Mastercard’s Next-Gen Payments! ToneTag – Mastercard Start Path

ToneTag, a sound based proximity payment technology provider, has been recently selected to participate in the Mastercard Start Path virtual mentorship program. Mastercard Start Path is the company’s global effort to support startups who are reshaping the future of commerce. Following the selection, ToneTag showcased its technology at the Start Path event in London and at Money20/20 in Copenhagen. As part of the initiative, the Start Path team will work with ToneTag against a tailored plan that will help it to scale. ToneTag will also receive access to Mastercard experts, partners and customers representing leading banks and retailers in all regions of the globe to enable their business development.

“Mastercard Start Path is a great initiative to help startups reach new opportunities. Unlike before, businesses are well-connected today thanks to technology, and it is imperative that fintech companies hold the key to a better payment experience for both consumers and merchants alike and ensure transactions are secure, clean and done through organized channels. ToneTag is excited to be a part of this endeavour.” said Kumar Abhishek, Founder & CEO, ToneTag.

“ToneTag is allowing merchants to accept seamless and secure contactless payments using any mobile phone,” said Amy Neale, vice president, Mastercard Start Path. “The Start Path program will connect ToneTag to a blend of global resources and experts so it can scale its solutions with greater speed.”

Ten Student Teams Receives 2 Crore Funds from DST to Launch Start-Up Company and Incubated at NSRCEL, IIMB

Sri Ramakrishna Institute of Technology College, Coimbatore bagged Chairman’s Award for the best innovative product for the Texas Instruments India Innovation Challenge Design Contest 2016. This was announced at the grand finale held at IIM Bangalore and was presided by top minds in academia and industry. The dignitaries present were Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, NS Raghavan, Harkesh Kumar Mittal, Dr. Anita Gupta, Prof. G Raghuram, Dr. Peter Balyta and Sanjay Srivastava.

The first runner up for the Texas Instruments IICDC 2016 is the team from IIT Kharagpur for their innovation on tracking sleep disorder and the second runner up is from Dream Institute of Technology, West Bengal for their innovative solution on safety ensuring wearable. Total 30 teams participated in the finals which received 1.5 crores as product development fund. Out of these, Jury selected 10 teams which will receive INR 2Crores seed fund and opportunity to be incubated at NSRCEL, IIMB.

The 2016 TI IICDC saw participation from ~11,000 engineering students across 624 colleges in India. The collaboration with Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) and Department of Science and Technology (DST) has helped to nurture the young engineering minds and support the Make in India Program at IICDC 2016. In the 10 months long challenge, the participants saw an intense mentoring program from IIMB and TI. TI provided technical resources and guidance throughout the contest, including tool support and mentoring to design & help the students make their prototypes. DST provided funding of Rs 3.5 crores to the student start-ups, which went towards the product development and seed fund. The online platform MyGov, promoted active participation of Indian citizens in the country’s governance and development, helped students from all different corners of the country to register for the IICDC through the MyGov portal.

Commenting on the award ceremony, Laxmi Kant Tiwari from IIT Kharagpur, one of the selected 10 teams said, “We feel honoured and privileged to emerge winners of this year long challenge. It feels all the more exciting to know that we competed amongst the best minds in the country and we were chosen by eminent jury members as the winning idea. We are confident that we will be able to work on this innovation further with the assistance and guidance from TI, IIM B and our mentors. We are all thrilled to start our new journey as entrepreneurs”

Persistent Systems Acquires PARX - Platinum Salesforce Consulting Partner in DACH Market

Persistent Systems has announced the acquisition of PARX, a Salesforce Certified Platinum Partner in the DACH market of Germany, Austria and Switzerland that focuses on its customers' business models, strategic and operational objectives. This marks a continuing global expansion for Persistent, which includes the recent openings of development centers in Mexico, Israel and new locations in the U.S. The acquisition of PARX follows last year’s acquisition by Persistent of Australia’s leading Salesforce consulting partner, PRM Cloud Solutions. Persistent is a Salesforce Certified Platinum Partner.

Sudhir Kulkarni, President of Digital at Persistent Systems says, “PARX is particularly compelling because of its exclusive focus on born-in-the-cloud platforms and technologies with no footprint in legacy technologies or services. Bringing PARX into Persistent deepens our Salesforce expertise, further strengthening our global capabilities to deliver digital transformation for our customers.” 

Silvio Galfetti, CEO and Managing Partner at PARX says, “This is a great opportunity for our employees and our customers to leverage the global strength and digitalization expertise of a company like Persistent. As importantly for us, the values that are imbued throughout Persistent are ones we share. This is an exciting day for PARX.”

