Digital Financial News

The Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Anti-Surveillance State Act, which was introduced by Congressman Tom Emmer, symbolizes an increasing level of worry within the political landscape of the United States of America over the possible dangers that may be posed by a digital currency that is issued by the government. The passage of this legislation highlights the need of having a conversation about the future of money in the digital era, as well as the implications of government monitoring and financial privacy.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, the emergence of foundation models like GPT-4 and Llama 2 has transformed numerous sectors, influencing decisions and shaping user experiences on a global scale. However, despite their widespread use and impact, there is a growing concern about the lack of transparency in these models. This issue is not limited to AI; it echoes the transparency challenges faced by previous digital technologies, such as social media platforms, where consumers grappled with deceptive practices and misinformation​​​​.

As the calendar turned to 2024, a significant event in the world of digital art and copyright law occurred. The original version of Mickey Mouse, as seen in the 1928 short film «Steamboat Willie,» officially entered the public domain. This development marked the end of the Walt Disney Company's copyright claim over this specific version of one of the most iconic characters in animation history. The United States law restricts copyright to a lifespan of 95 years, bringing Steamboat Willie into the public domain after nearly a century.

As Citigroup prepares to make another round of job cuts, focused on staff in managerial roles, one former managing director there is having a fine timing living in Cornwall. 

Europe’s leading banking entity, the European Banking Authority (EBA), has extended its regulatory reach to cover the cryptocurrency space.

I have long been a proponent of ‘techno-legal’ governance—a hybrid system of laws and code where laws and regulations are embedded directly into the technology system. It has become increasingly possible for us to encode legal requirements directly into the ecosystems upon which we depend. Given that neither the laissez-faire approach to governance that the US pioneered nor the regulation-heavy approach taken by Europe has proven successful at regulating digital spaces, I am hopeful that this hybrid approach will offer us new ways in which we can extract the benefits of technology while safeguarding ourselves against its harms.

Apple to a lower court's decision requiring changes to certain rules in its lucrative App Store, as the justices shunned the lengthy legal battle between the iPhone maker and Epic Games, maker of the popular video game "Fortnite." The justices also turned away Epic's appeal of the lower court's ruling that Apple's App Store policies limiting how software is distributed and paid for do not violate federal antitrust laws. The justices gave no reasons for their decision to deny the appeals.

Clix Capital, one of India's fastest-growing new-age NBFCs, have entered into a strategic digital co-lending partnership through Yubi Co.lend Platform. This partnership is focused on providing loans to the Indian MSME sector which is one of the biggest contributors to India's GDP and employment growth.

NEW DELHI : The government is set to notify rules that will mandate social media platforms to tackle the menace of deepfakes, after repeated advisories failed to get the desired result, Union minister of state for information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Tuesday. “We had issued an advisory and we have also said that if we are not satisfied with the compliance, we will notify newly-amended rules that are much more specific to the issue of misinformation and deepfake in particular.

OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman on Tuesday said an energy breakthrough is necessary for future artificial intelligence, which will consume vastly more power than people have expected. Speaking at a Bloomberg event on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Altman said the silver lining is that more climate-friendly sources of energy, particularly nuclear fusion or cheaper solar power and storage, are the way forward for AI.

Artificial intelligence lab OpenAI is forming a new team to create democratic processes to shape how its AI software should be governed to address bias and other factors, the Microsoft-backed company said in a blog post on Tuesday. The «Collective Alignment» team is a continuation of the work of a grant program for funding democratic process experiments that was announced in May 2023, the San Francisco-based firm said. The program wrapped up recently.

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CCI on Tuesday cleared the proposed combination involving the merger of various entities of the Shriram Group. The proposed combination relates to the amalgamation of Shriram GI Holdings Pvt Ltd with Shriram General Insurance Company Ltd. Shriram General Insurance Company is a joint venture between Shriram Capital and Sanlam Ltd (South Africa). It is an Irdai-licensed company, offering a wide range of general insurance solutions.

The use of cryptocurrencies is growing with each change in the time of year. This led to the emergence of specialized services that allow users to exchange digital coins for other coins or fiat money.

A raft of major technology and media companies have signed an open letter accusing tech giants of failing to bring their businesses into full compliance with incoming European Union digital competition rules.

Karnataka Bank and non-banking finance company (NBFC) Clix Capital on Tuesday signed up for a strategic digital co-lending partnership through the platform Yubi Co.Lend. The partnership is focused on providing loans to the Indian MSME sector which is one of the biggest contributors to India's GDP and employment growth. The agreement is in line with the Reserve Bank of India's guidelines on co-lending by banks and NBFCs to priority sectors. The partnership combines Karnataka Bank’s low cost of funds, end-to-end digital capabilities and expertise to offer credit facilities to this segment along with Clix Capital's strong & easy lending tech platform and robust due diligence.

PhonePe and jewellery brand CaratLane on Monday announced their partnership to enable consumers to purchase jewellery by redeeming their accumulated Digital Gold. «Consumers who have invested in 24K Digital Gold on PhonePe in partnership with CaratLane can redeem it for a jewellery of their choice at CaratLane and can also avail up to 7% extra on redemption amount (7% for Diamond jewellery, 4% for Gold jewellery, and 2% for Gold coins),» the companies said in a joint press release. The above said offer is valid till the end of this month. This strategic alliance aims to revolutionise the way people acquire and gift beautiful everyday jewellery. «Gold Savings is one of the key investment options for customers in India, and we have seen a strong inclination towards Digital Gold investment on our platform in the last few years. We are confident that this partnership will transform the way people invest in Gold,» said Sonika Chandra, Chief Business Officer — Consumer Payments at PhonePe. Avnish Anand, Chief Executive Officer at CaratLane finds that this initiative is very similar to digitisation of payments. «The whole point of building the Digital Gold business is to provide a simpler cost-effective solution to consumers who buy and gift gold for future jewellery purchases. Today most such customers buy gold coins. This strategic partnership with PhonePe is a crucial step in making that happen,» said Anand. PhonePe and CaratLane have also said that they offer 99.99 per cent purity-certified 24K Digital Gold through this partnership.

₹336.2 crore for the third quarter of FY24, registering a growth of 13.3% from ₹296.8 crore in the corresponding quarter of last year, the firm said in a regulatory filing. L&T Technology’s revenue in Q3FY24 increased 12.3% to ₹2,421.8 crore, from ₹2,157 crore, YoY. Among other details, the firm said that the EBITDA of ₹487.7 crore for the quarter was registered up 11.9 percent, from ₹435.6 crore in the corresponding quarter of last year.

Mallikarjun Kharge hit out at the Narendra Modi-led BJP government for pushing the country's startup entrepreneurs, creative people and jobless youth “to the wall.” On the eve of National Startups Day, Kharge took to social media platform X and said the government’s Startup India initiative has become a vehicle to garner publicity for Prime Minister Modi as it has miserably fallen short on delivery.

Edtech startup Unacademy has appointed Pratik Dalal as CFO of its offline centres business, CEO Gaurav Munjal told employees in an internal memo on Tuesday. Dalal was most recently heading business finance at Cred, prior to which he was VP of business finance at Flipkart.

Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), does not see cryptos anywhere near the Dollar in stature.