Barrick digital transformation

SINGAPORE: A new digital office announced on Sunday (May 31) will recruit 1,000 ambassadors by the end of next month to help stallholders and seniors go online, as part of efforts to accelerate digital adoption in Singapore's post COVID-19 economic recovery. The digital ambassadors will cover all 112 hawker centres and wet markets in June to encourage stallholders to adopt SGQR codes for e-payment and avoid having to handle cash. This will be expanded to include stallholders in coffee shops and industrial canteens in July. The SGQR code, compatible with payment schemes such as GrabPay, PayNow and Favepay, was rolled out in 2018 as a way to simplify QR code payments in Singapore. “Our goal is to engage 18,000 stallholders to help them get onboard the unified e-payment solution by June 2021,” said the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) and the Infocomm Media Developmemnt Authority (IMDA) in a joint news release. To encourage more stallholders to use … [Read more...] about 1,000 digital ambassadors to be recruited to help stallholders, seniors go online

Bengaluru: Infosys chief executive Salil Parekh said the company and industry as a whole sees more opportunities for growth in the next few years, as businesses are spending in digital technology-led transformation projects from their investment budgets and not only from their IT budgets. “AI, Automation which are driving a lot of the focus with our large clients and the savings from that is built into scale up of digital. Going beyond cost, this has become a growth driver for the company. In that sense it is independent of the IT budget because some of it is really an investment budget also,” said Parekh at the Kotak’s Chasing Growth Conference on Tuesday. He added that the interactions with its clients suggest that while IT budgets are important; part of the budget is coming from business investment as organisations are focusing on transformation. Parekh added that the investments in digital technologies are somewhat decoupling from IT budgets of organisations. … [Read more...] about Clients are spending on digital from investment budgets as well: Infosys CEO

SINGAPORE: Five mobile service providers will start rolling out mobile plans with “larger data bundles at a lower cost” for seniors from Monday (Jun 29), while another new initiative will provide lower-income seniors with subsidised smartphones and data plans. Announced by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and the newly formed SG Digital Office (SDO) in a joint release, these initiatives are part of the Seniors Go Digital programme which was launched last month with the aim to raise the digital skills of 100,000 seniors by the end of this year. Singtel, M1, StarHub, Circles.Life and TPG will start rolling out the customised mobile plans for seniors progressively from Monday, the press release said. There will be variety of price plans and service offerings from these operators, it added. “These special plans, available to all seniors, offer larger data bundles at a lower cost, to give seniors the confidence to enjoy the benefits that digital services bring.” … [Read more...] about Wider variety of mobile plans and financial assistance for seniors to help them go digital

PARIS: Rue de Rivoli, a boulevard running through the heart of Paris, has been developed in fits and starts. Napoleon Bonaparte initiated construction in 1802, after years of planning and debate, but work stalled following the emperor’s abdication in 1814. The boulevard remained in limbo until another military strongman, Napoleon III, completed the project in the 1850s. The next century, construction began again – this time, to accommodate cars. But this past spring, Rue de Rivoli experienced its fastest transformation yet. With Paris traffic subdued by a COVID-19 lockdown, Mayor Anne Hidalgo decided on Apr 30 to close the nearly two-mile-long road to cars, in order to create more space for pedestrians and bicyclists. READ: Commentary: Banning bicycles from footpaths won’t make poor cycling habits disappear READ: Commentary: Giving up petrol cars is a lot more difficult for parents Workers repainted the road and transformed a major artery in central Paris – home … [Read more...] about Commentary: Bike lanes and housing in the CBD? Here’s how COVID-19 could transform cities

SINGAPORE: China is already number one in the world for mobile payment penetration, with 790 million people expected to be using such payments this year. Chinese consumers logged more than 60.5 billion mobile payment transactions in 2018, with spending at 277.4 trillion yuan (US$39 trillion) - a huge leap for what was once a mostly cash economy. A government-backed digital currency, however, is expected to take things to another level. Beijing has already begun trials of its digital currency electronic payment (DCEP). If successful, it could transform the international financial system, some analysts said. The trials aim to cover a broad spectrum of use cases, ranging from retail to transport and salary payment. The digital currency is being piloted in four Chinese cities – Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong’an and Chengdu. According to Ms Shirley Yu, Asia fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, the digital yuan was used to pay up to half of government workers' travel expenses in … [Read more...] about Why is China’s yuan going digital?