YourStory presents this daily roundup of the latest startup news and updates from the Indian startup ecosystem and beyond. Here's the roundup for Friday, June 11, 2021.
5 hours ago
A union representing India’s largest public bank along with a coalition of labour unions and NGOs requested the Reserve Bank of India to reject applications of “profit-making” big companies, especially Amazon, from setting up alternate payment systems. Reuters reported on this first on April 8.
Amazon, Google, Facebook and others have applied to set up New Umbrella Entity (NUE) a parallel payment ecosystem proposed by RBI to reduce concentration risks in the payment sector. This would rival the quasi-public National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), which is currently the main operator for digital transactions in the country.
State-run State Bank of India’s union All India State Bank of India Staff Federation (AISBISF), labour unions and NGOs under the banner of UNI Global Union, IT for Change and the Joint Action Committee Against Foreign Retail and E-Commerce (JACAFRE) wrote a letter in this regard to the RBI.
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Published 2 June 2021
Binance announced on Thursday its first Binance Smart Chain Hackathon for Africa, tagged ‘Decentralised Africa’, with a prize pool of over $30,000 on Tuesday.
It said the 20-day hackathon would empower blockchain engineers to rapidly build blockchain solutions on the Binance Smart Chain in order to solve real problems identified in the African systems.
According to a statement, the hackathon, which is slated for June, is dedicated to the development of DeFi, NFT projects covering savings, lending and borrowing, swaps, royalties and renting, elections, identity management, land ownership, and NFTs marketplaces, among other relevant areas.
Meanwhile, Coinbase announced on Tuesday that its users can now use their Coinbase Card with Apple Pay and Google Pay.
A formal board comprising eminent jurists, technical specialists and fintech compliance specialists is also being set up to oversee the implementation of the self-regulatory code for crypto exhchanges, a statement said.
RBI on Monday asked banks, NBFCs, and payment system providers not to refer to its earlier virtual currencies-related circular, that was issued in April 2018 and later aside by the Supreme Court, in their communications to customers.