albeit not enormously – to include additional hosiery products and traditional undergarments for both women and men. It is undeniable, though, that its rise was based on one core product, as opposed to fashion’s practice of introducing a new collection of garments or accessories every 3 or 4 months.
(Note: Even the most traditional fashion seasons, Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer, have expanded to include pre-seasons – namely, Pre-Spring and Pre-Fall – in which emerging designers have come to routinely participate, another form of brand expansion. Mono-product brands are largely immune to such seasonality).
Ugg Australia famously got its start this way, with one product: Its now ubiquitous sheepskin Ugg boot. Last year, the now-California-based company revealed that on average, it sells a pair of its Classic Boots every eight seconds, and roughly 40 million people own at least one pair. The company’s founder, Brian Smith, says his success is based on his ability to find the one thing he could do “better than anyone else and follow it.” For him that was a pair of rather simply-designed boots.
Havaianas, the Brazilian footwear brand known for its rubber flip-flop sandals, has a similar story, as does Moncler, which built its brand almost entirely on its pricey down coats. Ralph Lauren – now one of the most well-known American lifestyle brands – got his start focusing only on ties.
The New Wave: A Mixed Bag
Yet, these success stories – and those of similarly situated companies – appear to be spawning a new generation of brands that are opting to focus on single products and in some cases, taking their brand name and the appeal garnered as a result of their early specialty and spinning it into a larger, more expansive brand – but only later on.
Thinx, for instance, is a good example – a brand that, as of now, is satisfied in offering one product. The New York-based company, which launched in January 2014, sells microfiber underwear that wicks away moisture, making tampons (and other traditional feminine hygiene products) virtually unnecessary. The company is expected to disrupt the $15 billion feminine hygiene market, after raising "multiple millions" in a December 2015 Round A of funding – all based on one line of products (three styles of underwear in total).
This line of thinking – and company building – extends into the fashion industry, as well. Consider Kiini, the Instagram-favored swimwear brand of choice, which has made its name thanks to its distinctive crochet bikinis. Founder Ipek Irgit and her brand are synonymous with that one swimsuit aesthetic – which it has since spun off into a few different styles. The brand, however, does not veer into the territory of bathing suit cover ups, beach bags or the like. It offers a handful of bikini tops and bottoms and three styles of one-piece bathing suits. That’s it.
Shrimps also tends to be a go-to example when discussing the rise of the mono-brand. The faux fur coat brand, founded by London-based designer Hannah Weiland in 2013, managed to win over the fashion industry – from Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet to “it” girl Alexa Chung – with its one product (and small variations thereof): The colorful fun fake fur jacket. Weiland recently began expanding into ready-to-wear but not before she spent roughly five years focusing exclusively – and making her name – on outwear.
Weiland told Lou Stoppard in a 2015 interview for the Financial Times, “It was very much about the piece rather than the brand.” At the time, “there was no one doing luxurious faux fur,” she says. “People identified with us quickly as we offered a product they really wanted to own, and there was no real alternative."
Monographie, the label launched in 2013 by former Céline marketing staffer, Aude Castéja, is doing something similar. While there is certainly no shortage of shirts on the market – Castéja’s offerings consist exclusively of classic-yet-sophisticated women’s shirting – Monographie’s focus on a single category enables Casteja to offer the most competitive type of product in terms of quality, as well as price point.
A recent season took on reimagined tuxedo shirts and stripes – an inherently French offering for the Paris-based label, which boasts a list of stocks that includes Moda Operandi, Barneys, Opening Ceremony, Harrods, and 10 Corso Como, among many others.
And still yet, there is, of course, Mansur Gavriel, the New York-based accessories brand that is best known for its hot, hot-selling bucket bag. On the heels of the most recent bout of logo-mania, which saw consumers gladly toting (and then subsequently shunning) their Louis Vuitton logo-covered totes and Gucci-printed bags, Mansur Gavriel swooped in with a more discrete alternative: A line of logo-less bags, none of which would set you back more than $500.
The result was nothing if not unexpected. The brand’s Italian-made handbags became the fashion industry’s favorite bag since … well, its last most favorite bag (maybe the Celine luggage tote or the YSL monogram bag?). The media was quick to compare the waiting lists that were spawned by each new release of Mansur Gavriel’s bags – its bucket bags to be exact – to those that mythically come along with the Hermès Birkin bag.
For much of the life of Mansur Gavriel, designers Rachel Mansur and Floriana Gavriel sustained their brand based entirely on the demand for their bags and it worked. They have since launched a small collection of footwear and are slated to make their womenswear debut this month.
Had the designers behind Mansur Gavriel come rushing out of the gate as a fully-fledged womenswear brand – complete with ready-to-wear, bags and shoes – the reception may have not have been quite as marked.
Or as Kiini’s Ipek Irgit told TFL, in discussing her own approach, the brand’s most compelling and distinctive product may have gotten lost in the shuffle. According to Irgit, “When I created the swimsuits that are now known as KIINI, I knew that it was a very unique and special product. If I were to launch with tons of different bikinis and cover-ups, etc. at the same time, I knew that this very special product was going to disappear amongst the crowd.”
Building a Brand Name
Ms. Irgit, who said this approach was what felt natural to her and not the result of “a market analysis or anything,” elaborated, saying that if she had presented a fully-fledged lifestyle line, “I wouldn’t have had the chance the grasp the attention of the ADD [attention deficit disorder] social media culture of our times or the eye of exhausted buyers.”
Another crucial aspect of this approach, according to Irgit, while she says there “are always all kind of pressures” to expand, focusing on her core offerings – as opposed to trying to keep up with fashion’s sped up seasonal timeline – allows her to make sure the business aspects of her brand are in order. As soon as her brand took off – both in terms of social media fame and the long list of big-name international stockists that came knocking (Net-a-Porter, Kirna Zabette, The Webster, and China’s Lane Crawford, among others) – “I got way too busy very quickly with the business side of things,” she says. “There wasn’t much space to get creative to do other things.”
Irgit says her measured approach to releasing products into a saturated market enabled consumers to “start connecting this unique style I have created with the KIINI brand.” Now, even though there “are hundreds of copiers,” says Irgit, “people look at them and say, it is a KIINI copy.” That level of consumer awareness for her brand’s name and its aesthetic will enable her to “take the brand into new horizons.”
As for whether expansion is, in fact, in the cards, Irgit says, “I want to add more products and expand into other categories – but slowly.” But KIINI fans, do not expect it to be a fast and loose expansion. “I will still go step by step and make unique products that the market needs,” according to Irgit. “I don’t think that the world needs any more junk that looks all the same.”


