BANKING
ANZ plans Myanmar exit
Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) plans to withdraw from Myanmar by next year citing increasing “operational complexity,” underscoring how global companies are turning cautious on the country after a military coup last year. The move to cease operations in Myanmar is subject to local regulatory approval and the lender has been “working with its institutional customers to transition to alternative banking arrangements,” it said in a statement yesterday. ANZ has operated in Myanmar since 2015, and has a small local team focused on supporting the onshore and cross-border needs of multinational companies, which includes services such as facilitating payroll, it said in the statement.
INTERNET
Twitter holds off blue check
Twitter Inc’s new owner Elon Musk on Monday said that the social media company is holding off the relaunch of its blue check subscription service, a delay from his initial tentative timeline to bring back the service on the platform. “Holding off relaunch of Blue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation,” Musk wrote on Twitter. “Will probably use different color check for organizations than individuals.” Musk also posted that Twitter added 1.6 million users this past week, “another all-time high.”
TECHNOLOGY
Dell projection disappoints
Dell Technologies Inc projected revenue in the current quarter that fell short of analysts’ estimates, saying economic uncertainty has begun to affect information technology customers. Sales are to be as much as US$24 billion in the quarter ending in January, chief financial officer Tom Sweet said in a conference call. Analysts, on average, projected US$24.9 billion. Profit is to be US$1.50 to US$1.80 a share, compared with analysts’ average estimate of US$1.61. Forecasting for the upcoming fiscal year is difficult, as economic uncertainty is dampening IT spending intentions, Sweet said on the call. “Some customers have paused purchases in the near term.”
TECHNOLOGY
IBM sues Micro Focus
International Business Machines Corp (IBM) sued Micro Focus International PLC, alleging it contracted with IBM to develop software applications for its mainframe systems and then copied its programs to create a competing product. In the lawsuit, filed on Monday in federal court in New York, IBM claims the Newbury, UK-based firm copied software for its Customer Information Control System Transaction Server, or CICS TS, which allows companies to run mainframe applications for operations such as travel requests and payroll online, and communicate with other systems. IBM’s lawsuit against Micro Focus seeks unspecified damages for claims of copyright infringement and breach of contract.
GERMANY
Draft law unveiled
The government is to allow companies benefiting from gas and electricity price caps to pay dividends and bonuses, a draft law showed yesterday. However, companies receiving direct capital aid would not be permitted to distribute dividends or bonuses, the draft showed. The topic is to be discussed again when the bill is presented to parliament next month, as there has been no agreement among the ruling coalition parties about it. The draft said a planned levy to skim off windfall profits from electricity firms should apply retroactively from Sept. 1
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
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