Redmi K20 Pro India Launch Date, Samsung M40 Sale, Poco F1 Price Cut, Asus 6Z, and More Tech News This Week

Redmi K20 Pro, Redmi K20 India launch details, Samsung M40 sale, Poco F1 price cut, and Asus 6Z launch were some of the tech news developments this week.

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ICC's proposal for ODI World Cup every three years shot down

via Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Live Match Scores & Sports News Headlines, Results & more http://bit.ly/31RjXy9

England need a win against Australia to stay on course

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Debit cards show up more at retail stores, less at ATMs

MUMBAI: Bank customers are increasingly getting comfortable making payments through debit cards on swipe machines at kirana stores and local retail outlets. Latest data from the RBI show that over a third of all debit card transactions were made at point of sale (PoS) terminals in April this year for the first time since demonetisation.With about 80-crore withdrawals worth Rs 2.84 lakh crore in April, ATM transactions made for just over 66% of overall debit card transaction volume. PoS machines registered the rest 34% of the transaction volume in this period. The only other time the ATM transaction share fell below the two-thirds mark was in December 2016 — a month after demonetisation — when it was at 60.3% and PoS transactions at 39.7%, owing to the lack of cash in the system.The transaction share was 68.6% to 31.4% for ATMs and PoS in March this year while in January, ATMs made up for over 70% of debit card transaction volume share, an analysis of RBI data showed.The Reserve Bank of India, in its payments vision document published in May 2019, has set an objective of achieving a PoS-based debit card transaction share of 44% by 2021 to push New Delhi’s goal of a lesscash digital economy. With increasing number of banks, both public sector and private sector, aggressively deploying swipe machines across small stores in the country, bankers say that cardbased digital transactions are only set to gain share from here on.“While absolute cash continues to dominate India’s payment landscape, an advancement in technology and better cost-benefit economics make deployment of POS devices a new business avenue for banks,” said Surinder Chawla, head retail liabilities and wealth management, RBL Bank. The private sector bank has been one of the leading acquirer banks in terms of PoS deployment with over 7 lakh functional terminals across the country. Currently, there are about 37.5 lakh active PoS terminals deployed by public, private and payment banks. “We see PoS deployment not as profit-making business model, but more as a tool to increase customer engagement on their primary accounts… Historically, these devices have found more traction in tier-1 urban centres but over the past four years, most volume has been coming from tier-2 and tier-3 cities and also from ecommerce sites,” Chawla said.Since 2016, PoS deployment has grown at an annual rate of almost 39% to 37.5 lakh terminals in April 2019. In this period, banks barely added 7000 ATMs to their fleet of 2 lakh such machines. The saturation in ATM growth has largely been due to the high cost of setting up and maintaining these machines, say experts.“We have seen ATM growth stalling over the past few years. However, they remain the key access infrastructure for most people’s cash needs in this country… Low interchange fee, high maintenance costs and high security compliances have held banks back from deploying ATMs especially in rural India,” said Radha Rama Dorai, managing director ATM business, FIS and a member of India’s ATM industry body CATMi.India’s ATM penetration is amongst the worst for any major economy. While China, the US, Germany, Brazil and South Africa all had a per capita ATM deployment rate of under 2,000, India’s ATM deployment rate was at 5,919 in 2017, according to RBI’s Benchmarking Payments report.

from Economic Times http://bit.ly/2X58tID

Shakib Al Hasan eyes India upset after Bangladesh boost bid for World Cup semis

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L&T inches closer to sealing the Mindtree deal