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Beijing becomes the first city to have won both summer and winter editions of the world's biggest multi-sports event.» Read More
Several advisers said they had expected a scramble from clients. But the phone has not been ringing off the hook.
Vietnam will soon have a credible naval deterrent to China in the South China Sea in the form of Kilo-class submarines from Russia.
A revised reading on Japan's economic growth showed the economy contracted an annualized 7.1 percent in the second quarter, worse than initial estimates of a 6.8 percent contraction.
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba on Friday filed to sell up to $24.3 billion in stock, making it the biggest U.S. initial public offering ever.
China's renminbi hit a six-month peak this week, extending a rally that it began in May following a sharp selloff earlier this year.
Al Qaeda has released a video announcing the establishment of a new branch on the Indian subcontinent. The New York Times reports.
The European Central Bank (ECB) is back in "whatever it takes" mode to stimulate the sputtering economy and Asian markets are set to benefit.
Hong Kong property stocks have enjoyed a healthy run this year and according to analysts, the sector could benefit from further upside.
Japan is pushing to secure at least 60 percent of its rare earth needs from outside China within four years.
Hindu activist Rajeshwar Singh is on a mission to end centuries of religious diversity in India, one conversion at a time.
PM Modi took decisive action to secure round-the-clock supplies of electricity. Now, he is under attack for failing to avert a national power crisis.
Singaporeans show the most interest in upgrading their career skills in Asia, according to a global survey by recruitment firm Kelly Services.
Samsung attempted to differentiate itself in the smartphone market with its latest offerings, but analysts say it isn't enough to frighten Apple.
Sony is committed to the smartphone sector despite calls for it to cut its losses, CEO Kazuo Hirai told CNBC at the IFA 2014 tech show in Berlin.
The Bank of Japan (BOJ)refrained from announcing fresh stimulus despite signs the economic recovery is sputtering.
India is suffering a renewed spate of gold smuggling as import restrictions continue to throttle official inflows of the yellow metal.
Singapore's GIC is taking the unusual step of investing directly in unlisted firms as low yields spur fund managers to adopt a more hands-on attitude.
From computer software to travel-related services and products, the preferences of Asia's online shoppers are changing rapidly, a survey by marketing research firm Nielsen showed.
As China looks to wean its economy off a heavy dependence on investment and exports, India is embarking on the very same growth model.
Japanese PM Abe's grand plan to revive the economy is reaching a "moment of reckoning", Goldman Sachs has warned.
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Despite the slowdown in China, a projection of 7 percent growth still offers massive opportunities for countries keen to do trade with China, says Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland.
Matthew Phan, analyst, Asia-Pacific Banks at Creditsights, explains why the boost in net interest margin securities (NIMS) among Singapore banks will be sustainable.
Annalisa Jeffries, associate editorial director, Asia Metals at Platts, says sentiment for iron ore prices remains bearish, with analysts expecting a fall to $40 a tonne this year.


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Plain packs will make smoking history
'Plain packs will make smoking history'
Simon Chapman, the anti-tobacco activist whose success in Australia has rattled the industry, makes a rallying visit to the UK.
Stripping cigarette packs of their colourful exteriors and forcing them to be sold in plain packaging could prove fatal for the global tobacco industry. Who says so? No less an authority than Tobacco Journal International, the self-styled "leading international trade publication for executives in the world of tobacco". One of its front covers in 2008 said simply: "Plain packaging can kill your business." Back in 2008, plain packs were just an idea; now they are about to become a reality in Australia at the end of this year, with other countries set to follow suit, possibly including the UK.
Read the full story here:


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Android is known to be one of, if not the most, diverse mobile operating systems out there powering everything from mobile devices through washing machines and microwaves to Google Glass. Now, there’s a project posted on IndieGoGo aimed towards creating a helmet that runs Android and if it takes off it will give Glass a run for its money.
The LiveMap motorbike helmet will use the visor for augmented reality and will display anything from turn-by-turn navigation, current the speed to nearby points of interest. It’ll support 4G LTE connectivity, too as well as a handful of sensors including G-sensor, gyroscope, digital compass for head movement tracking. Read more »
Popular mobile browser Dolphin has reached the v10 mark and brings with it some new features to make it even better. The first among the changes is a new user interface. Dolphin 10 has a flat new UI that is more in tune with the times and at the same time retains the basic architecture of the previous versions. Unfortunately, this means it’s still not quite Holo and features a rather massive additional menu at the bottom of the screen.
Another change is the presence of a new web app store. This is similar to the web store on the desktop version of the Chrome. These are web apps, which in most cases equates to bookmarks, that install on your browser’s homescreen and let you quickly access those sites. Read more »
After facing considerable backlash from the media and gamers alike, Microsoft have made a U-turn on their DRM policies for the Xbox One. In a blog post released yesterday, Don Mattrick, President, Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, detailed the changes that have been made in the new policy.
First of all, Microsoft has shunned the online check compulsion that was previously enforced on Xbox One gamers. The console was previously designed to connect online every 24 hours, which meant you couldn’t play offline. That limitation has now been removed, which means after a one time check you no longer have to stay connected to the internet to play the game. Read more »
Aluminum or polycarbonate? It seems that Nokia can’t make up its mind – or the info from various tipsters is unreliable – as the Nokia EOS bodies out of both materials have been photographed.
The yet unannounced 41MP sharpshooter has leaked in Black, Red, Yellow, Silver and now in White too, except there’s no consensus of the unibody’s material. Read more »
We’ve already published our Huawei Ascend Mate review and as usual we made the device jump though our battery test hoops. The Ascend Mate is powered by a huge 4050 mAh Li-Ion battery and we expected nothing less than spectacular results.
Huawei Ascend Mate is running on a quad-core chipset with a 1.5GHz Cortex A9 processor and a 16-core graphics. The screen is 6.1″ big, so we can safely say the Ascend Mate is a power-hungry device. Read more »
LG spokesman Frank Lee said the Korean company is set to start mass production of flexible displays in the fourth quarter of this year.
Furthermore, LG Electronics plans on releasing its first smartphone with a flexible display before the year’s end. Read more »
The HTC Butterfly S went official right on schedule and the first promo video is already out. The phone combines HTC’s two 1080p phones, the HTC Butterfly and HTC One, into a new flagship. It brings some of the duo’s best qualities, including the UltraPixel camera with Zoe, the BoomSound stereo speakers and quad-core performance.
The video highlights all these features, but starts off with the battery, which packs a whopping 3,200mAh. Read more »
It’s time for yet another Humble Bundle and as usual this one brings some great new games for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. In case you are unaware, Humble Bundle lets you choose your own price for the bundle and also how that money is split between the developers, the Humble Bundle team and charity.
Included in this month’s bundle are Aquaria, Fractal, Organ Trail: Director’s Cut, Stealth Bastard Deluxe and Pulse. If you choose to pay above the average amount, which currently is $4.68, then you will also get Frozen Synapse and Broken Sword: Director’s Cut. Other than Pulse, which is exclusive to Android, all other games are available on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. Read more »
The just-announced Huawei Ascend P6 flagship is not exactly unexpected given the numerous leaks over the past couple of months, but it’s good to finally see the device from all angles.
To accompany the official announcement, Huawei has also posted several videos on YouTube showing off its sleek design, as well as how they achieved the impressive 6.18mm thickness. Read more »
Since Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference brought iOS 7 to the world of iTech enthusiasts, we’ve waited to see the cool facelift running on the iPad’s 9.7″ Retina.
Well, the wait is over as early screenshots of iOS 7 running on the bigger canvas have surfaced. It all looks as you’d expect it to and the OS has been nicely optimized to make best use of the extra screen estate. Read more »
Creative Cloud, Adobe’s rebranded Creative Suite, which is now the only way to get the latest versions of popular Adobe programs like Photoshop and Premier, has received a major update to most of its supported programs – 15 in total.
These latest versions now have the CC moniker attached, with Photoshop CC getting new sharpening technologies and designer workflow enhancements. Read more »
Samsung will be showing off a slew of new Galaxy and Ativ devices this Thursday in London. You’ll be able to watch it live even if you can’t actually make it to the event as Samsung will be livestreaming it on its YouTube channel.
Samsung has a number of upcoming devices that might be at the event – the Android-powered Galaxy NX camera is one, but there’s also the Galaxy Camera 2, which Samsung’s CEO mentioned in an interview. Read more »
Microsoft has decided to make their Surface RT tablet more attractive to educational institutions by offering massive discounts. Now, schools and colleges will be able to purchase the 32GB Surface RT for just $199, which normally costs $499 to the general public.
If they choose to go with the optional Touch Keyboard Cover option, then it would set them back by $249 instead of the usual $599 and the Type Keyboard Cover model would cost $289 instead of $629. All models come with Microsoft Office as standard. Read more »
The Skype video messaging service is finally out of beta and is now available to all Skype users. It is available on the desktop in Skype for Windows desktop, Windows 8, OS X and on the mobile for Skype for iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry. The service is currently not available on Windows Phone.
For those who don’t know, Skype video messaging lets you send short video messages over Skype. Unlike your regular video calls, the recipient of these messages need not be online when you send them and can view them whenever they log into Skype. Basically, video messaging is to video calls what SMS is to voice calls. Read more »
An upcoming mysterious Facebook event has several sources speculating that the social network might be adding video support to its Instagram platform.
Instagram, which was bought by Facebook for a cool $1 billion in cash and stock in April of 2012, has been slowly losing ground on Twitter to Vine, a popular iOS and Android app which lets you share short 6 second video clips. Read more »


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The Mandarin Oriental, Singapore is offering a restorative Time to Spa package designed to relieve travel fatigue.
Travel Bound has launched its new Beach Collection 2016 and is offering vacation incentives to agents who make a booking from any of the featured destinations.
Japan, which has been re-gaining popularity with U.S. tourists lately—it won Recommend Readers’ Choice Award for Best Selling Destination in Asia and has come up as an emerging destination in USTOA’s annual survey of its members—is a stunning country that has much to offer its visitors, but if you have not experienced this Asian country first-hand, booking a vacation for your clients can get a little tricky.
Listen closely to what USTOA members are saying, and you’ll be all smiles going into the holidays and into 2016. There’s a positive outlook for the coming year, with tour operator members showing strong growth this past year and going into 2016, and affirming that travel agents contribute significantly to USTOA members’ business. Let’s look at the numbers, shall we.
Avanti Destinations just unveiled, at a press conference at USTOA, that it will now offer 22 customizable FIT vacation packages and more than 30 city stay packages in Cambodia, China, Japan, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, with all packages featuring private guides from arrival through departure.
Today, at the International Luxury Travel Market (ILTM) in France, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and Design Hotels announced the company’s expanded partnership, as well as Design Hotels inception as the 11th Starwood brand.
The assignment is: Go find out what all this bucket-list buzz about Vietnam is; why this country is atop so many hotspot lists. Cut to the end of a 10-day trip, and the answer can start with: This is a surprising place of dramatic landscapes, fascinating history, pulsating energy and epic food.
Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) is sporting a new look under the helm of a new CEO for its 25th anniversary year.
Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) just announced new leadership to its Liberty Travel and GOGO Vacations brands.
Satoyama Experience provides guided walking and cycling tours highlighting the Japanese countryside and arts and culture scene in the cities of Hida and Takayama—both of which are located in the landlocked Gifu Prefecture in central Japan approximately 4.5 hours away from Tokyo by train.
Tucked away in the rural Agatsuma District of the Gunma Prefecture in Japan is Shima Onsen Kashiwaya Ryokan, a modern ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) offering a quiet retreat roughly three hours away from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo.
Travel industry veteran Mike Bonner joined One&Only Resorts’ team as the newly appointed vice president of marketing last month after working for more than two decades in various sales and marketing positions at well-recognized cruise and hospitality companies, including Celebrity Cruises, Maybourne Hotel Group, and most recently, Silversea Cruises.
On Kensington Tours’ new Vietnam Mountains & Southern Islands tour, guests travel from the rice paddies in Vietnam's mountainous countryside to tropical beaches stretching along the country’s southern coastline while staying in an array of unique accommodations, including eco lodges and traditional junk boats.
High-end travel agents whose clients expect an upscale vacation regardless of their rustic surroundings will rejoice over Frontiers International Travel’s new 44-day Ultimate New Zealand Adventure + Hawaii itinerary.
Recommend attended the VISIT JAPAN Travel & MICE Mart 2015, which took place Sept. 25-27 at Tokyo Big Sight, as well as the JATA Tourism EXPO Japan, which took place Sept. 26-27.
Marriott Hotels has collaborated with Samsung Electronics America to launch VRoom Service, a new virtual reality travel experience.
As more vacationers catch on to the idea of volunteering for a part of or for their entire vacation, an increasing number of travel companies are creating unique ways for travelers to lend a helping hand, and good news for agents, they're all agent commissionable.
Two international hotels, The Kiroro in Hokkaido in Japan and the Great Northern Hotel in England, are joining Starwood’s new Tribute Portfolio brand.
The Quintessential Collection Vietnam is offering ultra-affluent individuals and couples the opportunity to tour five upper-echelon hotels in the Southeast Asian country with the Quintessentially Vietnam holiday package, with rates starting at $19,358 pp.


