Wednesday, 16 January 2019
Flutterwave and Visa launch African consumer payment service GetBarter
Fintech startup Flutterwave has partnered with Visa to launch a consumer payment product for Africa called GetBarter.
The app based offering is aimed at facilitating personal and small merchant payments within countries and across Africa’s national borders. Existing Visa card holders can send and receive funds at home or internationally on GetBarter.
The product also lets non card-holders (those with accounts or mobile wallets on other platforms) create a virtual Visa card to link to the app. A Visa spokesperson confirmed the product partnership.
GetBarter allows Flutterwave—which has scaled as a payment gateway for big companies through its Rave product—to pivot to African consumers and traders.
“Rave is B2B, this is more B2B2C since we’re reaching the consumers of our customers,” Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola—aka GB—told TechCrunch.
The app also creates a network for clients on multiple financial platforms, such as Kenyan mobile money service M-Pesa, to make transfers across payment products, national borders, and to shop online.
“The target market is pretty much everyone who has a payment need in Africa. That includes the entire customer base of M-Pesa, the entire bank customer base in Nigeria, mobile money and bank customers in Ghana—pretty much the entire continent,” Agboola said.
Flutterwave and Visa will focus on building a GetBarter user base across mobile money and bank clients in Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa, with plans to grow across the continent and reach those off the financial grid.
“In phase one we’ll pursue those who are banked. In phase-two we’ll continue toward those who are unbanked who will be able to use agents to work with GetBarter,” Agboola said.
Flutterwave and Visa will generate revenue through fees from financial institutions on cards created and on fees per transaction. A GetBarter charge for a payment in Nigeria is roughly 40 Naira, or 11 cents, according to Agboola.
With this week’s launch users can download the app for Apple and Android devices and for use on WhatsApp and USSD.
Founded in 2016, Flutterwave has positioned itself as a global B2B payments solutions platform for companies in Africa to pay other companies on the continent and abroad. It allows clients to tap its APIs and work with Flutterwave developers to customize payments applications. Existing customers include Uber, Facebook, Booking.com, and African e-commerce unicorn Jumia.com.
Flutterwave has processed 100 million transactions worth $2.6 billion since inception, according to company data.
The company has raised $20 million from investors including Greycroft, Green Visor Capital, Mastercard, and Visa.
In 2018, Flutterwave was one of several African fintech companies to announce significant VC investment and cross-border expansion—see Paga, Yoco, Cellulant, Mines.ie, and Jumo.
Flutterwave added operations in Uganda in June and raised a $10 million Series A round in October that saw former Visa CEO Joe Saunders join its board of directors.
The company also plugged into ledger activity in 2018, becoming a payment processing partner to the Ripple and Stellar blockchain networks.
Flutterwave hasn’t yet released revenue or profitability info, according to CEO Olugbenga Agboola.
Headquartered in San Francisco, with its largest operations center in Nigeria, the startup plans to add operations centers to South Africa and Cameroon, which will also become new markets for GetBarter.
from Apple – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2MdZFHB
Apple reportedly looking to subsidize Watch with Medicare plans
If nothing else, the addition of ECG/EKG reinforced Apple’s commitment to evolving the Watch into a serious medical device. The company has long looked to bring its best selling wearable to various health insurance platforms, and according to a new report, it’s reaching out to multiple private Medicare plans in hopes of subsidizing the product.
If Medicare companies bite, the move would make the $279+ tracker much more successful for older users. Along with electrocardiograph functionality, last year’s Series 4 also features fall detection, an addition that could make it even more appealing to the elderly and health care providers.
The new report cites at least three providers who have been in discussions with the company. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on hearing back until the ink is dry on those deals. For Apple, however, such a a partnership would help increase the target audience for a product that’s been a rare bright spot in the wearable category.
Apple’s not alone in the serious health push, of course. Fitbit has also been aggressively pursuing the space. Today the company announced its inclusion in the National Institutes of Health’s new All of Us health initiative.
from Apple – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2AMJLj6
Sprint customers can now use Apple Business Chat to reach an agent
Sprint today announced it will support Apple’s Business Chat – the new platform that allows businesses and customers to interact over iMessage. According to the carrier, customers can now message a Sprint customer service agent, get info about plans and other services, as well as look up store information in Maps, Safari and with Siri during a chat session.
The support from Sprint comes after two other launches on the platform this week.
TD Ameritrade said it will allow customers to fund their brokerage accounts using Apple Pay on Apple Business Chat. And Gubagoo said it will connect car dealerships with customers through Business Chat for viewing inventory, plus scheduling test drives and service appointments.