MUMBAI: Nalanda Capital is exiting Mindtree, having tendered its entire 10.6 per cent stake in the open offer by Larsen & Toubro on Monday, said sources aware of the development. Nalanda founder Pulok Prasad had opposed the takeover and held out against it for months. The fund will make a four-fold return on its investment if it sells all its shares.The turnabout was attributed to the regulator having written to the Singapore-based public market fund, asking if it was acting in concert with the founders of Mindtree without triggering an open offer, sources said.This came after a handful of institutional investors in L&T and Mindtree wrote to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), complaining against Prasad for allegedly provoking minority investors of Mindtree, ET reported on June 11. The investors asked the markets regulator to investigate if Prasad was acting in concert with Mindtree’s promoters and other investors opposed to L&T’s takeover.If so, according to the letter, their combined shareholding as persons acting in concert (PAC) exceeded the regulatory threshold of 25 per cent, beyond which they needed to make an open offer to counter that of L&T.Proxy advisory firm Ingovern also wrote to Sebi earlier this month on the issue, citing the independent directors’ committee recommendation of June 12.The committee found L&T’s offer of Rs 980 a share a “fair and reasonable one.”Legal sources said that even after tendering its shares, Nalanda, registered as a foreign portfolio investor (FPI) with Sebi, will have to respond to the show cause notice or face penal action by the regulator.Nalanda, the single largest institutional investor in the midcap company, had from the start been vocal about its opposition to L&T’s $1.6-billion “hostile takeover attempts,” with Prasad rallying support from other minority shareholders such as Baburaj Pillai’s Singapore-based Arohi Asset Management Pte, which holds 2.44 per cent.Prasad was of the opinion that L&T had undervalued Mindtree and that investors should hold out for a better deal. Nalanda’s average acquisition cost in Mindtree was Rs 260 per share and it has been holding its stake for 10 years, adding up to a 276 per cent return at Rs 1,254 crore if it manages to cash out entirely. The Sensex, in comparison, gained 168 per cent in the same 10-year period.Prasad did not respond to queries and neither did Sebi.Sources said Sebi has not yet received any response from Nalanda.L&T currently has a 48 per cent stake, said people with knowledge of the matter. It mounted the takeover bid in March after entering into a deal to buy Cafe Coffee Day owner VG Siddhartha’s 20.32 per cent and placed an order with brokers to pick up another 15 per cent. It has been buying from Nemish Shah’s Enam Holdings, White Oak, Avendus Capital, HDFC Life Insurance and other public shareholders, such as mutual funds and foreign institutional investors (FIIs).Subsequently, L&T launched an open offer for 51.3 million shares, or 31 per cent of Mindtree. It aims to take its holding to 66 per cent. Another institutional investor, Amansa Capital, sold its 2.6 per cent stake last Friday, while UTI Asset Management is likely to tender its 3 per cent holding later this week.In the past few weeks, backchannel negotiations have seen the founders tone down their hostility. In a message to shareholders in the FY19 annual report, executive chairman Krishnakumar Natarajan and CEO and managing director Rostow Ravanan wrote that shareholders’ interests were paramount. 69935832 THAW IN THE BOARDROOMLast week saw Mindtree giving the nod to L&T representatives on the board. The board will seek shareholder approval at the annual general meeting, scheduled in July, to induct five new members. They include three non-executive directors —SN Subrahmanyan, chief executive and managing director, L&T; R Shankar Raman, chief financial officer, L&T; and Jayant Patil, senior executive vice-president (defence business), L&T.The others are independent directors — Prasanna Rangacharya Mysore and Deepa Wadhwa. Subroto Bagchi, one of the founders and a critic of the takeover, won’t seek reappointment.This latest move is seen as a thaw in the relationship, since the appointments came through board resolutions and were vetted by the nominations committe. 69876563 69901450 69765244