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Hitting "deactivate" won't make Facebook stop collecting your data. Here's what you need to do instead.
Truth Social tops Apple's App Store despite a buggy rollout.
Project CAIRaoke could help Meta, formerly Facebook, build better assistants in AR glasses and VR headsets.
At Meta's Inside the Lab event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg shows off Project CAIRaoke, which involves new virtual assistants designed for the metaverse.
Reels will be available in more than 150 countries for iPhone and Android Facebook users.
The immersive VR art exhibit "I Am a Man" is the launch piece for a Metaverse Culture Series.
The two new complaints were filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission this month.
After taking on Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick in season 1, Showtime's anthology series will spotlight Mark Zuckerberg and the social media company's journey.
It's not a joke.
Facebook is accused of violating Texas' privacy laws. Also, Apple could announce new computers next month, and the Polaris Program aims to achieve the world's first commercial spacewalk.
Last year, Facebook shut down its facial recognition system, citing societal concerns and regulatory uncertainty.
New polling from the firm Ipsos finds that most Americans worry about bad behavior on social media, and want companies to act.


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Compagnie Financière Tradition has issued an announcement detailing its results for the full year 2015. The company announced that its relatively weak fourth quarter results led to a year that was more or less flat, as revenues in constant currencies have declined by 1.7 per cent, but expectations for the net result were higher.
However the more interesting part of the communique which Compagnie Financière Tradition released this morning is the performance of its Japanese foreign exchange broking business.
Consolidated revenues for 2015 were reported by Compagnie Financière Tradition at CHF 814.5 million, which is down 2.7 per cent at currency exchange rates when compared to last year’s CHF 837.5 million, however revenues from the Japanese forex unit spiked higher.
Asia Exchange Empowering Traders Through New OpportunitiesGo to article >>
The adjusted revenue from the company’s non-interdealer broking business (non-IDB) which is the Japanese forex broking unit dealing with retail investors increased by 57.5 per cent. This compared to a decline in the adjusted revenue from the interdealer broking business (IDB), which was down 2.3 per cent in constant currencies.
Looking at the consolidated adjusted revenue of Compagnie Financière Tradition, it totaled to CHF 873.8 million compared with CHF 894.5 million in 2014, which marks a decrease of 1.1 per cent at constant exchange rates.
The second part of the year has been slower, as during the final quarter of the year Compagnie Financière Tradition registered consolidated revenues of CHF 190.7 million. The figure is lower by 9.9 per cent year-on-year. During the same period the non-IDB Japanese forex business still registered growth of 24.2 per cent, while the IDB declined 10.7 per cent.
For the second half of the year, Compagnie Financière Tradition’s consolidated adjusted revenue was down 4.4 per cent in constant currencies when compared with the second half of 2014.


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Litecoin is a cryptocurrency that was founded in 2011, two years after Bitcoin, Measured by using market capitalization, Litecoin is the 9th-largest cryptocurrency. It become a robust competitor to Bitcoin. However, because the cryptocurrency market has to turn out to be more saturated in current years with new offerings, Litecoin’s recognition has waned.
Litecoin has among the equal functions as Bitcoin, while also adapting and changing some other elements that the improvement crew felt might be progressed.
Litecoin is a cryptocurrency that turned into based in 2011, years after Bitcoin, by a former Google engineer named Charlie Lee.
Litecoin can be used as a road for paying humans everywhere inside the world without an intermediary having to procedure the transaction.
Measured by way of marketplace capitalization, Litecoin is the sixteenth-biggest cryptocurrency.
There will by no means be more than 84 million Litecoins in circulating.
On August 31, 2021, the value of 1 Litecoin was $168.50.
Like other decentralized cryptocurrencies, Litecoin isn’t issued by using a government, which historically has been the simplest entity that society trusts to trouble cash. Instead of being regulated via a primary financial institution and coming off the press on the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Litecoins are created through a complex cryptocurrency process known as mining, which consists of processing a list of Litecoin transactions.
Goals of Litecoin
Litecoin, like any virtual currencies, is a shape of digital cash. Both individuals and establishments can use Litecoin to purchase things and to transfer funds between accounts. Participants could make transactions with Litecoin without the usage of an intermediary like a financial institution, credit score card organization, or fee processing service.
Litecoin buyers say they’re hedging their cryptocurrency bets or that they got in due to the fact they think the rising Bitcoin tide will elevate different altcoin boats." I had been looking Litecoin for months to make certain it wasn’t some other pump and dump like many altcoins," says one investor who jumped on this fall whilst Litecoin turned into around $4. “I decided to shop for bitcoin due to the fact I figured if Visa and Mastercard can coexist so can bitcoin and litecoin.”
Litecoin is designed to produce greater coins than Bitcoin (84 million overall) and to create them 4 times as fast. Transactions (and the rewards to miners who facilitate those transactions) show up each 2. Five mins, in preference to every 10 minutes as with Bitcoin. Lee replaced Bitcoin’s hash-based mining technique with a script-based one it’s (with a bit of luck) tougher to ramp up within a particular designed computing device, in the hopes that Litecoin may not have the hardware palms race it’s occurring in Bitcoin right now.
“I’m positive there are Litecoin millionaires accessible,” says Lee, indicating he’s no longer considered one of them. “I’ve offered a few along with the manner. I sold numerous Litecoin when they were 20 cents. I’m now not the first-rate character to ask while to buy or sell.”


