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Credit card security is about to get much better, which will be a welcome development given the slew of recent cyber attacks on online retailers Target and Home Depot. Measures are finally being put in place to ensure that credit card transactions and ecommerce remain safe and viable ways to conduct business.
Several new technologies are being rolled out at the moment that address the issue of credit card security and fraud prevention. Apple in their recent product launch touched upon this subject with their new app, Apple Pay. Additionally, there has been increased mention in the news regarding online payment currency Bitcoin and the encryption method known as Tokenization, both of which are used to help secure making payments online. Banks and financial institutions are likewise making upgrades of their own.
Chip-based credit cards
American banks are beginning to shift towards credit card technology that is expected to significantly reduce fraudulent transactions. According to The New York Times, American credit card companies plan to introduce more than 575 million cards by the end of 2015 that contain computer chips. Chip-based cards are already in use in Europe and Canada. Banks also commented that they will add another level of security, via a code to enter, once consumers become accustomed to the new cards.
Up until now, banks were waiting for retailers to upgrade their systems, to accommodate the improved cards. With the recent data breaches, it was decided that increased security is necessary now, as is the need for tighter regulations governing liabilities related to fraud. In accordance with the new rules, the party with the less-secure system is the one that will be held accountable for the losses, reported the news source.
Visa’s new tech
Another technology, developed by Visa, recently introduced to the market, is Visa Transaction Advisor or VTA. This new technology is capable of analyzing 500 pieces of data, such as past transactions, location and whether the account has been part of a data breach, and assigns credit scores to credit cards being used at retailers. The process takes less than a millisecond, reported Today.com.
Before introducing VTA to the market, Visa conducted a two-month test of VTA at 300 Chevron gas stations in Los Angeles. As a result, Chevron witnessed a 23 percent reduction in refunds related to fraud. Today, approximately 25,000 gas stations across the country currently use VTA.
Adam Levin, chairman of IDentity Theft 911, believes the new technology is a welcome addition to fraud prevention.
“Anything that helps spot and stop fraud before it happens is a lot better than having to deal with the consequences after it happens,” Levin said.
Visa is currently considering other places where VTA would best be used. ATM’s and online merchants seem to be the next destination points, reported the news source.Back To Blog


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Apple might soon see its flagship product imperiled by America's advancing trade war with China, as President Donald Trump in an interview on Monday suggested a new round of tariffs could include a 10 percent levy on iPhone.
Speaking with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said he intends to move ahead with tariffs on $200 billion of goods imported from China if an upcoming summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping bears no fruit.
Trump confirmed his administration is thinking about lumping iPhone and laptop computers into the next round of tariffs.
"Maybe. Maybe. Depends on what the rate is," he said in reference to duties on phones and computers. "I mean, I can make it 10 percent, and people could stand that very easily."
The knock-on effect of a 10 percent tax would likely be higher prices for U.S. consumers. Apple typically responds quickly to global economic trade winds, sometimes adjusting regional device prices to reflect changes in international exchange rates. It remains unclear how the company would handle a 10 percent tax hike in its largest market.
Trump and Xi are scheduled to meet later this week to discuss an intensifying trade battle between the two world powers. China is seeking to delay a planned tariff increase — from 10 percent to 25 percent — on $200 billion of imports, while at the same time staving off new duties placed on a range of other goods.
"If we don't make a deal, then I'm going to put the $267 billion additional on," Trump said.
The bruising tariff rounds have prompted impacted U.S. firms to consider building production facilities in other countries, the report said. A bulk of Apple's product line, including the tech giant's bread-and-butter iPhone, is manufactured in China by companies like Foxconn.
"What I'd advise is for them to build factories in the United States and to make the product here," Trump said of companies affected by the duties. "And they have a lot of other alternatives."
So far, Apple has successfully kept its products off the U.S. tariff list, but that position now appears tenuous.
Reports in October suggested the Trump administration was considering slapping tariffs on imported goods that escaped an initial round impacting $250 billion worth of trade. Rumors earlier this year claimed Trump promised Apple CEO Tim Cook that iPhone would not be involved in the escalating trade war.
Editor's note: Due to its political nature, comments for this article have been disabled.

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Italian Wine Company Booms with Draft Wine
According to progressive wine company, Montelvini, American winemakers are missing out on using kegs in marketing inexpensive wines to a new generation of wine drinkers.
by Paul Franson
Feb 2005 Issue of Wine Business Monthly
American wine companies seem to be trying all the alternative packaging systems already in use--save one: Draft wines. If wineries and restaurants want to really popularize sales of inexpensive wines, they might take a look at Montelvini S.p.A., a progressive wine company in Venegazzù, Italy in the province of Treviso near Venice.Montelvini sold half a million 20-liter reusable kegs of wine last year, and even with expanded facilities, is hard-pressed to keep up with demand. The company is well ...
» Article access restricted to registered members of winebusiness.com/


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Black Desert Online Is Getting Rid Of Battle Royale Mode: Shadow Arena On April 10th
The team behind Black Desert Online has announced that the game’s ‘Shadow Arena’, its first and only Battle Royale Mode will be taken down on April 10th. The short-lived PvP mode was first introduced back in January and had originally been planned to have continuous updates to keep it fresh and enjoyable.
The team states that the focus on new updates was deviating from their original direction partly due to the time being put on developing the Shadow Arena mode. Closing Shadow Arena was ultimately the option chosen instead of making partial improvements.
The Black Desert Online development team is currently focusing on not only introducing new content such as Star’s End, additional Adventure Log updates, and much more but also on improving the existing content already in the game.
Source: Black Desert Online Announcement


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Nassau is the world’s second hottest cruise vacation spot, simply behind Cozumel. Nevertheless, its port space didn’t dwell as much as the expectations of the hundreds of thousands of tourists that go to the port every year. To offer these company with the welcoming setting the Bahamas is thought for, the port began an enormous redevelopment mission in 2019.
Nassau Cruise Port has been utterly reworked over the past couple of years at the price of some $300 million. The mission is now within the last phases of completion, with the port saying the official opening will probably be on the finish of Might 2023.
Nassau Cruise Port Formally Opens Might 2023
With 3.7 million cruise ship guests every year, having a welcoming port space is a reasonably vital a part of your picture. That’s why Nassau has invested massively in rejuvenating and upgrading its port to a world-class waterfront space.
First revealed in February 2019, after practically 4 years of development, the development is now nearly accomplished. As reported by Eyewitness Information, the port is scheduled to rejoice its grand opening in Might 2023, revealed Port Director Mike Maura this week after discussions with the Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis.
Mike Maura, Port Director for Nassau, mentioned the next: “We had a gathering with the Prime Minister on Wednesday, and it was agreed that the grand opening can be the final weekend of Might.”
“We had checked out having it earlier in Might, however King Charles determined to be coronated round Might 5 or Might 6, and that meant the Prime Minister can be away, and we wished to make sure that the Prime Minister is right here for that grand opening.”
In the intervening time, some 300 employees are placing the ultimate touches on the Nassau Cruise Port space, which can have the ability to deal with three Oasis-class cruise ships and a complete of six cruise ships on the identical day. Adjustments to the docks and visitor areas imply that passenger capability will enhance from 20,000 to round 33,000 passengers per day.
“We had anticipated to be completed lengthy earlier than the final weekend of Might 2023, however the pandemic has had its enjoyable with us. As soon as accomplished, we will deal with comfortably three Oasis ships on the identical time and three different vessels for a complete of six,” mentioned Maura.
The price of the work being executed has fallen increased than anticipated. Initially budgeted at $250 million, that quantity will are available at round $300 million as a result of the price of supplies and the pandemic. For that value, cruise passengers do get an entirely reformed port space.
The works embody repairing and increasing Prince George Wharf, including a sixth berth, and a brand new terminal constructing. The $300 million mission may also operate as an leisure vacation spot for locals.
There will probably be a Junkanoo museum, occasion & leisure areas, a 3,500-person Amphitheatre, a residing coral exhibit, shops owned and operated by locals, and new native meals and beverage amenities.
Via the tip of this 12 months, Nassau will welcome 3,2 million cruise passengers throughout 1100 cruise calls, rising considerably to 4 million in 2023 throughout 1,260 cruise ship calls and 4.5 million in 2024 throughout 1,300 cruise ship calls. If these projections are achieved, Nassau would be the busiest port of name worldwide, eclipsing the present chief, Cozumel.


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Alex + Hugo, a Senior Integrated creative team based in London, recently announced the launch of its new vibrant 'Demotivational Posters' that feature cynical phrases. The artwork boasts eye-catching colors with chunky, 3D typography.
These bespoke posters are printed on German Hahnemühle Photorag matte paper to ensure the colors are vibrant and accurate. The posters feature sayings such as "Maybe tomorrow maybe never," "Born to snooze," and "Yeah not gonna happen." According to the designers, their inspiration for creating these Demotivational Posters come for a positive outlook. They state, "We think nothing motivates you more than someone saying you won't to make it." The Demotivation Posters are likely targetted towards Millenials and Gen Z who appreciate sarcastic slogans often found in meme culture.


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Universal says it now has a “fair and tempered process for… potential takedowns.”
“This is the only public version of a massive quarter century trove of interviews.”
Patreon defends the emulator’s non-infringing nature, leaves page up.
ROM hack is still available online despite YouTube and Patreon takedowns.
Game company wants to take down YouTube star’s livestreams after n-word incident.