Anand Deshpande, Founder and CEO of Persistent Systems says, “Data, digital, IOT and platforms are the foundation of software-driven businesses. PARX brings a deep business domain understanding that complements our technology expertise. This strengthens our presence in DACH and across Europe.”

Sumit Sehgal Appointed as Chief Marketing Officer at COMIO India

COMIO appoints Sumit Sehgal as the Chief Marketing Officer of the company. In this role, Sumit will lead the marketing mandate in building COMIO as a differentiated, strong and conversational brand in the mobile handset market

With over two decades of experience in sales and marketing, he is a tenured marketer with a profound understanding of the Indian market. Sumit has a positive bias towards initiatives that catalyse business growth & strengthen customer loyalty. He is all set to play a pivotal role as the brand gears up for the launch of the mid-segment smartphones in India.

On this announcement, Sanjay Kumar Kalirona, CEO & Director, COMIO said, “We are delighted to have Sumit Sehgal on board. He is a vital addition to the team at a time when the brand is in the nascent stage. It is a pleasure to have such an experienced professional in place and leading a critical part of the organisation.”

On this occasion,  Sumit Sehgal, CMO at COMIO, says “Building a new brand from scratch is a marketer’s delight. It is also thoroughly challenging to carve out your space in a VUCA market such as mobile handsets. I have no doubt whatsoever, that COMIO will shape up to be a loved brand which creates relationships with its customers as equals and becomes a small part of their complex lives”.

An alumnus of IMT Ghaziabad, Sumit’s prior assignments have been with JWT, ITC Ltd., Bharti Teletech, Max Life, and Intex Technologies. During this period, he has built many brands and led multiple marketing initiatives aimed at delivering meaningful brand and business outcomes.

Vijaya Bank Q1, 2017-18 Net Jumps Over 57% to Rs 255 Crore

Vijaya Bank has reported 57.5 per cent increase in net profit at Rs 254.69 crore for June quarter owing to healthy growth in retail income aided by a marginal fall in bad loan proportion. 

The public sector bank had registered a net profit of Rs 161.66 crore in the corresponding April-June quarter of 2016- 17 fiscal. 

Total income rose to Rs 3,510.11 crore for the said quarter from Rs 3,295.05 crore a year ago, the bank said in a regulatory filing. 

The gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of the bank fell slightly to 7.30 per cent of the gross advances as on June 30, 2017 from a level of 7.31 per cent a year ago. 

Likewise, net NPAs or bad loans were trimmed to 5.24 per cent as a percentage of net loans by June 30 from 5.42 per cent earlier. 

In absolute terms, gross NPAs were Rs 6,812.21 crore as on June 30, 2017 as against Rs 6,589.23 crore a year ago. 

Net NPA value was Rs 4,784.26 crore compared with Rs 4,792.55 crore a year ago. 

However, the bank made a higher provisioning and contingencies at Rs 423.20 crore for the quarter under review from Rs 267.82 crore a year ago. 

Of this, provisions for NPAs were of the order of Rs 410.99 crore, up from Rs 253 crore a year ago. 

The bank said as per the Reserve Bank's directives on insolvency process, Vijaya Bank is required to provide an estimated amount of Rs 132 crore in respect of NPA accounts covered under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) effective from July 1, 2017. 

"However, the bank has made an adhoc provision of Rs 40 crore during the quarter towards the aforesaid amount. Balance shall be provided equally over remaining three quarters of the financial year," Vijaya Bank said. 

The provision coverage ratio of the bank as on June end stood at 56.01 per cent. 

The bank has declared a final dividend of Rs 1.50 per share for fiscal ended March 2017. 

Axis Bank’s Thought Factory Accelerator Shortlist 3 Startups to Deploy Tech Solutions

Axis Bank, a leading private sector bank has selected three fintech startups from the first batch of its accelerator programme ‘Thought Factory’ whose solutions it will commercially deploy at its business units, it announced at an event on Friday in in Bengaluru.

Six startups, namely S2Pay, Pally, Perpule, FintechLabs, Paymatrix and Gieom graduated from the first batch. Axis Bank will collaborate with Pally, FintechLabs and Gieom for their tech solutions.

Pally is an artificial intelligence stack-based chatbot for investment advisory, FintechLabs offers lending management solutions, and Gieom provides a cloud-based tech for operations management.

“We will pilot these solutions internally before releasing them to our customers. Axis Bank doesn’t take any stake in these startups, neither will we invest in any. We will associate with these startups on a commerce agreement basis,” said Rajiv Anand, executive director, Axis Bank.

Here’s a look at the six startups that have graduated from the Thought Factory:

·       Pally: Using AI, Pally enables businesses in the financial domain to deliver better customer experiences. It has created a chatbot that creates an investment portfolio for tax savings when it is fed an image of a salary slip. The startup was part of the Entrepreneur in Residence program at Kstart, the seed programme from Kalaari Capital.

