Friday, March 29

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Mobikwik Planning To Turn Profitable By mid-2017
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Mobikwik Planning To Turn Profitable By mid-2017

Gurgaon-based mobile wallet firm MobiKwik expects to turn profitable by mid-2017 and plans to diversify revenue streams by offering financial products like loans and mutual funds, a senior executive said. "We are looking at diversifying our revenue streams and our first goal is to be profitable on a monthly basis by middle of 2017," MobiKwik founder and chief executive Bipin Preet Singh told PTI. The firm looks to expand its financial services offerings and has started entering into partnerships with banks and financial institutions for the same. MobiKwik is partnering with non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) to offer micro-lending to its users, and is also looking at launching a mutual fund portfolio going forward, he added. The company is also focussing on the offline category...
New System Finds Security Flaws in Popular Web Apps
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New System Finds Security Flaws in Popular Web Apps

MIT researchers have developed a system that can quickly comb through tens of thousands of lines of application codes to find security flaws in popular web applications. In tests on 50 popular applications written using Web programming framework Ruby on Rails, the system found 23 previously undiagnosed security flaws, and took no more than 64 seconds to analyse any given programme. According to researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, the new system uses a technique called static analysis which seeks to describe in a very general way how data flows through a programme. "The classic example of this is if you wanted to do an abstract analysis of a programme that manipulates integers, you might divide the integers into the positive integers, the negativ...
“It’s Lack of Journalistic Ethics” Said Ola After a Report on Uber Acquisition
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“It’s Lack of Journalistic Ethics” Said Ola After a Report on Uber Acquisition

India's leading Taxi aggregator platform Ola and its one of the investors Matrix Partners India denied a report on DNA, which alleged that Uber was acquiring stakes of all the investors, including the founders, except SoftBank, with a term sheet likely to be signed by this quarter. "We would like to state that the article, attributed to an 'unnamed source' is completely false, misleading, malicious and planted in the said newspaper with the intent of causing harm to the Ola brand and creating confusion among our stakeholders." a statement from Ola said. Ola slammed the publication for its lack of journalistic ethics, and said that it will initiate appropriate legal action and seek redressal and compensation from the newspaper for the damage caused due to the report. "We also had received...
Indian Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Will Visit The Co-working Place in Delhi Today
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Indian Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Will Visit The Co-working Place in Delhi Today

To take stock of Start-up India action plan, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today have an open chat with budding entrepreneurs at a centre that provides basic facilities to new-age ventures. "Rather than budding entrepreneurs coming to the ministry to raise their grievances and share feedback on the action plan, the minister has decided to visit the co-working office of young entrepreneurs and have an open chat with them about their expectations and experience," an official said. The exercise is aimed at giving a thrust to budding entrepreneurs, he said. As many as 50 start-up companies and over 70 budding entrepreneurs are expected to participate in the interaction with the Minister. Prominent ones include Velmenni Lifi, Fitternity, Glance, DeliveryTrack, ...
Odd-Even: These Startups Offering Free Rides
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Odd-Even: These Startups Offering Free Rides

With the second phase of odd-even scheme set to be rolled out from tomorrow, ride-sharing startups are lining up with free rides and scaling up operations to handle higher demand from consumers. The odd-even scheme was implemented on an experimental basis from January 1 to January 15 in view of high air pollution in the national capital. The second phase will commence on April 15. Bike taxi operator Rapido said, it will offer free rides to people travelling to and from some of the metro stations like HauzKhaz and Malviya Nagar during April 15-30. Bengaluru-based startup 360Ride, which offers a ride-sharing platform for personal vehicle owners, said it will incentivise people using its platform with commuters earning up to Rs 1,200 by sharing their ride on four-wheelers and Rs 600 on t...
Vijay Shekhar Sharma to Head IAMAIs Payments Banks Group
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Vijay Shekhar Sharma to Head IAMAIs Payments Banks Group

Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma will chair the newly formed Payments Banks Group at industry body IAMAI. Vodafone India business head (M-Pesa) Suresh Sethi will be the Vice-Chairman of the Group, Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) said in a statement. "Payments Banks is an innovative model of bringing unbanked population into the formal banking fold. Paytm along with other license holders, would make financial services accessible for every Indian through this innovative route," Sharma said. At present, six out of 10 payments banks primary licensees are IAMAI members. IAMAI has more than 50 companies representing PPIs, wallets, aggregators, business correspondents, PoS Operators, among others as members.
Wildcraft Enter in Wearable Space, Launched Tracking Device “SPOT”
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Wildcraft Enter in Wearable Space, Launched Tracking Device “SPOT”