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While SMA Solar Technology’s growth continues to be held back by ongoing electronic chip shortages, the German inverter supplier has seen its order backlog soar as it benefits from strong consumer demand for rooftop solar.
“It’s raining orders,” said CEO Jürgen Reinert, who believes the company would be able to double or triple its revenues if it had access to sufficient electronic chips.
Speaking with PV Tech Premium at Intersolar Europe last week – on the same day SMA published its Q1 results – Reinert revealed that the industry has increased access to politicians as he called for additional policy support for European PV manufacturers.
PV Tech: Which area of the business has the strongest growth potential?
Jürgen Reinert: Right now, I would say it’s just perfect. We have the situation that in every single business area we are in a situation where we could deliver double or even triple the volume because of the fact that we have got so much tailwind coming from politics, coming from the consciousness that is building up among the people, among politics, etc, to really do much more, to not be relying on energy from other countries.
We have got three segments: home solutions, C&I solutions and large-scale solutions. And for all of these we could actually sell much, much more than we are able to do due to the fact that, of course, we have some shortages on chips, like many companies. But the tailwind is just enormous.
Do you think that the public has more of a focus on installing home solar given the current high energy prices and renewed interest in reducing reliance on fossil fuels?
That is what we see in all the countries, we see that there are a lot of requests coming from the individual homeowner towards the installer, distributor and to us.
I think this is definitely there to stay. Even if the electricity prices should go down again, we have come to such low cost when it comes to photovoltaic generation that this just makes perfect sense to couple the sectors we just spoke about. And this will stay there even if prices will go lower again because it’s just making sense not only for the environment but also for the money.
What is the current situation in terms of chip shortages?
We are really having our biggest shortages when it comes to the supply side on the chips, on the processes, the intelligence in the system. And these are of course the normal suppliers like Texas Instruments (TI), Intel, NXP, etc, that are really putting everybody on short [supply].
Unfortunately, there is even a little bit of the situation that the companies producing in Europe are worse off because of the fact that most of these companies that I just named are actually from the States – TI, Intel, etc – and they produce in China.
So there is the situation that the mother company gets, of course, a good deal for their main customers, even very big ones. But even the production side gets a fair share of the production which is aligned in between. Meaning that even if I speak to European bosses of these companies, they say: “As Europe, we are a little bit left behind.” And that’s of course a pity as SMA is one of the few companies that really makes sure we design and develop in Europe.
Are there any other challenges that SMA is facing, or problems you have had to overcome in terms of pricing or the supply chain?
It’s really boiling down to chip supply when it comes to most of the things. It’s raining orders, and we cannot catch them all because of the fact that we just cannot give a supply date from our side.
So, no, there’s nothing actually that is bothering us. On the contrary, we have very good access nowadays to politicians, we are very much different as a photovoltaic industry compared to say three, four, five years ago.
I’ve been speaking to our chancellor in Germany, but we’ve been speaking with Kadri Simson, who’s the energy minister for the European Union, and we have very easy access and we are being heard nowadays as a company as well as an industry.
So the only real problem is chip shortages. And as I said at the beginning, if we would have chips, I think we could double to triple our revenues right now. And of course, the profit would be very nice indeed as well.
Are there any policies you would like to see to encourage the renewable energy transition?
This is, of course, different from country to country. In Germany, I would, for example, say we have too much administration, it’s too cumbersome to really go through all the different steps that are needed from the administration point of view. UK, probably also, likewise.
Then, France, Italy, Scandinavia are all different. So I think what would be good if there comes more of a harmonisation when it comes to the certification that you need, and not every country doing its own scheme.
And the other part that really would interest me is that we would see a much higher focus on European development and production. Because in Europe, 90% of the goods in the photovoltaic industry come from China. So modules nearly all, and even on inverters quite high, and even on other components it’s a rather high dependency on China.
So right now we have all the discussion about getting independent from Russia. But what if that would be changing in the next years and we would want to have that independency more from China? And that is the situation that I think Europe should be more aware about.
I’m not for taxes and locking out countries, that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that one should be aware of that one is creating over the last years enormous dependencies on China as a country for our energy production here. And there should be good means to actually help companies that do focus on R&D and production in Europe.
Which markets do you see the strongest potential for the company and the industry?
I would say it’s really across the board. I was in the USA two weeks ago, and we have more orders than we can handle, the same as in Australia, the same as in Thailand and the Philippines and Vietnam.
But I would say that Europe currently is doing the strongest. And that’s not only Germany. I’m speaking about Poland… Austria is performing very well, Italy is performing very well, Spain, France, so it’s across the board. Europe is really leading right now, I would say, in the demand situation. It’s a perfect market.


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[Originally published on Forbes.com in 2015]
With the soft launch last month of Priceza websites in Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore, Thailand’s number one shopping price comparison portal now has a presence in five countries with a total of 540 million residents. Priceza Thailand debuted in January 2010 and Priceza Indonesia in May 2013. Next market in 2015: Vietnam. If all grows as planned, the six sites will attract nearly 400 million annual visitors in 2019.
Back in 2009, when three former Chulalongkorn University classmates were dreaming up website ideas, “we were looking for a scalable model. From day one, we knew wanted to be in other countries too,” says Priceza CEO Thanawat (Wai) Malabuppha.
It’s complicated, though. The competitive landscape in each country is different. That isn’t just a reflection of per capita income and internet penetration but also of payment systems and the sheer number of e-commerce websites. MORE
By Susan Cunningham
This story appears in the March 2018 issue of Forbes Asia as “Up for Grabs”
When Grab closed a $2.5 billion fundraising round in January, the valuation of the ride-hailing company not only rose north of $6 billion, according to Pitchbook. It also lifted cofounder Anthony Tan onto the list of Malaysia’s 50 richest. He debuts with an estimated net worth of $300 million. Led by SoftBank and Didi Chuxing, the investment was Southeast Asia’s biggest single venture-capital fundraising round ever. Other investors include Hyundai Motor and Toyota Tsusho.
Tan, 36, the startup’s chief executive, could have enjoyed a cushy ride with his family’s auto-sales business, run by his father, Tan Heng Chew, and two uncles. (Heng Chew and his brothers made the list the last five years before falling off this year.) But six years ago he teamed up with a Harvard Business School classmate, Tan Hooi Ling (no relation), to launch a taxi-hailing application in their home city of Kuala Lumpur. They first called it MyTeksi.
Myanmar and Cambodia
With eight investment rounds under its belt, Grab has branched out into services for private cars, motorcycle taxis, carpooling and goods delivery while making an ever increasing investment in mobile-software research and development. It offers transportation services in 168 cities in eight Southeast Asian countries, having added Cambodia and Myanmar in 2017. Continue reading →
By Susan Cunningham
Digital News Asia | Aug 02, 2016
- eBay founder’s US$2mil grant to Phandeeyar will also support social entrepreneurs
- Myanmar SIM card subscriptions grew 10-fold in two years
A US$2-million grant from the Omidyar Network to Yangon tech community Phandeeyar will help support a for-profit accelerator programme to be launched in September.
After hearing pitches from short-listed candidates in mid-August, judges will select four to eight winning teams, according to Phandeeyar Accelerator director Jes Kaliebe Pedersen.
Each team will get US$25,000 in seed money, office space, and six months of coaching by some of Phandeeyar’s 30 mentors, who include executives and investors in Myanmar and abroad.
Continue reading →
By Susan J. Cunningham
This story appears in the March 2015 issue of Forbes Asia as “Hailing Taxis, Building a Business”
When Anthony Tan graduated from Harvard Business School in 2011, he was expected to rejoin his two older brothers at the family firm, Tan Chong Motors. Instead, the youngest Tan, now 33, decided to strike out on his own with a mobile taxi app developed for a school business-plan contest. His mother was one of the original angel investors; his father, Tan Heng Chew (No. 16 on the richest Malaysians list), wasn’t. The apple didn’t fall too far from the tree, though. Anthony says he was inspired by his entrepreneurial grandfather, Tan Yuet Foh, who was a Kuala Lumpur taxi driver before building the multinational auto sales-and-assembly empire.
Tan’s GrabTaxi wasn’t the first mobile hailing app untethered to a specific taxi company. But the concept was novel in Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru when Tan launched what was then called MyTeksi in June 2012. For passengers the free smartphone app enables them to hail a cab from any taxi company, regardless of their location, as well as see the identity of their driver, the route to their destination and the estimated fare. For taxi drivers the app not only earns them an extra fee (the equivalent of 28 U.S. cents for each fare in Kuala Lumpur), but also saves them from wasting gas and … MORE