Apple has been steadily growing its list of supported Business Chat partners, and today has a number of big brands on its platform, which is still in beta. These include names like 1-800-Contacts, DISH, Overstock.com, Quicken Loans, Kimpton Hotels, West Elm, Burberry, Vodafone, Wells Fargo, Credit Suisse, Jos A. Bank, Men’s Warehouse, The Home Depot, Hilton, Four Seasons, American Express, Harry & David, and several others.
The platform also supports integrations with customer service platforms LivePerson, Salesforce, Nuance, Genesys, InTheChat, Zendesk, Quiq, Cisco, Kipsu, Lithium, eGain, [24]7.ai, ContactAtOnce, Dimelo, Brand Embassy, ASAPP, IMImobile, and MessengerPeople, according to Apple’s website.
Business Chat was officially introduced at WWDC 2017, and is Apple’s entry into the business messaging and chatbot space.
Before its arrival, customers would generally reach out to businesses through social media sites like Facebook (e.g. Pages and Messenger; WhatsApp and Instagram) and Twitter. But Apple’s product gets the businesses even closer to the customer, as their chats can live alongside those from family and friends. Plus, they don’t have to share their data with a third-party.
For consumers, reaching a business through iMessage is also a bit easier at times.
A company’s Business Chat profile is highlighted across Apple’s iOS platform in areas like Safari, Maps, Spotlight, and via Siri. This makes it more seamless to move from one Apple app to an iMessage chat, compared with having to seek out the business’s social media profile.
It’s also less painful than having to dial a customer service phone number, in many cases – as Sprint today pointed out.
“More consumers are embracing quick and easy self-service and digital assistance versus calling customer service through an 800 line,” said Rob Roy, Sprint chief digital officer, in a statement about the launch. “Apple Business Chat is an amazing tool for our customers that makes communicating with Sprint fast, easy and stress-free.”
Business Chat has come at a time when the “phone” part of our smartphones is turning into just another “app” – and increasingly, a spammy and bothersome one thanks to spam calls. Apple’s solution makes it easier for customers and businesses to move away from phone lines, while Google is leveraging AI to handle spammers – and even place calls for customers through its Google Duplex technology.
from Apple – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2De5B0r
Tuesday, 15 January 2019
Sofia Coppola and Bill Murray will reunite for Apple and A24
The director and star of “Lost in Translation” are working together again, with Bill Murray starring alongside Rashida Jones in “On The Rocks,” a new film directed by Sofia Coppola.
The movie will tell the story of a young mother who reconnects with her playboy father in New York City. Production is supposed to begin this spring.
“On the Rocks” is the first film to come out of the partnership between Apple and A24, which will see A24 (the studio behind “Moonlight,” “Lady Bird,” “Hereditary” and other indie hits) producing several titles for Apple. The deal will help Apple’s yet-to-launch streaming service offer high-profile original films alongside shows like its star-studded morning news drama and an adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” novels.
It’s been nearly 16 years since the release of “Lost in Translation,” which was a financial and critical hit — it remains the highest-grossing film of Coppola’s directing career, and it cemented Murray’s shift to more serious roles. It also won Coppola the Academy Award for best screenplay, and it nabbed Murray his only Oscar nomination thus far. (How is that possible??)
Since then, Coppola has only directed Murray once, in the idiosyncratic Netflix special “A Very Murray Christmas.”
from Apple – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2st6jAN
Twitter’s de-algorithmizing ‘sparkle button’ rolls out on Android
After launching on iOS, Twitter is giving Android users the ability to easily switch between seeing the reverse-chronological “latest tweets” and the algorithmic “top tweets” feeds on their home page. The company announced the rollout at a media event in New York.
The “sparkle button” is a way for Twitter to appease long-time power tweeters while also shifting more of its user base to the algorithmic feed which the company says has served to increase the number of conversations happening on the platform.
You can read more about the company’s algorithmic feed thinking here:
from Android – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2TRBpO5
via IFTTT
Apple’s battery cases return for the iPhone XS and XR
There’s no shortage of iPhone cases out there, of course. But for those who absolutely must have Apple’s stamp on their accessories, the company just dropped a couple of official charging cases for its latest round of handsets — the XS, XS Max and XR.
The cases, first spotted by MacRumors, maintain a similar design language as their predecessor, marking its return for the first time since the iPhone 7. The familiar battery bump is back, but it now encompasses the whole of the rear, which should make holding it a little less awkward — and at the very least is a bit better looking.
This time out, the silicone covers are available in black and white and will work with Qi chargers, without having to pull the case off.
The new smart charging cases are priced at $129, regardless of model, and should add between 33 (for the XS) and 39 (for the XR) hours of additional talk time. As Apple notes, there are some marked advantages with going first party on this one, including intelligent battery status, which is displayed in the notification center and on the phone’s lock screen.
from Apple – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2ClUP6S