antitrust-concerns:-us-government-wants-to-prevent-plaid-takeover-by-visa

Antitrust concerns: US government wants to prevent Plaid takeover by Visa

The US Department of Justice has filed an antitrust complaint against Visa’s proposed multi-billion dollar takeover of financial technology company Plaid. The US government fears that with the purchase Visa would neutralize an emerging major competitor. As a result, Visa illegally gains a monopoly position, which would lead to higher prices, less innovation and higher entry barriers for similar services, the Wall Street Journal quotes from the Ministry’s statement.

Billion dollar takeover planned Visa had announced in January that it would take over Plaid for 5.3 billion dollars (4.7 billion euros) . The takeover was supposed to be completed within three to six months, but that didn’t work out. The Wall Street Journal continues to report that Visa is now brusquely rejecting the objection by the US Department of Justice. The lawsuit is “legally flawed and is counteracted by the facts”. The combination of Visa and Plaid would bring substantial benefits to consumers. The plan will be vigorously defended. Visa has already invested in Plaid as a venture capitalist, so it already holds a stake.

Plaid links various payment apps with bank accounts and thus provides the infrastructure for the in the USA popular service Venmo. At some point, this could enable consumers to transfer payments directly from bank accounts to merchants, and it would undermine Visa’s business, according to the US newspaper. Visa is primarily active in the licensing business. The company issues licenses to banks to issue payment cards, as well as licenses for the settlement of transactions with shops and other companies.

(mho)

samsung’s-new-vizion-33d-tof-sensor-can-track-objects-at-120-fps-at-up-to-5m-distance

Samsung’s new Vizion 33D ToF sensor can track objects at 120 fps at up to 5m distance

Samsung’s new ISOCELL Vizion 33D is a Time of Flight (ToF) 3D sensor that can provide accurate distance data and track fast-moving objects for the purposes of faster autofocus and video bokeh.

The sensor produces depth maps with 640 x 480 px resolution. It can measure distances as between 0.2m and all the way to 5m (16 ft) with 10 or 12-bit resolution. It can go up to 120 fps for low-latency tracking.

When used as an autofocus assist, it requires 200 mW of power (for both sensor and IR illumination). For continuous tracking as needed by, say, AR games and video bokeh rendering, power use goes up to 400 mW, but that still shouldn’t drain the phone’s battery too quickly.

The Deep Trench Isolation tech that is part of ISOCELL reduces cross talk between pixels, which helps the sensor cleanly separate the subject from the background.

The Vizion 33D sensor can also be used for face ID, to secure mobile payment apps and phone unlocking, so you might see this sensor next to the selfie camera, not just at the back.

Samsung already used a ToF sensor on the Galaxy S20 Ultra and it is expected to promote its new sensor by adding it to future smartphones as well as other devices. Currently, Sony is the market leader in ToF sensor production with a 50% share (iPads and iPhones use Sony sensors).

Source | Via (in Korean)

stop-the-listing-of-ant-group,-alibaba-and-jack-ma's-digital-payments

Stop the listing of Ant Group, Alibaba and Jack Ma's digital payments

The Chinese authorities suspend the IPO biggest ever: the necessary requirements for some recently amended regulations are missing, but there is no clarity on the actual reason

of Andrea Bai published on , at 18: 41 in the Market channel

Alibaba

It had been defined “the mother of all IPOs” or “the biggest IPO ever” and all those formulas that are normally used to describe something really big. We are talking about the listing of Ant Group , a company specializing in digital payments and initially scheduled for Thursday 5 November. “Initially” is the key word: China has in fact decided to suspend the listing of Ant Group, with which the company had planned to sell the 11% of its shares for a valuation of 34, 4 billion dollars.

We talk about it because Ant Group was born from Alipay , the digital payment arm of Alibaba born in 2011 and subsequently separated. Jack Ma , founder of Alibaba, is the main shareholder of Ant Group and the two companies have always maintained relationships privileged.

Stop the biggest IPO ever: Jack Ma’s Ant Group

The Shanghai Stock Exchange has notified that it had pointed out to Ma, some “important problems” that could have led to the freezing of the listing for the lack of the necessary requirements. Among the problems also some changes in the “regulatory environment of financial technology”.

On Monday 2 November the Chinese authorities summoned Jack Ma, the president of Ant Group Eric Jin and the CEO Simon Hu . Although the reasons for the meeting are not entirely clear, the authorities would nevertheless have announced that they wanted to start a more careful review of the group’s financial activities, as well as determining new restrictions on lending activities that would be in direct competition with those of the traditional banking system. The move by the authorities of the People’s Republic is therefore configured as the desire to establish a more rigid regulatory framework for those large entities that now populate the sector fintech Chinese.

Currently Alipay can count on over 1.2 billion users worldwide, operating on over 50 different markets. But Ant Financial also offers current account, insurance and asset management services in direct competition with banks. The spread of the Covid pandemic – 19 then prompted the company to activate credit lines for small activities and to increase consumer credit. A competition, that towards the banking system, which Beijing obviously does not look favorably upon.

Ant Group has made it known that it is ready to acknowledge the opinions expressed during the meeting even if, as mentioned, there are no further details on the subject of the call. However, the crux of the matter seems to concern microloan activities and in particular new capital requirements to be able to grant them, as well as new licenses for operations on a national scale.