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Development Investment Bank, DLM Capital Group, has today announced the launch of its digital bank – Sofri, its one-stop-shop mobile app alongside the unveiling of Sofri’s brand ambassador, Samuel Perry A.K.A BrodaShaggi.
Sofri derives its brand name from the Pidgin English expression “sofrisofri” which translates to “easy” or “stress-free”. Sofri digital bank identifies with the financial hassles of everyday living and portrays an easy access to providing solutions to these problems. The digital bank, available on both Android and IOS stores, is designed as a one-stop-shop approach to all its users and will include loans, investments, and savings products.Speaking to the press at the launch, MD/CEO of Sofri, Funsho Idowu said “The Sofri app is designed to strengthen our commitment to our clients and provide them with access to renewed solutions especially in today’s digital world. This is part of our obligations to consistently provide innovative, simple, and convenient services and to add value to our stakeholders,’ he added.
Expressing his excitement, Sofri Brand Ambassador, Samuel Perry A.K.A BrodaShaggi said “I am excited to be affiliated with a brand like Sofri. We live in a part of the world where there are countless financial frustrations faced daily. Sofri’s pledge to easy these frustrations is a remarkable thing for me and I can’t wait to use my platform to spread the news and inform my fans of the numerous opportunities Sofri presents.”
Mastercard And OPay Announce Partenership Deal
Fintech giants, Mastercard and Opay have announced a partnership deal to foster a global payment ecosystem to boost digital commerce in Middle East Africa and Africa at large.
This comes on the heels of the partnership deal Mastercard signed with Coinbase a couple of months ago to enable payments in the NFT marketplace.
Investors King gathered that the partnership with Mastercard is to simplify users’ experience in the NFT marketplace by allowing millions of people access the Coinbase to mint, purchase, showcase, and discover NFTs. Mastercard has said all the NFT-related transactions would be classified as ‘digital goods’.
This collaboration is the latest step in Mastercard’s emerging market strategy, which involves the technology company collaborating with fast-growing Fintechs like OPay to broaden access to digital transactions, encourage a variety of leisure amenities, develop new financial inclusion trajectories, and endorse the next formation of apps.
Customers are actively asking for a single platform that allows them to do numerous daily tasks more easily, such as sending and receiving money, ordering meals and groceries, scheduling transportation, lending, investing, and putting products for sale.
Customers of OPay will be able to pay on worldwide web platforms using Mastercard’s secure virtual payment system, which is linked to the OPay wallet.
With or without a bank account, OPay customers will benefit from a superior digital experience for a variety of lifestyle services and new digital commerce options.
In addition to enabling digital commerce, the two companies will collaborate to develop solutions that will position OPay at the forefront of financial services in the areas they serve.
Executive Vice President for Market Development, Mastercard EEMEA, Amnah Ajmal, said: “At Mastercard, our innovation strategy is rooted in partnerships to support inclusion at scale. Our partnership with OPay demonstrates our commitment to supporting payments providers across the world to create an interconnected global payments ecosystem that benefits an array of consumers with unique needs.”
CEO of OPay, Yahui Zhou, said: “As the leading fintech in the Middle East and Africa, we are delighted to be partnering with Mastercard as we continue on our journey to promote financial inclusion, helping to open up the global economy to more consumers and businesses across Middle East and Africa.”
Skaleet and Mobiblanc Announce Partnership for a Cutting-edge Technology to Serve Banks Across Africa
Skaleet, an international fintech providing a next-generation Core Banking Platform (CBP), has partnered today with Mobiblanc, an Agile Digital Services Entreprise (ESN), to offer turnkey solutions to financial institutions across Africa. The partnership will ensure that financial institutions have the capacities to launch new digital and innovative financial solutions that they can provide to their customers, whether businesses or individuals.
Mobiblanc, based in Morocco and Tunisia, is a leading player in North and West African markets entirely devoted to digital solutions. With a talented and dynamic team, Mobiblanc delivers an efficient and effective consulting and integration service for a wide range of clients.
Skaleet enables retail banks and financial institutions to launch new banking products and services for their customers at a competitive price. Through its open, modular, and flexible Core banking Platform, Skaleet offers innovative and scalable banking solutions that are built end-to-end and tailored to each customer.
The digital marketplace is continually, and rapidly, developing and evolving and the partnership between Skaleet and Mobiblanc enables financial institutions to ensure clients stay at the forefront with innovative and cutting-edge technology. Providing the best service and advice to clients, Skaleet and Mobiblanc are able to respond quickly to the digital evolution of banking and financial services with innovative and agile solutions that are competitively priced.
Yves Eonnet, chairman and co-founder of Skaleet said, “Today, it is essential for financial institutions to be able to innovate quickly and adapt to change. The ecosystem we have built relies on expert partners who are aware of this challenge and can find solutions. We quickly saw a cultural, technological and business fit between our two organizations and are delighted to have partnered with Mobiblanc. The partnership will enable us to further expand our offering and add value to our customers across Africa.”
Youssef El Alaoui, co-founder of Mobiblanc, added, “This partnership confirms our strategic orientation to support the digital transformation of the financial sector. We share the ambition with Skaleet to offer integration of innovative solutions with cutting-edge, technological expertise in order to bring added value to our partners and respond to the new business requirement of the sector.”
Both Skaleet and Mobiblanc are committed to continue innovating and creating new modules and functionalities to reshape the banking and financial ecosystem in favour of a formal, inclusive and sustainable development of the African continent.
Skaleet and Mobiblanc will participate at Africa Pay & ID Expo 2022 (APIDE), 26-28 May 2022, Marrakech, Morocco.
Carrier Billing Spend for Digital Goods to Exceed $74 Billion in 2026
A new study from Juniper Research has found that the value of end-user spend on digital goods via carrier billing will exceed $74 billion by 2026; up from $54 billion in 2022. This growth of over 37% reflects the increasing relevance of carrier billing as an option for digital commerce spend. Direct carrier billing involves users charging payments for digital and physical goods to their mobile phone bill.
The new research, Carrier Billing: Opportunities, Challenges & Market Forecasts 2022-2026, found that gaming spend will account for just over 50% of digital goods spend via carrier billing in 2026. This dominance will be driven by accelerating monetisation strategies, including 5G cloud gaming and gaming subscription models. Carrier billing vendors must prioritise partnerships with leading gaming platforms, including emerging cloud gaming players, in order to best serve this market.
For more insights, download the free whitepaper: Carrier Billing ~ Leveraging the 5G Opportunity
Digital Goods – The $11 Billion Carrier Billing Opportunity
The research found that operator-billed carrier billing revenue attributable to digital goods will reach $11 billion globally in 2026; up from $8 billion in 2022. The research identified the high costs per transaction as a limiting factor for carrier billing payments versus card and digital wallet payments, but identified operator reach as being a compelling factor.
Research co-author Nick Maynard explained: “In the face of a rapidly accelerating digital transformation within payments, operators can be in the driver’s seat for reaching potential users, given their access to existing subscribers. Leveraging this subscription base is critical to accessing this potential revenue source.”
Remote Physical Goods Payments – The High-growth Opportunity
The research found that physical goods spend is rising much faster in carrier billing than for digital goods; at a rate of 270% over the next 4 years. While this market is growing from a lower user base, it does represent a significant new opportunity, with spend set to exceed $13 billion globally in 2026. The report recommends targeting cross-border eCommerce vendors for partnerships, given their need to quickly onboard localised payment methods.
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Joining with the Malaysian Government, Hasbro is set to open the world’s first Hasbro Themed Waterpark.
The park will feature rides and activities based on several popular Hasbro brands such as Nerf, My Little Pony, Mr. Potatohead, Elefun & Friends, Play-Doh, Battleship, Monopoly, Mousetrap and G.I. Joe.
Very much like how we saw during Hasbro’s Toy Fair Investor Presentation, the old G.I. Joe ARAH logo is back; instead of the live action movie logo.
Linking all the recent news together, it seems as though the G.I. Joe brand is making a comeback. Though we have not seen any toys, it is important to see licensed products coming through. It is a sign that the brand is still alive on Hasbro’s mind.
Coming back to our news: the 20 acre theme park won’t open until 2022. You can check out several images from the press conference, after the jump.
We thank the official twitter page of Malaysian Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, for the info and images.


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when the four gubernatorial candidates were queried at a debate about the cars they drove, Republican Charlie Baker drew some envious chuckles when he said he had a ’66 Mustang.
But more than a few people nodded their heads knowingly because they, too, are driving old cars, many out of necessity. According to the Registry of Motor Vehicles, the average statewide age of all the cars, SUVs, trucks, trailers, and motorcycles in Massachusetts was 10.4 years as of Sept. 4, up from 7.5 years in 2000.
The aging of vehicles has had a widespread effect, from a decline in municipal excise tax collections to a dearth of used cars available for sale, thus driving up the price of pre-owned vehicles.Barnstable Tax Collector Maureen Niemi said the graying of the fleet has had a big impact in her community. The average age of vehicles in Barnstable is 11.2 years, up from 8.1 years a decade earlier. Niemi and other tax collectors say most people are not buying new cars and many are doing away with cars they use infrequently. She mailed out 44,275 excise tax bills worth $4.4 million in 2008; in 2009, she sent out 39,228 bills worth $3.8 million, a 16 percent reduction. “Because of the economy, nobody’s going out and buying a new car,” she says.
The community with the newest vehicles in the state is Chelsea, but Robert Boulrice, the city’s treasurer/collector, says most of the credit goes to Enterprise, the car rental company that moved its fleet from Logan International Airport to Chelsea in 2009. Enterprise brought thousands of relatively new cars, which are now registered in Chelsea, pushing the average age of the car fleet down from 11.9 years in 2008 to 7.1 years now.