from Economic Times http://bit.ly/2N9BG0x

Modi's healthcare plan has a Korean twist

SEOUL/NEW DELHI: India is looking at the South Korean model for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship universal healthcare programme, Ayushman Bharat, much in line with the government’s inclination to look at development models in east Asian countries rather than Europe or the US.The country has already borrowed important lessons from different countries for its 10-month-old Ayushman Bharat national health insurance scheme, but is now looking closely at South Korea’s universal healthcare programme, which covers primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare, for inspiration.“We have a proposal to study South Korea’s technological innovations in their universal healthcare programme,” said Indu Bhushan, CEO at Ayushman Bharat. “A team would be visiting soon.”ET takes a look at why Modi administration is looking at its newest international trade partner South Korea in the health insurance sector:THE SOUTH KOREAN MODELWhile India launched Ayushman Bharat, which is termed as world’s largest health insurance scheme, in 2018, South Korea is one of the earliest countries to ensure universal healthcare through an Act of Parliament. It enacted Medical Insurance Act in 1963 and started contributive medical insurance programme for employees of large companies. Gradually by 1988, this scheme was extended to local medical insurance in rural areas. In 1999, South Korea enacted National Health Insurance Act and within a year established National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) to bring in a singlepayer healthcare system.About 97% of the Korean population is covered by a contributory health insurance scheme and the rest 3% poorest of the poor segment is under government public health insurance scheme. The country is ranked first in healthcare access among high-income OECD countries.The poorest of the poor do not pay and are managed through the Medical Aid Programme, which is financed by the central and local governments, but administered (including payments to providers) through the health insurance system. Be it cancer screening or a small illness, Medical Aid provides free treatment and reimburses the provider.NHIS under the health ministry oversees the contributory scheme, which has different procedures for employees and self-employed insured. The employee’s contribution depends on his income and varies between $20 and $6,000 per month. For the self-employed, declared income, immoveable assets, age, property and vehicle ownership and gender are taken into account before deciding the monthly insurance contribution. It varies between $11 and $3,000 per month.Every year, NHIS and heads of six types of institutions – hospitals, clinics, oriental medicine, dental clinics, pharmaceuticals, and maternity hospitals – sit across the table in May to decide fee schedules of each healthcare facility and procedures. These are declared in June. In case, negotiations fail, a high-level committee under the health ministry declares them. These fee schedules are uniform and effective for a year.“We have changed our system over the years,” Inseok Yang, general manager of NHIS’ department of international relations and cooperation, told ET. “When we started, healthcare providers, just like in India, did not want to join it. But gradually they realised that most of the people were going to empanelled healthcare centres. This changed their attitude.Now we have a uniform fee system and all hospitals are part of the scheme.”One of the biggest successes of Korea’s universal healthcare programme, according to Yang, has been the technological interface. It is a paperless system that has data of 50 million people accumulated over decades. For the user – both healthcare providers and beneficiaries – it means glitchfree insurance claims. The claim is electronically processed by Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA), which reviews for any frauds or abuse. The results are relayed electronically to NHIS, which provides the reimbursements. If India’s National Health Agency reimburses hospital bills within 15 days, NHIS verifies and reimburses the claims on the same day. “We have kept an official limit of 45 days, but in reality this is done on the same day,” Yang said.LESSONS FOR INDIAOne of the biggest lessons for India is to go paperless. “The attempt is now to go completely paperless and depend on IT interface to process claims and check frauds at the same time,” said Kiran Anandampillai, who has helped in setting up Ayushman Bharat’s IT platform.South Korea’s NHIS has 3.4 trillion data points, which have been used for various purposes. With all Koreans covered with insurance scheme and entitled to periodic health checks, the data is now being used to give personalised health advice.The biggest use that South Korea has put the data to has been in filing lawsuits against tobacco companies. With specific data, NHIS was able to calculate quantum it was spending in treating diseases related to smoking.THE CHALLENGES AHEADSouth Korea’s universal healthcare system faces a challenge in its gatekeeping system. Unlike Ayushman Bharat, which is linked to Aadhar, South Korea’s system has no such checks. “There could be cases where a person can use another’s identity,” Yang said. “We can learn from India’s unique identification card.”(The correspondent was in Seoul at the invitation of Korea Foundation)

from Economic Times http://bit.ly/2x9fQzm