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The news yesterday that Volkswagen has bought 20 percent of Suzuki wasn’t much of a surprise, considering we mentioned the possibility way back in September.
Back then, representatives from both companies said a partnership wasn’t going to happen.
But it’s a partnership that does make sense, considering VW’s desire to rule the world and continue as its largest automaker, a crown stolen from Toyota just about a month ago. To keep its title VW needs to sell a lot more small cars in emerging Asian markets, such as India. Suzuki, as it happens, is the leading auto manufacturer in India and the third largest in Japan (behind Toyota and Honda).
The company does get access to Volkswagen’s hybrid and electric vehicle technology and the company’s larger vehicle platforms, traditional weak points for the Japanese automaker.
That could be good. But there’s also a chance though that Suzuki could get swallowed up by the giant Germans and simply become the 12th brand of the Volkswagen Auto Group.
Just check out that picture on top and tell me Osamu Suzuki, chairman and CEO of Suzuki Motor Corp., (on the left), doesn’t realize his company could get completely overtaken. That’s VW’s Martin Winterkorn giving him a comforting pat on the back as if to say, “It’s OK, little fella, we’ll take good care of your company,” while somewhere his henchman are breaking out in maniacal laughter.
I’m worried about Suzuki’s future, especially in the U.S. market. The company’s SX4 is a hit, and the upcoming Kizashi appears to be even better. Now that Suzuki is finally hitting some sort of a North American stride, I’m wondering how quickly VW could make it all go away.
I could see a future where VW doesn’t see the need for Suzuki in the U.S. anymore. I think that would be a shame. Do you?


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Lori’s Kitchen Store, based in Washington, IL, is gearing up to celebrate its ninth year in business. The store, owned by Lori Peifer, will be marking the occasion with an in-store event. There will be more than $3,500 in giveaways, including both product and classes, as well as drawings, giveaways and refreshments.
Additionally, according to the store’s newsletter, the first 10 adults in the store will be given a free cooking class and a special prize. Patrons wearing a Lori’s Kitchen Store t-shirt or carrying a store-branded bag will be given extra entries into the anniversary drawings, the newsletter added.


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ABTA has confirmed that interest in its Reduce My Footprint initiative has been low.
A simplified version of the programme will be unveiled at the association’s convention in October.
An ABTA spokeswoman said: “It has not had a great uptake. It is perceived to be complex.”
Reduce My Footprint suggests ways to reduce and then offset carbon-dioxide emissions. About 20 members link to the site, but other consumer traffic has been small, said ABTA.
“The biggest problem is scepticism in the media,” said the spokeswoman.
Thomas Cook group director of quality and ABTA board member John de Vial said: “Offsetting is part of a strategy. It is not a solution to climate change and consumers have not really got their heads around it. “Reduce My Footprint will take time to build.”
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Chick-fil-A Opponents “Resort to Hate”
Conservative congressman, Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.), sent House staffers an official email trashing pro-gay protesters of Chick-fil-A as "malicious" critics who "resort to hate." He is exhorting his colleagues to rush to the fast-food chain's aid as its brand reputation takes a tailspin. In his letter, Nunnelee writes, "Many on the left have called the radical idea that a company embrace traditional values and support strengthening families 'bigoted."


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Recognition reaffirms company’s commitment to maintain a leading position amongst top ranking brands
Riyadh, January 04, 2014- Arabian Oud, the largest specialized oriental perfume retailer in the world, achieved a new milestone in terms of local and international recognition, as it had been chosen as one of the Top 100 Most Popular Brands in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, according to the survey conducted by Aseer Press and Publishing Establishment on a group of prominent brands, based on its well recognized experience, history and market presence. The honoring ceremony was held recently at Al Faisaliah Hotel in Riyadh under the patronage and presence of Dr. Abdulaziz bin Mohieddin Khoja, Minister of Culture and Information, with the presence of HRH Prince Bandar bin Khalid Alfaisal, Chairman of Aseer Est., prominent personalities, leading figures, businessmen and representatives of government sector and media.
Arabian Oud’s high-level recognition reaffirms the company’s commitment to maintain a leading position amongst the top ranking brands at the regional and international levels, and underlines its ability to maximize brand efficiency management, improve its assets value and increase its brand market share while effectively contributing to national economy development and employment of national workforce in line with the Saudi government initiative aimed at Saudization and development of national human resources.
Sulaiman Al Huwaisen, Administrative Affairs Manager, Arabian Oud, said: “With its track record of success stories and milestones, Arabian Oud has always been keen on developing ambitious growth strategies which have had utmost impact on establishing a strong presence in major markets and raising the bar on its brand within Saudi Arabia and beyond. Furthermore, we are keen to maintain our well-known quality, reliability and innovation levels matching the highest international standards and in line with the latest industry developments and trends to ultimately enhance our level of excellence. Recognizing Arabian Oud amongst the top 100 brands in the local market is yet another testament to the company’s leading presence, excellence and efforts to promote the local industry at the global scale.”
Arabian Oud is the largest company specializing in oud and oriental perfumes in the world, drawing on its own private sources of raw materials for its products. It manages an extensive network throughout the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, the Middle East and Europe. The company is currently regarded as the number one brand in the Middle East and Africa and 11th globally in producing the finest luxury perfumes based on a recent global study highlighting the value of perfume sales in 2012.


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Citing steeper declines in the U.S. and Western Europe, Zenith Optimedia again slashed its forecast for ad spending around the world this year, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal.
Zenith Optimedia reduced its forecast for global ad spending in 2009 again, predicting spending will sink 6.9% to $453.2 billion, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal.
The story says U.S. ad outlays will drop 8.7% to $156.9 billion.
Zenith had previously lowered its 09 spending forecasts in December, predicting a global decline of 0.2%, with a 6.2% decline in the U.S.
WSJ Online subscribers may read the full story here.


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LIMERICK PA – Rocco’s Brick Oven Pizzeria of Collegeville was voted favorite restaurant of among 18 that participated Sept. 12 (2013) in the first “Farmer and the Chef” food tasting event conducted by the Collegeville Economic Development Corp. (CEDC) as a fund-Raiser at The Copperfield Inn on West Ridge Pike. More than 200 diners joined in the voting, the corporation reported Wednesday (Sept. 26).
“With more 40 selections … the guests’ biggest problem was pacing themselves so they still had room for yet one more plate as they worked their way around the (inn’s) ballroom and enjoyed it open bar,” it said.
Rocco’s operates as an Italian fine dining establishment with a full menu of Italian classics. “The secret to great Italian food is the finest and freshest ingredients,” owner Chris Ray told the CEDC. “We buy the best and stick to our original recipes,” which he called personal and family recipes developed over the years. His wife, Kim, continues to make all the desserts by hand.
Coming in second and third places, respectively, were DaVinci’s Pub in Collegeville and The Copperfield Inn, which are under the same ownership and both benefit from the original recipes developed by their talented executive chef. He’s “developed different amazing recipes for each restaurant, and we carry the top favorites from DaVinci’s at both,” says Sherri Sautner, one of four owners.
In fourth place was Shagun, Collegeville’s first Indian restaurant; it recently opened in the Collegeville Shopping Center. “We get authentic fresh Indian ingredients through our New York supplier,” manager Happy Grover said. “We brought not only our great food to the event but also our great hospitality.”
Placing fifth in the top five was ICED by Betsy gourmet cupcakes, made a complementary filling and topped with a generous mound of icing. Flavors ranged from pumpkin cheesecake to peanut butter and chocolate.
The event raised over $5,000 for operation of the CEDC-sponsored Collegeville Farmer’s Market.