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Scientists at GE Global Research and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have collaborated to develop a new kind of battery for electric vehicles. With the exception of Tesla, most electric vehicles on the roads today can travel around 50 to 80 miles on a single charge. However, with the development of this new, water-based battery, the scientists believe that they can propel a vehicle around 226 miles—the same distance from New York City to Washington, D.C.— in one charge.
Currently, Tesla is the exception to the rule within the electric vehicles category. Tesla’s Roadster can travel around 200 to 300 miles on one battery, while the Model S can exceed 400 miles if the conditions are right (constant speed, flat ground, weight in vehicle, tire pressure, etc.).
This is not the norm for electric vehicles on the road today. For example, Nissan’s electric car, the LEAF, has an EPA average of 75 miles. While they have extremely different ranges, the electric vehicles from Tesla and Nissan all use a lithium-ion battery. The water-based battery that is being developed by the scientists, however, will put more vehicles near the Tesla range.
Engineers from GE say that the water-based battery, unlike lithium-ion and other batteries, uses solutions of inorganic chemicals that supply high energy density by transporting more than one electron at a time. The system is known as a “flow” battery because both discharge and recharge occurs in electrochemical cells that are away from the energy storing tanks, thus making them safer.
“We envision a flow battery with applications for both transportation and large-scale energy storage,” said Grigorii Soloveichik, who leads the project at GRC and serves as the director of the GE-led and Department of Energy funded Energy Frontier Research Center.
The scientists from GE Global Research and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory plan on developing a working prototype of the battery to test its feasibility.
“The DOE wants a battery that can power a car for 240 miles. We think we can exceed that goal,” said Soloveichik. He went on to say that the battery could be 75 percent cheaper than what’s available today and it could possibly multiply the current electric vehicle driving range as well.


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Singapore: A pan-Asian commodity derivatives exchange based in Singapore aims to start trading early next year, the Indian firm spearheading the project said Wednesday.
The Singapore Mercantile Exchange (SMX) will offer electronic futures trading in a wide array of products including energy and metals, said the Indian firm, Financial Technologies.
With an initial capitalization of 50 million Singapore dollars ($37 million), it is expected to begin trades in the first quarter of 2009, said Financial Technologies.
Ang Swee Tian, SMX chairman, said the exchange would reflect Asia’s position as a major producer and consumer of commodities including oil, rice and precious metals.
The announcement comes after Hong Kong, widely seen as Singapore’s main commercial rival in the region, announced in June plans to start a commodities exchange early next year.
The Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange, which will initially sell contracts on fuel oil, is aimed at capitalising on China’s growing demand for energy and other raw materials, officials said.
The world’s main commodities exchanges are located in the US and Europe, which offers limited opportunities for Asia because of the different time zones, said Ang.
Singapore Mercantile Exchange said it was in the process of obtaining regulatory approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Singapore Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade launched a derivatives market for Asia-based commodities in September 2006, but it was discontinued late the following year.


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One more Malaysian state is now joining the crusade against plastic! The Kedah government has declared that every Friday and Saturday will be No Plastic Bag days, starting April 1, 2019.
And no, this isn’t an April Fools’ joke despite that date.
Under the new regulations, retail outlets such as hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores, fast food outlets, gas stations, chain stores and pharmacies will no longer be offering free plastic bags. Should customers need one, they will have to fork out the standard rate of RM0.20 per plastic bag, according to Kwong Wah.
The no plastic rule also extends to straws and polystyrene boxes, meaning F&B outlets like restaurants, hawker stalls and food courts will no longer provide them for free either (an exception will be made for the elderly and young children as there will be no charge for them).
State executive councillor Ooi Tze Min, who is also the Chairman of the Environment Committee stated that the proceeds of plastic bag sales will be channelled to the respective state districts for charitable purposes.
He added that to ramp up their efforts, all state departments and official events will also be banning plastic bags, straws and polystyrene boxes.
We love this effort by the Kedah government, and hope more states will follow in their footsteps! If you’re a Kedah native or resident, let us know what you think in the comments!
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Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group has revealed plans to take over several units in Derby city centre – including the former Debenham’s store in the Derbion shopping centre.
The chain said it plans to open a Frasers department store in the three-story unit which became permanently vacant when Debenham’s pulled the plug in May.
The 127,000 sq ft space is the biggest in the shopping centre complex, and Sports Direct will also operate within the store. Derbion’s existing Sports Direct outlet will close down when Frasers opens in 2022.
Frasers Group has also confirmed it is taking on a former Topshop unit, bringing its luxury sportswear retailer Flannels to the 24,000 sq. ft space.
And Frasers Group has confirmed it will also take a further 50,000 sq ft space which housed the former BHS department store in St Peter’s Street.
Earlier this year, a planning application went in to turn that store into a House of Fraser designer outlet and Evans Cycles, though bosses at Derbion say details of the identities of the stores opening in that space have not yet been finalised.
Once all three stores are open, Frasers Group will operate in 20 per cent of the floor space available across the whole centre.
Derbion general manager Adam Tamsett said: “The retail landscape is continuing to shift, and our ambitious plans for the centre complement the rapid changes that retailers are facing.
“By taking an agile, forward-thinking approach, the team has been able to secure 200,000 sq ft of new leasings this year, an incredible feat given the current climate.”
Frasers Group has its headquarters in Shirebrook, Derbyshire.
Debenhams had been one of the shopping centre’s flagship stores when it first opened as Westfield in 2007, having relocated from Victoria Street.
Frasers is the luxury offshoot of House of Fraser, which the group acquired in a £90 million pre-pack administration deal in August 2018. House of Fraser has never had a presence in Derby.
The UK’s first Frasers store opened in Wolverhampton in April, with the new Derby store set to be the first to open in the East Midlands region.
Set to open by the end of this year, Flannels, acquired by Frasers Group in 2017, stocks designer brands including Balenciaga, Gucci and Jimmy Choo.
Mr Tamsett said: “There is no doubt the last year has been challenging for our sector, but it comes with opportunity.
“It’s particularly rewarding to be able to announce our exciting partnership with the Frasers Group, with their headquarters not far from us in Shirebrook, and we’re looking forward to welcoming their popular brands to Derbion.
“The significant investment planned for the centre further signals the complete confidence that we have in Derby.
“With many significant, multi-million pound projects happening on our doorstep, £15 million secured as part of the Future High Street Fund and the recent announcement that Derby will be bidding to become the UK’s City of Culture in 2025, the future is very bright.”
The new stores will follow Tommy Hilfiger, which opened in June, and Mango, which is set to open in November, in arriving at Derbion.
After a long-running saga, online clothing giant Boohoo confirmed in January it had bought the Debenhams brand for £55 million and will relaunch the department store as an online-only operation.
The 242-year-old retailer had closed all of its UK stores by mid-May, including the Derbion branch and the store in Chesterfield.


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Hey, who knew? SlotMusic is a hit, says the figures SanDisk released at CES:
During the time since its release, the SlotMusic version of Rihanna's ludicrously successful album Good Girl Gone Bad has accounted for six per cent of the album's total US sales.
Wow, that is pretty good - six per cent of sales of the Rihanna album on SlotMusic, huh?
Oh... hang on. Since its release. Which for the SlotMusic version was the 18th of November, 2008. Eighteen months or so after the original release of the record, an eighteen month period when, it's fair to say, massive sales of the record meant that pretty much anyone who liked the Rihanna record would have had a chance to pick up a CD.
So, looking at that sale the other way round, despite having the twin engines of appealing to those who like novelties and Rihanna completists, 94 per cent of purchasers of the record were shunning the SlotMusic version to pick up a record they'd already had a year and a half to buy in the way they eventually picked. Not that impressive at all, then, is it?
Of course, it doesn't help the selling of SlotmUsic any that WalMart's website seems convinced that it's a type of CD format.