·       S2Pay: The startup fundamentally enables offline mobile payments. S2Pay’s solution forms a layer over any payments app and users can make secure payments from their mobile app, even when they are offline.

·       Perpule: A Kalaari Capital-funded startup, Perpule allows users to scan products from their mobile app and pay from within the app once the list is complete. The company had raised $650,000 in an angel round from Kstart Capital; Venture Highway; and Raghunandan G, co-founder of TaxiForSure.

·       FintechLabs: This is a lending management platform that offers different analytical models that can be used in the digital spending space. It offers a bunch of solutions including loan management software, peer-to-peer lending marketplace software, bank statement analyser, and ID proof verification software.

·       Paymatrix: This startup is a property rent management platform connecting tenants and landlords. It automates the rent collection process through different payment options, offers customised rental agreements and provides tenant screening services.

·       Gieom: This firm offers cloud-based solutions and analytics to help large firms manage their operations, employee productivity, change management, and risk and compliance. It also helps banks transition smoothly to new IT systems.

Axis Bank announced the launch of its Thought Factory in June 2016, which it said will be an innovation lab facility aimed at accelerating the development of innovative technology solutions for the banking sector. It then selected Mumbai-based technology startup accelerator Zone Startups to manage its accelerator programme.

The Thought Factory also runs an in-house incubator where it is working with three other startups to build innovative products. The bank is building a chatbot with Active AI to provide speedy redressal of customer queries via chat, an AI-based smart video-surveillance product with Uncanny Vision; and an innovation management platform with Worxogo that uses persuasive technology for aligning work behaviours with work processes.

Additionally, the accelerator programme conducts a startup boot camp, a two-month programme for grad startup ideas under its ‘Future of Jobs; initiative. Five student teams of two members each will be provided with a hands-on mentorship programme for pursuing their ideas and converting them into real businesses. 

For the programme, Axis Bank has collaborated with OCBC Bank, Visa Innovation Lab (Singapore), and Amazon Web Services (India) for co-innovating. Its tech advisory board comprises of Sharad Sharma (iSpirit), Manish Chokhani (Enam), Vishal Gondal (Founder, GoQii) and Shankar Narayan (Singapore-based serial entrepreneur), besides Axis Bank’s senior management.

Unity Tech Announces Centre Of Excellence For Industry Solutions, Skills Development IN Partnership With Veative Labs

Unity Technologies, creators of the world’s most popular creation engine which reaches nearly 3 billion devices and powers nearly 2/3rds of all Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) content, today announced a partnership with Veative Labs to launch a Center of Excellence (CoE) at Veative’s India office in Noida (NCR). Together Unity and Veative Labs, the creator of high quality 3D, VR, AR and Mixed Reality (MR) learning content, will employ over 300 full-time skilled resources as it builds the largest content library outside of gaming in offices in India and several other countries.

The CoE will focus on providing immersive technology solutions for academics (school and university education), skill development, vocational training, and enterprise applications for industries such as  defense, tourism, retail, construction and engineering. The center aims at creating an umbrella framework for actions pertaining to 3D/AR/VR and to be a platform for adapting the best practices in the evolving domains.  The centre will bring a better learning experience to Unity developers around the globe with high quality 3D, VR, AR and MR content and teaching tools. The CoE will give a platform to rising developers to connect, collaborate and interact with each other and will be given specialized skills training program.

The CoE will also provide support for local governments toward training and development, testing and certification and help set occupational standards using immersive technologies.

Industry Potential

Unity is uniquely positioned to leverage this opportunity and has been empowering developers globally to create content across domains. Unity mobile developers have generated an estimated $12.4 billion USD in net revenue over the past two years, with 18% of all 2015/16 Worldwide Net Mobile Games Revenue coming from content developed on Unity platforms.

Quentin Staes-Polet, Director South Asia/ANZ, Unity Technologies, said, ‘’Unity is the leading platform for developing a broad range of applications from games to the quickly evolving worlds of virtual and mixed reality production. Veative shares our vision for rapid innovation, and we are excited to partner with them to accelerate creation and continue bridging the gap between a booming industry and qualified developers’’.

Vipin Goyal, Director Strategy & Operations Veative Labs, said, “We are delighted to be a preferred partner with Unity Technologies and launch a Center of Excellence. Industry has a lot of needs and tremendous opportunity to benefit from high end immersive experience using 3D/AR/VR/MR technologies. This is just the beginning of a much bigger journey for us. Veative’s mission is to make a difference in this space and become a leader in providing effective 3D/AR/VR/MR interactive content and solutions to make immersive experience affordable to masses and an integral part of our day to day life.”