Outdoor gear, apparel and footwear company Wildcraft has launched a GPS tracking device called SPOT, a location monitoring device via app on smartphone. A portable device, SPOT can be worn on the wrist as a band or hooked onto backpack via a clip, the company said. "The launch of SPOT is a first step into the exciting arena of wearable. By allowing you to see the location of your loved ones, SPOT takes away the stress of not knowing where they are if theyve been out of touch", Gaurav Dublish, Director of Wildcraft, said in a release here. "Weve got a host of parents expressing interest in the device from a safety standpoint," the release said. SPOT device comes as a kit with a dual mode technology, GPS + LBS enabling accuracy of up to 10 meters, it said in a release here. Wi...
7 Key Points of RBI’s New Online Payment System “Unified Payments Interface Protocol”
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7 Key Points of RBI’s New Online Payment System “Unified Payments Interface Protocol”

The Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which comes into effect Monday, is a single interface across all National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) systems, allowing customers to instantaneously transfer funds across different banks with the use of a single identification and password. Multiple bank accounts can be linked to a single mobile banking application and money can be both received and requested through the same interface. This could weaken the case for consumers having to store money in multiple electronic wallets to pay for services such as cab rides, movie tickets or utility bills. Mobile banking has surged in India in recent months as banks have pushed both retail and corporate customers to adopt platforms designed to transact on the phone. In the September-December qua...
Auto and Taxi Unions to Protest Against App-Based Services
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Auto and Taxi Unions to Protest Against App-Based Services

A section of auto and taxi unions will take out a protest march today against app-based taxi services in the national capital. "Hundreds of auto rickshaw and taxi drivers will take out a protest march with their vehicles from Samatha Sthal to Delhi Secretariat tomorrow," Rajendra Soni, general secretary of auto and taxi unions, said. He said that for the last two months, they have been demanding the government to control app-based taxi services who are taking away their livelihood. "If government does not pay heed to our demand immediately, all taxis and auto rickshaws will go off work soon" he said. "App-based taxi services are affecting our business and we cannot sit silent. Government should stop their services as most of the app-based cab operators are not following rul...
Burrp Revenues Will Touch 150 Crores in 2019
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Burrp Revenues Will Touch 150 Crores in 2019

Food and restaurant recommendation platform Burrp aims to garner revenues of Rs 150 crore by March 2019 as it expands services like events and offers a more personalised search experience to users. The food-tech company, which competes with the likes of Zomato, is also aiming to facilitate transactions worth Rs 1,000 crore through its platform in the same period. "Burrp earlier led the industry but then things didn't go as per plan. One of the errors was to become a listings platform for everything... Cut to 2015, we have revamped our product with enhanced features like dish discovery, an events section and trending restaurants," Burrp co-business head Abhishek Chhajlani told PTI. These additional features will make it easier for users to search for their favourite food or rest...
Is Bike Taxi Services ‘Safe’ for Women in India?
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Is Bike Taxi Services ‘Safe’ for Women in India?

Operators of bike-taxis, which have over the past few months been emerging as viable, convenient and low-cost solutions for travel in the city, are now looking to attract more women riders to use the service. "We have around 400 mandatory steps that the driver needs to pass. We take a ride test and a third party does all the verification plus there are vehicle instructions and mandatory training," says Aarvind Sanka, co-founder of Rapido, an app based service . Sanka says 10 per cent of their daily customers are women and the organisation is working on bringing on board more women drivers. However for some people like Rahul Kumar, a resident of Gurgaon, are skeptical of the safety of bike-taxis. "It may be cheap but I still wouldn't prefer it for a long distance tra...
Cost of New Mobile Connection Could be Zero Using Aadhaar eKYC
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Cost of New Mobile Connection Could be Zero Using Aadhaar eKYC

Trai Chairman R S Sharma Friday said cost of activation of a new mobile connection can virtually come down to zero if electronic KYC of Aadhaar is implemented as authentication will be done digitally. He said transaction costs are reduced substantially when Aadhaar is used as an authentication tool. "If you are taking a mobile connection, currently the cost of activation of a mobile customer is Rs 150 because you have to fill a customer acquisition form (CAF), you have to give paper documents... if you use digital identity authentication, you can fill the customer form, digitally sign it and get your electronic KYC. So, essentially the cost is equal to zero," Sharma said at the annual growth Net summit in New Delhi. Sharma has made recommendations to the Department of Tele...