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- Cryptocurrencies have had a banner year due to the rise in bitcoin prices and the popularity of digital token sales as a new way for companies to raise funds
- Experts told CNBC that, next year, companies will raise even more funds through ICOs but regulators will also issue clearer guidelines for digital tokens
- Bitcoin, the experts said, is also set to become more mainstream
Many people are buying into new digital tokens with the assumption that those virtual currencies will appreciate over time at levels similar to bitcoin, or its rival ether. And while price action has hardly been staid this year, market watchers told CNBC they expect more dramatic movements in the cryptocurrency market in 2018.
Those developments could include a spike in funds being raised through ICOs, clearer guidelines and crackdowns from regulators and the mainstream acceptance of bitcoin, they said.
Companies, mostly start-ups, have raised at least $3 billion by issuing new digital tokens in 2017, resulting in more than 1,000 virtual currencies in existence today.
Commentators are largely predicting that companies will raise even more funds through digital token sales next year — only this time, bigger, more established companies could get in on the action.
"We are going to see the first of the real legit, large ICOs of existing established companies that are suddenly raising half a billion, or maybe even 5 billion (in funds)," Julian Hosp, co-founder and president of Singapore-based start-up TenX, told CNBC. That company, which has a wallet application and fiat-denominated card for the use of cryptocurrencies in "real life," raised $80 million in a token sale earlier this year.
Hosp explained that large firms would bank on their established credibility to potentially raise even larger sums than what small start-ups with unproven business concepts are raising today. Some, he said, could even start offering investors an equity stake as part of their digital token sales.
At the moment, participants in an ICO usually send either bitcoin or rival token ether to back a blockchain-based project. In exchange, they receive an entirely new virtual "coin" that has some sort of assigned worth and can be used to redeem a service offered by the company. Theoretically, companies can also give investors an equity stake — similar to an initial public offering — but most don't to avoid being subjected to stringent securities regulations.
But all of that could change next year, according to Hosp. "We are going to see the first sale of equity (through an ICO) and that's ... going to be a big, big, big slap in the face to many large investment banks," he said.
One of the ways that investment banks make money is by helping companies structure their securities before they are sold to investors.
The dramatic rise of digital token offerings saw the creation of hundreds of new virtual currencies, but experts say most of them have little to no value and some are outright examples of fraud. That's due to the relative ease in conducting a token offering and the few regulatory checks.
Hosp said he expects the cryptocurrency market to consolidate next year: "We are going to see the weaving out of a lot of cryptocurrencies in 2018," he said, adding, "People that are gambling on worthless companies, they are going to lose massively."
Digital token sales have, indeed, taken a bit of hit in recent months. Industry analytics firm TokenData said November was set to be the slowest month for ICOs since August, and many of the token sales did not even reach their target.
There have also been instances of fraudulent tokens being issued and the theft of millions of dollars' worth of cryptocurrencies. That led to many in the industry distancing themselves from the hottest new way of fundraising.
"I've been saying through this past year that ICOs are toxic and that a lot of investors are going to get burned — badly!" Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, which runs the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market value, told CNBC by email. Garlinghouse added that he expects to see lawsuits, fines and "even jail time" for perceived bad actors in the cryptocurrency space.
That all could cause short-term volatility for the whole space, he said.
Still, many in the industry maintain there are benefits to conducting an ICO, including the ability to raise funds without giving away equity.
Short of the odd ban on the creation of new virtual currencies, regulators have largely struggled to keep up with the rapid pace of the ICO market.
Ripple's Garlinghouse said he expects authorities to clamp down on fraudulent players in the space.
Others said they expect clearer guidance, and eventual enforcement actions, from regulators like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
"I think certainly more clarity will come about through enforcement actions and other guidance that the SEC will give in the tokenized marketplace," Stephen Obie, partner at international law firm Jones Day, told CNBC. He pointed to a report the SEC issued earlier this year that indicated the regulator "knows about this market (and) takes it seriously."
Regulators could also clamp down on so-called ICO advisors and those advising investors to buy cryptocurrencies, according to Obie. He explained that, at least in the U.S., various regulations apply to different types of advisors. "This is going to open up a series of enforcement actions for those that think they can advise in this space and not participate in the regulations," Obie said.
At the same time, efforts from regulators in the cryptocurrency space need to be international, according to Tim Phillipps, Asia Pacific financial crime network leader at consultancy firm Deloitte. He told CNBC that investors will need international laws to give investors some piece of mind that their assets will not disappear.
"Only then can we really see healthy growth in this space," he said.
Garlinghouse added, "For blockchain and digital assets to realize their potential, it's critical we in the industry work with regulators, not in the shadows." He said that he expects the total value of digital asset market to surpass $1 trillion in 2018 — currently, bitcoin's market capitalization is about $300 billion.
Bitcoin started the year at about $968 and recently saw a more than 1,600 percent jump to top $16,700 per token as of Dec. 7 (although at least one exchange has seen the price exceed $19,000).
Ronnie Moas, founder and director of Standpoint Research, said he expects bitcoin's price to jump to $20,000 by next year from his initial target of $14,000. He told CNBC that a majority of the people in the world have yet to get in on the bitcoin trade.
Since the cryptocurrency has a fixed number of possible tokens, Moas said more entrants into the space will push up the prices because of the constricted supply. The outlook is "very comforting to the bulls here, and to the people who are invested" in bitcoin, he said.
He also predicted that the cryptocurrency will go mainstream in 2018 and become part of "strategic reserves" and "asset allocation models" around the world. More consumers will also likely pay for goods and services with bitcoin, he predicted.
Jones Day's Obie agreed that bitcoin will become more mainstream and an entirely new asset class may emerge in the investor community. He referred to the string of announcements from the Chicago Board Options Exchange, Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Nasdaq to offer bitcoin futures contracts.
"I think you're seeing mainstream regulated exchanges looking at whether bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies, are asset classes in and of themselves," said Obie. "Clearly there are people that would like exposure to this."
In July, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates the futures and option markets, approved a swap execution facility for cryptocurrencies. Meanwhile, investors are also waiting to see if the SEC will eventually approve the creation of a bitcoin ETF. The existence of bitcoin futures contracts could increase confidence for the regulator to give its approval, Obie said.
"Having a futures market with price discovery will enable the SEC to get comfortable that there is a regulated market, where pricing is showing," he said. "I think you're seeing the development of a fourth asset class."


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SN editors have a secret this time of year.
They worry a lot about our annual Hall of Fame picks, in particular the choices involving active leaders. That’s because Hall of Fame is a career honor, and the book hasn’t closed on current leaders.
But our team didn’t lose sleep over this year’s choice of David Dillon, chairman and CEO of Kroger Co., who is very much an active leader. He joins a 2012 class of inductees that includes two celebrated former leaders, Sol Price, inventor of the warehouse club store, and Clarence Birdseye, an icon of the frozen food industry.
Here’s why we weren’t worried about choosing Dillon. As this week’s SN profile points out, he has transformed Kroger over the past decade with an unwavering focus on customer needs. His tenure has produced a long string of sales and market share gains, with a series of growth plans for the future. Dillon has shown the ability to take big risks, including on price, and to change his stances if it benefits the customer.
Moreover, Dillon has a deep understanding of what Kroger’s role in the universe should be. He raised eyebrows recently in redefining his company as far more than a supermarket channel player, but that description was on target in underscoring Kroger’s ability to compete for wider market share.
Dillon’s perspective on Kroger’s role sometimes seems to evoke the Spider-Man principle: With great power comes great responsibility. This became especially clear to me last year when Dillon spoke on an industry sustainability panel and participated in an SN video at the GMA Executive Conference in Colorado Springs.
He emphasized that Kroger has no interest in environmental greenwashing. “We are absolutely committed to only doing things that are real, not just nice marketing,” he said.
He advocated industry collaboration, saying Kroger’s direction is “very tactical by moving sustainability into a more collaborative process working with suppliers...”
And he showed a great deal of trust in Kroger associates, remarking that “many of the people we have today at Kroger got us to where we are now” on sustainability. “We didn’t bring in some gurus to do it,” he said of energy savings in particular.
Dillon is an excellent addition to SN’s Hall of Fame. He’d probably say we should instead honor his customers and associates, but we don’t have a hall that big.
|More from Supermarketnews


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American Tower to buy 2,500 towers in Mexico
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- Rodney Brown
Just a few months after pricing a $500 million notes sale, American Tower Corp. has entered into agreements pay approximately $500 million for about 2,500 broadcast and wireless towers in Mexico.
According to a release from American Tower, (NYSE: AMT) Telefónica’s Mexican subsidiary, Pegaso PCS S.A. de C.V. will sell the towers in a deal that Boston-based AMT says should close by the end of this year. The sale is subject to what AMT describes as “regulatory approval and customary closing conditions.”
James Taiclet, chairman, president and CEO of American Tower, said in the release that the acquisition of the 2.500 towers “nearly doubles” the company’s portfolio of tower assets in Mexico. In total, American Tower says it now has approximately 40,000 communications sites in the United States, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, India, Mexico, Peru and South Africa.
The notes offering was expected to bring in approximately $495 million to American Tower when it priced it in early October. The senior unsecured notes are due Nov. 1, 2021.
In July, American Tower agreed to pay $182 million to buy 2,126 wireless towers in Colombia. The company said at the time it would buy the towers through a subsidiary, which had yet to be formed. America Tower was acquiring the towers from a subsidiary of Millicom International Cellular S.A.
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ST. LOUIS — Dogtown Pizza, the maker of St. Louis-style frozen pizzas sold through some three dozen retailers, has relocated to a larger production facility that can handle increasing demand while centralizing all of its operations, officials said.
The business moved July 1 to 3843 Garfield Ave., a 113,000-square-foot building in the city's JeffVanderLou neighborhood. Confluence Food Group, Dogtown Pizza's parent company, bought the building from St. Louis Paper & Box Co. The building had been vacant since 2018, officials said.
Total building and renovation costs were about $5.9 million, and the project was financed through Carrollton Bank, according to Jeff Tottleben, managing partner of Confluence Food Group. Officials declined to share terms of the Garfield property's purchase, but according to city records, it was last sold in August 2021 for $471,481.
In 2019, Dogtown Pizza merged with specialty food distributor Fox River Dairy to form Confluence Food Group. Confluence also owns Crust and Sons, which manufactures all the crust for Dogtown Pizza's products.
The new facility, which now houses all three Confluence companies, accommodates food-grade manufacturing and warehouse storage for refrigerated and frozen foods.
Until its move last month, Dogtown Pizza was based in the Baden neighborhood at 8014-B N. Broadway, a building owned by SoHa Partners LLC, whose registered agent is Tamara Keefe, owner of Clementine’s Naughty and Nice Creamery, according to state records.
Read the full story on the St. Louis Business Journal's website.


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Have you ever wondered why outside of Tyra Banks, you never saw any women of color, more specifically black women advertised anywhere in Victoris’a Secret? I love the VS brand, I really do. But it always bothered me that there wasn’t a fair representation of women of color in there. I’ve never seen any Latina, Middle Eastern,or Asian women represented. It’s sad that in this day and age this is still an issue.
Victoria’s Secret launched a collegiate line including 33 schools back in June of 2008. Only recently though, they decided to include HBCUs. While they won’t admit it, I suspect they sped up the inclusion because of a young lady Amelia Reid who started a movement on Facebook called “HBCU Ladies Wear Victoria’s Secret Pink Too” and blogged about her displeasure that people like her were not represented. Not only is she an HBCU student, she is also an employee of Limited Brands- the parent company that owns VS. Hhhhmmmmm.
In any case, while late, VS is now in partnership with some HBCUs and is offering paid internships and scholarships to HBCU students. I think in theory it’s a great idea and it will help further the agenda of getting more black women educated and opportunities in the industry. But I can’t help but wonder if this is just a move to pacify us. Yes, the CEO Richard Dent claims the company had been in talks with HBCUs way before Amelia’s blog. I’m on the fence with that one. We all know how the corporate heads try to cover their tracks. I’ll definitely be watching as this unfolds. If you want to read the entire story, you can find it on Black Enterprise at http://www.blackenterprise.com/business/business-news/2008/12/16/pink-rolls-out-hbcu-apparel/
Til next time.