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MELBOURNE -(MarketWatch)- Australian retailer Woolworths Ltd. (WOW.AU) has expanded its portfolio with the acquisition of 31 hotels and a liquor store in New South Wales.
The company's ALH Group unit said in a statement Tuesday that it signed long-term leases and bought the businesses and assets from interests involved with the Laundy, Waugh and De Angelis Groups. The financial terms of the purchases weren't disclosed.
ALH currently operates 27 hotels in New South Wales, according to the statement. The company earlier this year bought 12 hotels in Western Australia to add to the 16 it already operates in the state.


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Myth: Small Business as Job Engine
By SYLVIA NASAR
Published: March 25, 1994
For years, small business has been portrayed as the source of virtually all new jobs, a notion furthered by the litany of layoffs in recent months by corporate giants like I.B.M., Westinghouse, Johnson & Johnson, General Motors and A.T.& T.
The notion has been invoked again and again, by everyone from President Clinton in his first State of the Union Message to Senator Bob Dole to officials of the Small Business Administration -- and echoed widely by journalists.
But to think that America's economic future lies largely with high-tech start-ups and other small businesses, outfits with 50 or 100 workers or fewer, is to miss a main dynamic of the marketplace. Big companies have also been hiring, though with considerably less fanfare. And the big businesses that are adding workers are as varied as those cutting back, from Chrysler and Wal-Mart to Merrill Lynch, Motorola, United Parcel Service and Pepsico. These companies have increased their total employment by anywhere from 3,000 at Merrill Lynch to 182,000 at Wal-Mart from 1992 to 1994. Image, Not 'Reality'
"People have this image of an economy in which large firms inexorably shrink and small firms valiantly struggle to replenish the stock of jobs," said Steven J. Davis, a labor economist at the University of Chicago. "But this image deviates sharply from the reality."
It is an image that took root about a decade ago, when David Birch, a business consultant and lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, contended that small businesses created 8 out of 10 new jobs. The statistic has been repeated like a mantra ever since, usually to argue for special breaks for small businesses in Washington.
Even Mr. Birch now says he regards his own statistic as neither "interesting" nor "meaningful." But, he complains, "That number won't go away."
One reason, Professor Davis says, is that small businesses hire at twice the rate, relative to their total employment, of midsized and big ones. A recent study of manufacturers by Mr. Davis and two colleagues, for example, found that companies with at least 10 workers created nearly two-thirds of all the new jobs from 1973 to 1988.
But, they also found, small businesses eliminate jobs at a far higher rate. And their job cuts are less visible since large layoffs by large companies make big headlines, while the disappearance of the corner hardware store or the local car dealership is noticed mostly by the neighbors.
In recent years, start-ups and small businesses have also been the first to add workers. They do a disproportionate share of the hiring early in an economic recovery, while big companies are often the last to lay off -- and to hire.
Besides, says James L. Medoff, a labor economist at Harvard University, Americans love small business the way they love small towns and family farmers and are more ready to believe that it plays a uniquely virtuous role. All of the storied companies -- Microsoft, Intel, Wal-Mart -- started small, and everyone looks to small business for that next big success story.
But while small business is getting most of the credit, many big businesses are indeed hiring.
Take Motorola, which has expanded its worldwide payrolls by 18,000 employees in the last two years. Over the last couple of years, it has hired hundreds of factory hands, engineers designers and marketers in Boynton Beach, Fla., to help it keep up with the explosive demand for beepers. It took on so many people that it hit the company limit of 3,000 workers in one plant -- "we like to keep things informal and cozy," a company spokesman said -- and was forced to set up a new operation, which it placed in Fort Worth.
Then there's Wal-Mart. While venerable retailing chains like Sears, Roebuck & Company and Woolworth wiped out some 80,000 jobs last year, Wal-Mart alone -- now the second- largest employer in the United States after General Motors -- created some 85,000 new jobs last year alone.
Other retailing giants like Home Depot have also helped lift total retail employment in the United States by more than 400,000 in 1993. And large chains like Toys "R" Us, Federated Department Stores and Dayton Hudson have all announced expansion plans that would add thousands of jobs -- many, to be sure, part time and without benefits like health insurance or pensions. No Reports on Size
The Department of Labor does not report how many jobs are created or lost by companies of different sizes. But anecdotal evidence suggests that big companies are also getting bigger and taking on more workers in at least half a dozen other industries, from groceries to securities, restaurants to mortgage banking and temporary help to soft drinks.
"In the service businesses generally, there has been a very definite trend that has favored the large companies," said Mitchell Fromstein, chief executive of Manpower Inc., the nation's largest temporary help company, which also tracks hiring trends.
Economists who have studied job creation and destruction systematically have concluded that size is not an especially good predictor of job-creating prowess. As it turns out, jobs sprout in companies of all sizes: Small companies hire, but so do big and medium-sized ones, and big companies do a lot of laying off, but so do small ones.
"Size isn't the issue," said Frank Levy, an economist at M.I.T. "The issue is which firms are adding jobs."
The lesson, economists say, is that subsidizing small businesses or showering them with tax breaks is not the sure-fire way of stoking job creation that it is cracked up to be. New Study Published


