The UK government has announced the launch of a new research agency, which will pursue areas of science and technology with the potential to generate ground-breaking discoveries and transformative technology in the long term. Plans for a research agency dedicated to this type of research were first announced in 2019. The agency is inspired by … Read more
A major global survey of consumers and business leaders has suggested there is a growing belief among consumers and business leaders that robots handle financial tasks better than humans. According to the study by software infrastructure firm Oracle and personal finance expert Farnoosh Torabi, 2020 appears to have changed our relationship with money, with people … Read more
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has presented the Union Budget 2021-22 in Parliament on 1 February. Here are some highlights. Sitharaman described this as a digital Budget. There has been a manifold increase in digital payments in the recent past. To give a further boost to digital transactions, a sum of Rs 1,500 crore (15bn rupees, … Read more
Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency could finally launch in January, the Financial Times (FT) has reported citing three sources involved in the project. The social network originally announced the project last year, with tentative plans to launch in 2020 as a way to encourage people to make more financial transactions online. The payment method revolves around a digital … Read more
Projects which will explore medical deliveries by drone, hydrogen delivery aircraft, and retrofitting aircraft with electric propulsion are among 20 to receive funding from the UK government. The £7m funding is part of the £33.5m available via the ‘Future Flight Challenge’, which aims to develop technologies to enable new classes of aircraft and reduce reliance … Read more
The EU Commission will “certainly not stand in [the] way” of governments which plan to decarbonise by building new nuclear power stations, said Frans Timmermans, the EU Commissioner for Climate Action. Nuclear power accounts for 27 per cent of electricity generated across the EU and approximately half of low-carbon electricity. Member states have varying attitudes … Read more
PayPal has been granted a licence by the New York State Department of Financial Services, allowing it to roll out cryptocurrency payments via PayPal accounts from early 2021. The Department granted PayPal a Bitlicense, which regulates any company or individual based in New York which uses virtual currencies. A limited number of companies have been … Read more