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M&A activity in the payments landscape slows down as we close out the year and prepare for 2023. While no new acquisitions were publicized, J.P. Morgan announced last week they have closed on their 48.5% ownership stake in Viva Wallet, a European mobile payments platform and fintech provider. This agreement, initially announced in January, largely supports J.P. Morgan’s commitment to expand their acquiring business across the European region.
As 2022 comes to a close, a few industry trends emerged around M&A activity that occurred throughout the year. Most noticeably, M&A deal count did not surpass prior years and amounted to 113 as opposed to 132 last year. This was likely due in part from a variety of reasons, including global economic conditions, rising interest rates, and businesses taking less risks. In addition, a growing trend that continued to take place this year was the shift toward acquiring ISVs as a means to grow and expand into market verticals. ISVs are remaining top of mind for many acquirers as they seek to grow their merchant portfolios. Lastly, significant M&A activity occurring throughout 2023 is largely uncertain. While there is a lot of cash on hand for many firms, outside factors may continue to affect buyers’ willingness to spend and take market risks.
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- Executive Interviews – we regularly sit down and discuss payments with executives throughout the payments ecosystem.
- TSG Services – need support? We support the industry with a unique combination of expertise, deep analytics, and unparalleled intelligence.


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As Americans depend more and more on credit to get by, recent reports indicate some possible issues down the road.
According to a report released on Tuesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, total credit card debt in the most recent quarter hit a record $1 trillion.
In a separate analysis, TransUnion discovered that the average balance increased to $5,947, the highest level in ten years.
Nevertheless, cardholders can find opportunities that will provide them a “tail wind on a path to debt repayment,”
According to recent estimates, there may be issues in the future as Americans rely more and more on credit to make ends meet.
The New York Federal Reserve stated on Tuesday that the total amount of credit card debt has reached $1 trillion for the first time ever.
According to a second quarterly TransUnion study on the state of the credit business, credit card balances are up over 20% from a year ago. According to TransUnion, the average balance per consumer increased to $5,947, the highest level in ten years.
Another Bankrate survey found that, in addition to greater amounts, more cardholders were carrying debt from month to month. 60% of those who still owe money on their credit cards have been in debt for at least a year.
High-rate debt is “their only option” for certain people.
When student loan payments start up again this fall, some borrowers may struggle with rising debt, according to the New York Fed researchers.
John Sedunov, an associate professor of finance at Villanova University’s School of Business, stated, “We also can’t discount the impact of higher interest rates on the costs of borrowing for households.” “Money is more expensive as well as goods and services.”
The average credit card rate has reached an all-time high of more than 20% following another rate increase by the Federal Reserve last month.
According to Bankrate’s calculations, it would take more than 17 years to pay off this typical credit card bill if you made the minimum payments and would cost you more than $8,366 in interest.
Because they have other options, people aren’t financing goods at 20%, according to Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate. They have no other choice, therefore they’re acting in that way.
When you take into account the fact that in June, personal savings rates were hovering around 4.3%, far lower than the decades-long average of about 8.9%, “I think it is painting a picture of an economy where inflation has taken its toll on households,” said Sedunov.
In total, 19 million more new credit accounts were created in the most recent quarter, helped in part by Gen Z, or those ages 18 to 25, who now have access to credit cards. TransUnion also discovered that the overall number of credit cards reached a record 530.6 million.
According to Michele Raneri, vice president of U.S. research and consulting at TransUnion, many Gen Z borrowers are dealing with the same financial difficulties that high interest rates and inflation have on the general population. As a result, individuals are using these credit solutions that are currently available to assist them in managing their increasing expenses.
According to the report, delinquencies increased as the number of credit card accounts in the United States increased. Delinquency, according to TransUnion, is defined as a payment that is 90 days or more past due.
“The rise in delinquencies over the past several years is something to monitor,” Raneri continued. According to her, lenders have already begun to limit access for those with less credit history.
How to manage credit card debt with a high interest rate
It’s still a great time to get a balance transfer credit card with 0% interest, according to McBride. He continued, “If you have credit card debt, that is the first step — to transfer that balance and give yourself a tailwind on a path to debt repayment.” Cards giving 12, 15, or even 21 months with no interest on transfer balances are available, he said.
Additionally, borrowers might be able to refinance into a personal loan with a lower APR. Even though those rates have lately increased, at 10% on average, they remain significantly lower than the ones on your present credit card.
Otherwise, request a lower annual percentage rate from your card’s issuer. According to a LendingTree report, 76% of consumers who requested a lower interest rate on their credit card in the previous year actually received one.
According to Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree, “the fact that card providers are still willing to give breaks like that, even after a year of frequent rate hikes, is very, very good news for cardholders.”


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Thanks to an alliance with the firm Simplex (which has worked before with companies such as Binance, Huobi, Wirex or Skrill) now Bitpay allows you to buy crypto with a credit card
The popular Bitcoin payment processor BitPay sealed a partnership with the fiat to crypto payment processor Simplex and now allows its users to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies directly within the application using a credit card.
This was announced by different crypto media, stating that the Simplex firm has created an important fiduciary access ramp to crypto economics, by allowing BitPay to carry out and liquidate crypto transactions through it.
For its part, the company Bitpay tweeted about it:
“Stop wasting time moving #crypto between your exchange and your favorite # non-custodial wallet. #Buycrypto right in the @BitPay App with a debit or credit card. #Blockchainpayments #BitPay #BTC #BCH #ETH”
Buy crypto with credit card
In principle, the BitPay-Simplex association is primarily aimed at users of cryptocurrency exchanges.
In a statement, BitPay CEO Stephen Pair said:
“Cryptocurrency exchanges can be intimidating for new users. However, the integration of Simplex makes the Blockchain payment experience smooth. ”
Coinspeaker said BitPay’s reach and reputation along with Simplex’s payment processing capabilities will give operators the ability to convert fiat to crypto and vice versa quickly and safely.
Other Bitpay alliances were built with companies such as Xpring (to buy giftcards on Amazon with XRP), and Onegold (to buy gold at a 2% discount). You can download the Bitpay application by clicking here.
From a single platform
According to Coinspeaker, more than 30,000 merchants use BitPay, and the company processed more than USD $1 billion in cryptocurrency transactions in 2018. Simplex has previously agreed on similar terms with Binance and Huobi, allowing users of those Platforms buy crypto with credit card directly on the exchange.
Now, Bitpay users can also transfer funds, make purchases and send money to friends from a single board, since the Simplex agreement significantly improves BitPay’s capabilities. Indeed, existing and potential users can access a single portal that converts fiat to crypto for crypto payments and crypto to fiat for transactions with BitPay card.
By connecting its payment rails with those of the fiduciary world, BitPay is improving the key infrastructure that will facilitate greater accessibility and utility of digital assets.