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Sh*t The Bed Hot Sauce: $1m item ‘too naughty’ for Woolworths, Coles
Renae Bunster started her $1 million-a-year business from her kitchen – but there’s a cheeky reason you won’t find her items in supermarkets.
Renae Bunster’s hot sauce empire rakes in millions every single year – but you’ll never find her popular products at your local Coles or Woolies.
The former TV journalist started making hot sauce for friends a few years ago, but it became a full-time job after a crowd-funding campaign to kickstart the business in 2015 raised $250,000 off a target of $65,000.
However, she realised she couldn’t go down the traditional route of approaching supermarket juggernauts Coles and Woolworths due to her signature product’s “too naughty” name – Sh*t the Bed Hot Sauce – which she joked would leave customers “fainting in the aisles”.
Instead, the Perth mum sidestepped the major retailers and sold her cheeky range online and via IGAs and butchers.
Since launching her business from her own kitchen, sales have doubled every year and now, it rakes in more than $1 million annually.
And while other businesses struggled during coronavirus lockdown, Bunsters Hot Sauce thrived with March 2020 sales more than doubling the sales of March 2019.
Now, Ms Bunster is celebrating a fresh triumph after loyal fans across the world ponied up around $500,000 within days to buy a stake in her company – before the equity raise was even made public.
The funds from her latest capital raise will go towards ramping up production, launching new products and expanding further in to Asia and Europe, after having successfully conquered America and Canada.
“We never actually approached Coles and Woolies because we knew they wouldn’t stock our products and it would be a waste of time – they wouldn’t want old ladies fainting in the aisles doing their shopping,” Ms Bunster told news.com.au.
“From the start we realised our name would prohibit stock from getting into shops so we doubled down and went hard by shipping online with really good distribution channels.
“When COVID-19 happened other businesses were chasing their tails and scrambling after lockdown but it was just another day for us and sales actually boomed. The same naughty name that stopped us from getting into Coles and Woolies actually made us a COVID winner, so who is laughing now?”
Ms Bunster said when she first launched her range, she went to her local supermarkets to check out other hot sauce brands and was shocked to find most were made overseas.
She said she would like to see Australia’s major grocery chains do more to help small Australian businesses get their start.
RELATED: ATO’s grim warning for Aussies
“The sentiment right now is that people want to support Australian-made products and ingredients, and coronavirus made everyone realise we need to support Australian-made food – people are prepared to pay a little bit more for it,” she said.
“Supporting Australian business at a time like this will help get our economy back on its feet faster.
“(The major supermarkets) should either take more of a chance on small Australian businesses or miss this golden opportunity.”
Ms Bunster said she initially hoped the public equity raise would net $100,000, and that she had been “blown away” when it climbed to more than $300,000 within a week.
“We didn’t realise we’d triple that amount in a week just from out fans,” she said.
“My customers are my friends – I feel like I have 80,000 friends right now which is amazing, and we’ve gotten so many messages from people saying they’ve never invested in anything before, but they saw this and knew they had to.
“It’s an exciting chance for everyday Aussies to own a piece of a great Australian export success story and I feel really motivated every day to make it a massive success.”
Sh*t the Bed Hot sauce is regularly the top-selling hot sauce on Amazon USA and has been enjoyed by a range of celebrities including Natalie Portman, Wiz Kaleefa, Jeff Goldblum and Johnny Knoxville who all ate it on YouTube talk show hit Hot Ones.
Meanwhile, a Woolworths spokesman told news.com.au it was proud to stock items from many small Aussie businesses.
“At Woolworths, we’re proud to champion the products of more than 2000 small suppliers across our Australian store network,” the spokesman said.
“Our Local Sourcing Program offers small suppliers an entry point onto our shelves, without asking them to ramp up production to a national level. The program currently supports 300 suppliers – offering our customers access to more than 2200 high quality and locally relevant products in different parts of Australia.
“Several brands in our local sourcing program have grown from small beginnings in a few stores to being ranged nationwide. Others have chosen to stay in a handful of stores in a regional area.”


text:
US home sales rise
US home resales increased 0.6 percent in November,
industry data showed, suggesting the slumping property market is stabilizing.
The National Association of Realtors said existing-home sales amounted to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.28 million units in November, well ahead of the 6.15 million figure expected on Wall Street. This followed a 0.5 percent increase in October.
The November sales level was 10.7 percent below the pace of a year ago, reflecting the tumble in the real estate market after years of spectacular growth.
"As the housing market recovers from its correction, existing-home sales should be rising gradually during 2007 -- it looks like we may have reached the low point for the current cycle in September," he said.
"We've entered a more sustainable period of home sales now, and we expect greater support for prices over time as inventory levels are eventually drawn down."
The latest report showed housing inventory levels fell 1.0 percent at the end of November to 3.82 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 7.3-month supply at the current sales pace.


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IBM has demonstrated that it is commercially feasible to bake optical circuitry into silicon processors using existing fabrication techniques, which could set the stage for radically faster and lower-cost computer communications.
IBM plans to issue fixes early next week for glitches that have hit Notes users who upgraded to the latest version of Google's Android OS.
IBM has closed its US$1.3 billion acquisition of Kenexa, intended to boost IBM's enterprise social collaboration offerings with Kenexa's cloud-based human resources applications and IT services.
News of weak server sales, continuing turmoil at Hewlett-Packard and the ongoing U.S. political impasse over the so-called "fiscal cliff" have not given tech industry watchers much to cheer about this week.
Worldwide server shipments went up in the third quarter of 2012, but revenue from those sales dropped due to economic uncertainty in some parts of the world, research firm Gartner said in a study released on Wednesday.
As supercomputers grow more powerful, they'll also grow more vulnerable to failure, thanks to the increased amount of built-in componentry. A few researchers at the recent SC12 conference, held last week in Salt Lake City, offered possible solutions ...
The Top500 is no longer the only ranking game in town: make way for the Graph 500, which tracks how well supercomputers handle big-data-styled workloads.
IBM is offering US$4 billion in new credit to customers through its partner channel, and has also developed a new mobile application to help them get financing quickly, the company announced Thursday.
If the increase in supercomputer speeds continue at their current pace, we will see the first exascale machine by 2020, estimated the maintainers of the Top500 compilation of the world's fastest systems.
IBM is planning to release on Dec. 14 a public beta of Notes and Domino 9.0 Social Edition that will no longer use the Lotus brand.
The U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Laboratory's newly installed Titan system, a Cray XK7, has been anointed as the world's fastest supercomputer in the newly released 40th edition of the Top500 compilation of the world's fastest superco...
IBM has been slapped with a multimillion dollar lawsuit by chemical products manufacturer, Avantor Performance Materials, which alleges that IBM lied about the suitability of a SAP-based software package it sells in order to win Avantor's business.
Oracle on Thursday said it has agreed to acquire PPM (project portfolio management) software vendor Instantis, in a move that will build upon its past acquisition of Primavera. Terms of the deal, which is expected to be completed this year, were not ...
Tao Wan now works at IBM, but said he was once an angry young man, a veteran of the hacking scene that burgeoned in China in the late 1990s.
IBM on Tuesday announced the Storwize V3700 storage array, which starts at US$11,000 and is one of the lowest-priced storage products the company offers.
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text:
TAMPA — With restaurants like the Independent, the Refinery, Rooster & the Till and Fodder & Shine, Tampa's Seminole Heights has won a national reputation for good food and craft beer.
Now it's getting a bigger local customer base.
Developer Wesley Burdette on Thursday marked the start of work on the Warehouse Lofts, a $5.5 million project to transform old warehouse space at 4513 N Florida Ave. into 48 apartments.
"We've got a lot of great pieces, and I think this is the density component that we've all been looking for to give that big economic push (for) Seminole Heights," Burdette said.
"There's going to be no skinny people living in here," city development official Bob McDonaugh said. "You're going to start at Nicko's for breakfast across the street, eat your way up Florida Avenue. … This will now be the headquarters for foodie central."
The project is scheduled to be complete in late September, drawing 75 to 100 new residents to a neighborhood about 2 miles north of downtown. The apartments are expected to rent for $1,000 to $1,600 a month.
Along with 38 lofts, plus studios and two-bedroom apartments surrounding a courtyard, the project will have 3,270 square feet of retail space with a rooftop terrace along N Florida Avenue.
Burdette said he hopes to attract a coffee bar, casual dining restaurant or brewery for the space.
Mayor Bob Buckhorn said the lofts represent another step in City Hall's effort to make sure that neighborhoods surrounding Tampa's urban core are connected to each other, walkable and inviting.
They also validate decisions that Buckhorn said the neighborhood's leadership made 25 years ago "to take ownership of its own destiny, to be different, to preserve the original architecture."
"Now look at it," he said. "This is the place that people want to be."
Contact Richard Danielson at firstname.lastname@example.org or (813) 226-3403. Follow @Danielson_Times.