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We Chat is China’s most popular messaging app. Since its inception in October 2010, WeChat has grown into the most popular mobile app in China with over 1 billion monthly active users who chat, read news, play games, shop, pay for meals and post their their views and pictures. According to the South China Morning Post: You can even book a doctor’s appointment or arrange a time slot to file for a divorce at the civil affairs authority. We Chat laid the foundations for stellar growth at Shenzhen-based Tencent Holdings, the tech giant behind WeChat and QQ, turning it into one of the most influential companies in China and grabbing the attention of global investors. Since the official launch of WeChat in January 2011, Tencent’s market capitalisation has risen over tenfold. [Source:Irene Deng Celia Chen, South China Morning Post, August 16, 2018] [Source: Irene Deng Celia Chen, South China Morning Post, August 16, 2018]
WeChat is known as Weixin in China. For many Chinese consumers, it is part of daily life. It helps them to pay bills, organize tasks, order delivery food and call a taxi. Official records from 2021 said that about 54 percent of WeChat users spent a minimum of ten to 30 minutes per day on the app. Research has shown that many corporation find this multi-use app crucial in maintaining their business operation and competitiveness in China. WeChat had 1.2 billion monthly active users in the first quarter of 2020 and 619.6 million average daily active users in September 2018. There were 400 million daily active users of WeChat Mini-Programs in the first quarter of 2020). WeChat’s penetration rate among 16-64 year olds in China was 78 percent in October 2018. [Source: Tony DeGennaro, Dragon Social, 2020; Lai Lin Thomala, Statista, February 14, 2022]
Tony DeGennaro wrote in Dragon Social: WeChat is an all-in-one messaging app. Users can get almost everything they need from their within the app, leading to its classification as a “Super-App.” Due to these reasons, it’s risen to become the most popular social media in China. WeChat offers far more than any of the Western messaging apps. In terms of comparison, it can be likened to a combination of the Chinese Facebook, Whatsapp, Google News, Tinder, and Pinterest combined. It also contains ten million third-party apps called WeChat mini-programs.
Beginning of WeChat
Irene Deng and Celia Chen wrote in the South China Morning Post: WeChat” began life in a southern corner of the country at the Tencent Guangzhou Research and Project centre in October 2010.” When Tencent’s flagship messaging service QQ was the dominant player in social media in China, Tencent founder, chairman and CEO Ma Huateng [know as Pony Ma] did not rest on his laurels. He spotted the inevitable shift in traffic from PCs to mobile internet in 2010, as smartphones led by Apple’s iPhone, gained in popularity. Ma knew that a mobile instant messenger would be the key to the future. [Source:Irene Deng Celia Chen, South China Morning Post, August 16, 2018]
“Allen Zhang, the head of QQ Mail Mobile in 2010, led a team with less than 10 members to develop the first version of WeChat in less than 70 days, beating out two other internal teams working on the same project. Zhang joined Tencent in 2005 when his Foxmail business was bought by Tencent and became the head of QQ Mail Mobile. “WeChat is a strategically important platform for Tencent because it will help to sustain and evolve our social leadership from PC to newer mobile devices,” Martin Lau, president of Tencent, said in 2011.
“The first version of WeChat only allowed users to send text messages and photos. The launch received little response from the market, at a time when instant messengers such as Feixin, an SMS app by China Mobile, and MiTalk Messenger by Xiaomi, were already on the scene. “It cannot send a short message to someone’s phone number (like Feixin). It does not have the functionality of QQ. What’s the meaning of having this app,” one user wrote in the comments section on WeChat’s iOS app store in 2011, rating WeChat one star.
WeChat Becomes Popular as New Features Are Added
Irene Deng and Celia Chen wrote in the South China Morning Post: “The inflection point for the WeChat team arrived in May 2011 when it was updated with voice messaging, enabling a user’s phone to work like a walkie-talkie. Daily user growth spurted from 10,000 to up to 60,000. “The voice message [function] turned senior businesspeople who weren’t used to typing on smartphones into our WeChat users,” Ma recalled in a speech in Tsinghua in 2016. [Source: Irene Deng Celia Chen, South China Morning Post, August 16, 2018]
“WeChat evolved quickly, including new functions such as ‘Shake’, which connected users who were randomly shaking their phone at the same time, and ‘Message in a Bottle’, which enabled messages to be sent to random users. In July 2011, it added location-based service ‘People Nearby’ that allowed users to connect with strangers close to them. In Zhang’s words, this was a “game changer” and pushed daily user growth to 100,000. “Shake and Message in a Bottle as well as People Nearby were born at the right time, offering access to different people,” said Lu Shushen, a former WeChat employee in an article on his WeChat account, referring to social networking among strangers.
By March 2012, WeChat had exceeded 100 million registered user accounts — just 433 days after launch. WeChat users grew in tandem with smartphone growth in China. In 2010, when WeChat was still a research project, there were only 36.1 million smartphone unit sales in China. That number increased to 90.6 million in 2011 when WeChat was officially launched and had rocketed to 214.2 million by 2012.
“But WeChat was growing even faster than this and was gradually leaving its competitors further behind. Feixin, for example, was reluctant to open up its messaging service to non-China Mobile users and MiTalk struggled to provide a stable user experience. WhatsApp, WeChat’s biggest overseas rival today, was available to the Chinese market at that time [it was later banned by China in 2017 ahead of a major Communist Party congress] but missed its opportunity without any localisation or promotion in the market, China Channel’s Brennan recalls.
Early WeChat, Meeting Strangers and Prostitution
In 2013, US-China Today:“Tina Peng’s phone kept sounding off alerts during her lunch break in the local noodle shop. In between taking bites of her food, she texted feverishly and shook her phone several times. Within five minutes, a young man joined her table and they sat talking and eating together. They were complete strangers — connected and introduced to one another by Weixin — a mobile app that took China by a storm. [Source: Chia-Ling Melody Yuan, US-China Today, February 14, 2013]
“Weixin has attracted a largely young user demographic through its highly integrated methods of communication and SNS network connections. 76 percent of Weixin app users are between the ages of 22 and 30, the same age group most active on the Internet and social media groups. The main functions of Weixin include Text messaging Voice recording and messages File sharing (photographs, video clips, photo edit functions also available) Video calls Find users in your vicinity and become their friends Post photos to a timeline that friends can see ‘Shake’ the phone to chat with a stranger ‘Throw a Bottle’ via a text or voice message to the Weixin community and potentially get a response.
“Intrigued by the ability to meet strangers and also send easy voice messages to friends, the app was downloaded in staggering numbers. Weixin transformed the way in which the Chinese communicate and has also caught the attention of many corporations seeing potential for digital social media marketing. "I get bored easily," says Peng of her social life. "I use Weixin to keep me informed and meet new people. I use it all the time."
In 2014, Business Insider reported: “Tencent shut down 20 million WeChat accounts — five percent of the total number of the messaging service's users — because they offered prostitution services, the company said. Tencent also shut down 30,000 public fake accounts. Weixin, the version of WeChat offered in China, has 396 million monthly users. Tencent dubbed the shutdown "Thunder Strike," and it comes just a month after the Chinese government announced its initiative to "clean up" instant messaging services like WeChat. [Source: Maya Kosoff, Business Insider, June 10, 2014]
“WeChat announced last week it would start to "protect [WeChat users'] experience and interests" by closing down fraudulent and illegal accounts. Many WeChat users use the three-year-old instant messaging service as a news source, but some people have used them to distribute illegal information, "seriously undermining public interests and order in cyberspace," said a statement from China's State Internet Information Office.
We Chat Grows Into China’s Most Popular App
Irene Deng and Celia Chen wrote in the South China Morning Post: WeChat evolved “into a hybrid social network, with the introduction of its sharing service Moments, the blog-like Official Accounts to help brands and content producers market themselves, and a games publishing platform. [Source: Irene Deng Celia Chen, South China Morning Post, August 16, 2018]
“WeChat added payments to the platform in 2013, and for a while this was limited to paying for games, virtual items and services such as mobile subscriptions. But when ‘Official Accounts’ were added to WeChat in 2013, Tencent’s management were hoping that this would transform WeChat into a full service platform. Any WeChat user can set up an Official Account to broadcast messages and articles to their followers like a blog, but brands and service providers can also use these accounts to service customers. Today users can buy products, order meals or make a doctor’s appointment — among many other things through this channel.However, while WeChat Pay got off to a relatively slow start, the game was about to change in a major way.
“Before the Lunar New Year of 2014, Tencent co-founder Tony Zhang assigned a WeChat team member to improve the way Tencent traditionally handed out hongbao — red envelopes with money inside as a gift for Lunar New Year — to staff. As a result, the WeChat Red Packet was developed as a way to send “virtual” money to friends.
“WeChat’s Red Packet became an overnight sensation during the 2014 holiday period with over 8 million Chinese receiving over 40 million hongbaos during the period, leading Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma to dub it the “attack on Pearl Harbour”. Users started to tie their bank accounts to their WeChat mobile wallet and it started to compete with Alipay — an already established mobile payments service from Alibaba Group Holding, parent of the South China Morning Post. In 2018, 688 million people used WeChat’s hongbao service on Lunar New Year’s Eve.
Decline of Weibos and the Rise of WeChat
From 2009 to 2013, Weibo was the most popular forum in China. But in 2013 in an attempt to quiet public debate, the government cracked down on some of the forum’s most prominent verified commentators, nicknamed the Big Vs, accusing microbloggers of spreading false statements and detaining them.“This prompted some Weibo users to leave the site. At the same time, Weixin was quickly gaining popularity as free alternative to text messaging. [Source: Alexandra Stevenson, New York Times, December 21, 2014]
By 2014, Weixin (WeChat) was the most popular forum in China. When the Chinese government cracked down on Weibos, Tencent upped the ante on Weixin so did a lot of things that Weibos did plus a lot more, and it took up the slack and more after Weibo declined. In 2014, China-based Weixin and its international version WeChat together had 468 million active users. Weibo had 167 million active users. “I’ve been here four years. In that time I’m now on the third dominant social network — first it was Renren, then Weibo and now it’s WeChat,” Chris Jones, the executive creative director at the ad agency Wunderman in China, told the New York Times.
Matt Schiavenza wrote in The Daily Beast:“Since its creation in 2011, WeChat, an application developed by Sina’s rival Tencent, has replaced Weibo as China’s go-to web service , and has — if the China Internet Network Information Center’s numbers are accurate — siphoned off 34 percent of Weibo’slost users. The two services are not identical: Weibo essentially functions like Twitter, while WeChat is like a combination of What’sApp, Instagram, and Skype. Nevertheless, WeChat has emerged as the hotter product in a China where obtaining a wide following online has lost much of its appeal. As Charlie Custer, a journalist who writes about Chinese technology at Games in Asia http://www.gamesinasia.com/ writes, “Weibo is a publishing platform, in essence, and WeChat is a chat platform. One is for talking to the world, the other is for talking to your friends." [Source: Matt Schiavenza, The Daily Beast, January 25, 2014]