text:
Packers have to comply with deadlines when it comes to the adherence to recent and future labelling guidelines.
The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) has set 1 January 2010 as the deadline for complying with food labeling regulations issued between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2008. Companies will have until 2 January 2012 to adhere with labeling regulations that are issued between 1 January 2009 and 31 Dec 2010.
Allergen advisory label
A change that the FDA is currently working on has to do with allergen advisory labelling, an efforts to make those statements uniform across the US.
Even though the FDA has main authority on the issue of changing labelling requirements, such as declaration of allergens, USDA works closely with the FDA.


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Thousands with lost or stolen contactless cards are warned fraudsters can still use them EIGHT MONTHS after they are cancelled
- Justin Robson had cards taken in November 2015 and then used in July
- MoneySavingExpert found contactless cards are usable after cancellation
- Banks admit some payments still automatic even after cards go missing
- There are now a total of 92.1million contactless cards used in the UK
Victim: Justin Robson from Cheshire had his Halifax cards taken last November but they were still being used fraudulently in July this year
Thousands of people with lost or stolen contactless cards have been warned they could be used by fraudsters up to eight months after they are cancelled.
Justin Robson from Cheshire had his Halifax cards taken last November but they were still being used fraudulently in July this year.
A MoneySavingExpert.com investigation has also revealed that all the major banks' contactless cards can be used after cancellation, and many of them don't check if those payments were yours.
There are currently 92.1million contactless cards being used in the UK - 65million debit and 27million credit cards.
Thousands of people whose contactless cards have been lost or stolen are now being urged to check their statements for fraudulent transactions.
Mr Robson said that five contactless purchases totalling nearly £30 were made in Stoke-on-Trent, 30 miles away from where he lives.
He then called Halifax who admitted thieves were still using his cancelled cards and urged him to check his statements for more payments - and keep an eye out for more spending on his account.
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A Halifax spokesman said: 'In the unlikely event that contactless transactions have been made on a cancelled lost or stolen card, we will always refund the customer in order to ensure they are not out of pocket.'
Halifax has refunded him for the thefts and given him £100 for distress and inconvenience.
Damning: All banks admit that their contactless cards can be used after they are cancelled - and in many cases the cash is automatically debited from the account
MoneySavingExpert.com said the 'chaotic system' means that while some accounts are prevented from being raided by this type of fraud, in other cases it is left to customers to spot dodgy payments.
Steve Nowottny, news and features editor at MoneySavingExpert.com, said: 'Most cardholders will be frankly astonished to learn that they're still at risk of contactless fraud months after cancelling lost or stolen cards - and the implications are worrying and wide-ranging.
'There's a very real risk that fraud is going undetected because people have cancelled their cards wrongly assuming that means they can no longer be used.
'And the fact that when a cancelled card is used some banks will still automatically debit your account and not check whether you made the purchase is shocking.'
WHAT TO DO IF YOUR CARDS ARE LOST OR STOLEN
- Tell your bank or card provider as soon as possible, so they can cancel the card and send a replacement.
- Keep a vigilant eye on your account and scrutinise small contactless payments to make sure they are legitimate.
- If you think your card is being used fraudulently tell your bank or building society immediately and report it to Action Fraud.
Contactless card use has grown rapidly in recent years as a handy alternative to cash.
A year ago, the contactless card limit for a single transaction was raised by £10, to £30. In March, contactless card spending in the UK topped £1.5 billion in the space of a month for the first time.
MoneySavingExpert.com said the problem generally lies in contactless card payments being processed in one of two ways - 'online' or 'offline'.
When payments are processed online, the card and payment machine immediately communicate with the customer's bank. If a lost or stolen card has been cancelled, this will be flagged immediately and a payment not allowed.
Offline payments are stored in batches by retailers and processed online to the bank at a later point, sometimes a few days later with smaller stores. This can allow a thief buying goods on a stolen card to go undetected.
But fraudsters can be tripped up if the contactless card has been used the maximum number of times before a Pin is required. The limit before a Pin is required varies between card issuers and account types.
Plea: Thousands of people whose contactless cards have been lost or stolen are being urged to check their statements for fraudulent transactions
Firms may also set a 'floor limit' at which payments are forced to go online - meaning anything above a certain amount is checked out immediately with the issuing bank. Some cards may always have to go online.
The UK Cards Association said fraud on contactless cards represents only 0.5% of overall card fraud.
Total contactless fraud in 2015 equated to to 3.6p in every £100 spent using contactless technology. By contrast, overall card fraud as a proportion of card spending was 8.3p for every £100 spent.
A spokesman for the UK Cards Association said: 'Fraud on contactless cards is rare and considerably lower than overall card fraud. Consumers are fully protected against any fraud losses and will not be left out of pocket.
'As always it is important to check bank or card statements regularly for any unusual transactions, especially if a card has been lost or stolen. When a customer reports a lost or stolen card they will be advised to report any transactions they do not recognise to their bank.'
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