“WeChat’s other advantage is even more basic. According to Xinhua, 70 percent of China’s new Internet users use cell phones to go online, a market that cheapsmart-phone manufacturers like Xiaomi has come to dominate. And WeChat — with its wide range of services and simple, intuitive interface, has become an essential app for these newly wired millions. “The circles formed on Wechat are smaller and more intimate, and are mostly among friends and acquaintances,” says Helen Gao, a writer and Beijing native. “It allows you to message them, follow their activities, and speak to them more easily than Weibo does.”
WeChat Users, Parents, Kids and Advertisers
Alexandra Stevenson wrote in the New York Times: Liu Xuelong, a television and documentary producer in Beijing, hasn’t used his television in years. He gets all of his entertainment on his iPhone 6 Plus, where he also taps a plethora of apps to buy plane tickets, pay bills, talk with clients. Weixin is among his favorites. “Every morning the first thing I do when I wake up is log onto Weixin to see what new things my friends have shared online overnight,” said Mr. Liu, 25. [Source: Alexandra Stevenson, New York Times, December 21, 2014]
“Weixin’s particular quirk — that users communicate only with friends and contacts within their circle — has allowed companies to develop direct relationships with consumers. But it also poses a challenge since users have to first choose to include a brand within their Weixin network. The fashion house Burberry worked its way into consumers’ circles by giving users a chance to watch its Autumn-Winter 2014 runway show in real time, along with commentary from designers and celebrities watching the show. To get access to the show, users just had to add Burberry’s public account to their Weixin network. Once Burberry is in their network, the fashion house can target users directly in the future. One interactive feature prompts users to click on “My Burberry” and type out their initials. An image of a monogrammed bottle of perfume then appears, along with details of how to buy it.
In 2014, Oreo began Play Together, a campaign that riffed on the idea that children don’t spend enough time with their parents, a subject of debate in China. Collaborating with Weixin, Oreo created an app that allowed parents and their children to take photos and turn them into playful emoticons to send to friends. The campaign also featured a television ad for the Weixin campaign in which a mother and her daughter play together and share a bag of Oreos. As part of the media blitz, it used celebrity dads from the popular reality television show called “Father, Where Are You Going?” to promote the campaign through their own microblogs.
“Television, too, helps bridge the generational gap. Even though Chinese consumers are highly connected, not everybody is getting the messages that brands are sending. Mr. Liu’s father is one of them. Mr. Liu bought a Samsung smartphone for his father, who lives in Weifang, a city in Shandong Province, and taught him how to use Weixin so that they could video-chat. But it could be a while before his father gets the hang of Weixin, Mr. Liu said. “I am the only friend in his Weixin contact list, actually.”
We Chat Mini Programs
Irene Deng and Celia Chen wrote in the South China Morning Post: In 2018 WeChat introduced mini programs “aimed at keeping users within the WeChat ecosystem, at a time when short video apps were on the rise. In June 2018, the percentage of time spent on messaging apps among mobile users declined from 36 to 30.2 percent compared to the same time in 2017, year, while time spent on short video apps rose from 2 to 8.8 percent, according data from QuestMobile. [Source: Irene Deng Celia Chen, South China Morning Post, August 16, 2018]
“Mini programs refer to applications typically smaller than 10 megabytes that can run instantly on the main app’s interface. They offer speed of access to users because a program does not have to be downloaded from an app store, they can run from within the app. This innovation allows platforms to host multiple services, turning them into super-apps, delivering greater convenience to consumers in the world’s largest smartphone market.
By enabling greater functionality within the WeChat ecosystem without the need to download an external app, mini programs are aimed at driving customer loyalty, or stickiness, within the WeChat app. “We view mini programs as an enhancement of our Official Accounts system, designed to connect offline service providers with users online,” Tencent’s Lau said in 2017.
“The concept of mini programs did not fully take off until January 2018 though when Tiao Yi Tiao, a jumping mini game, recorded 100 million daily active users after being launched in late December 2017. “We have had our ups and downs this year, but in general, I think we have met our initial expectations,” said Tony Zhang in a January 2018 interview in the People’s Daily.
“By the second quarter of 2018, the number of WeChat mini programs reached one million and mini program users surpassed 600 million in June 2018.“The mini program initiative is opening many doors for Tencent,” said Matthew Brennan, managing director of independent WeChat consultancy China Channel. “Monetisation due to adverts and payments … and by allowing [Tencent] to incubate and accelerate a variety of businesses within the ecosystem — e-commerce in particular.”
WeChat Business and Monetization
Tony DeGennaro wrote in Dragon Social: “There are different types of accounts on WeChat. Personal accounts are used by individuals, while businesses can create WeChat official accounts to stay in contact with their customers and post promotional information. To learn more about how to use WeChat for business check out the blog below: WeChat Mini Programs, apps that run within the WeChat ecosystem, have also been growing at a blistering rate. With DAU of mini-programs in China exceeding 400 million, these lightweight apps are becoming more and more popular with both users and businesses. [Source: Tony DeGennaro, Dragon Social, 2020; Lai Lin Thomala, Statista, February 14, 2022]
“Given that WeChat’s user base is concentrated heavily in China it’s easy to see why many users call it the Chinese Facebook. Chinese users spend an average of over 70 minutes a day within the app. The Chinese use the WeChat app for restaurant bookings, flights, making investments, shopping, paying bills, hailing taxis, transferring money, creating posts on their Newsfeed (called WeChat Moments), etc.
Aside from that, WeChat allows companies and celebrities to create official accounts to generate content for promotional purposes. Businesses can even implement CRM (Customer Relationship Management) functionality on their WeChat official accounts, allowing businesses to track and manage the contacts on their WeChat Official Account! This makes WeChat one of the most popular tools for social media marketing in China. Read more about this below.
WeChat allows for one-to-one personalized interaction between brands and users. This allows brands to communicate directly with their followers through the messaging functions on their account. This also allows brands to provide customer service directly through their WeChat account. It’s due to this reason that many companies in China don’t even operate traditional websites instead of focusing their efforts on constantly improving their WeChat official accounts. Tencent previously did not allow advertising as they focused primarily on building their user base. In recent years they’ve launched WeChat Advertising, allowing brands to advertise on WeChat with banner ads, influencer advertisements, and Moments ads.
Irene Deng and Celia Chen wrote in the South China Morning Post: “ As of 2018, Tencent was s still in the early stages of monetising its WeChat user base. “Cautious to avoid flooding user timelines with ads, WeChat currently allows a maximum of two ads a day to appear on its social platform Moments, which is “extremely conservative compared to our global peers” said Tencent’s Chief Strategy Officer James Gordon Mitchell in a May 2018 conference call with analysts. “With improving targeting capability, opening up of inventory and roll-out of ad formats, we expect increasing dollar shift to social performance-based advertising, of which Tencent … should be the key beneficiary,” Jefferies analyst Karen Chan wrote in a research note in July. Other analysts are also optimistic on WeChat’s prospects. “[WeChat’s user numbers] haven’t hit the ceiling yet but I think they will at some point,” said Matthew Brennan, managing director of independent WeChat consultancy China Channel. “But they still have a lot of room to grow in advertising, and now with mini programs.” [Source: Irene Deng Celia Chen, South China Morning Post, August 16, 2018]
WeChat, the Global Chinese Community and Government Surveillance
According to the New York Times: “WeChat is used widely around the world, particularly by people of Chinese descent, to communicate with friends, read news and carry out business transactions.” It “spans Beijing’s system of internet filters, connecting communities within and outside China. Exchange students use it to keep in touch with their families, investors use it to broker deals, and diaspora communities rely on it to keep in touch with relatives. Within China there are few alternatives to WeChat, because most other international messaging apps are blocked. [Source: Ana Swanson, Mike Isaac, Paul Mozur New York Times, August 7, 2020]
“Over the years WeChat went from copycat chat app to a force all its own. Crammed with services that enable online payments, e-commerce orders and other services, it grew into an inspiration for Silicon Valley. Companies like Facebook followed some of its cues in adding features to their own messaging apps.
“Yet WeChat has also long been used by the police in Beijing to track dissidents. More recently, the app has emerged as a data conduit for the newly empowered internet police, who examine discussions for signs of political disloyalty. The app is also heavily censored, turning it into a sort of state-controlled filter bubble. Rumors not acceptable by Beijing are quashed, while others are left to spread.
WeChat as a Muckraking and Breaking News Platform
In 2019, David Bandurski wrote in the China Media Project: WeChat, can potentially provide an avenue for writers and journalists to expose malfeasance — something we have seen far less in China under Xi Jinping than we did prior to 2012. [Source: David Bandurski, China Media Project, January 5, 2019]
“First, we have an expose by “Ding Xiang Yisheng” that alleges that Quanjian, a company marketing various drug regimens, including cancer treatments, has cheated unsuspecting customers, mostly the poor. This follows another big WeChat story earlier in 2018 about tainted vaccines making it onto the Chinese market. Both of these stories, says one media expert, are cases of “knight-errant journalists” who were formerly with traditional media, such as newspapers, finding a way to pursue stories in the tougher media environment of the “new era.” We’re not holding our breath — after all, our other stories here are mostly about tighter controls. But the “Ding Xiang Yisheng” is important to note.
Other pieces of breaking news came from the WeChat public accounts “Middle Class Life Observer”: and “Huaxia Investigations”: The WeChat public account “Media Observer” reported on January 3, 2019 that a number of key Party-run newspapers, including the flagship People’s Daily, Guangdong’s Nanfang Daily, and Zhejiang Daily, started out 2019 with makeovers, including page reductions and the introduction of new columns and other features.
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, The Guardian, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
Last updated May 2022


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Deal reached for huge desalination plant in Calif.
SAN DIEGO — The San Diego County Water Authority announced a tentative agreement Thursday to buy the entire output of what will be the Western hemisphere's largest seawater desalination plant, clearing a major hurdle for construction to begin.
The plant in Carlsbad will produce 50 million gallons a day, enough to supply about 7 percent of the San Diego region in 2020.
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