Also in this letter:
■ No more extensions, implement card tokenisation by Oct 1: RBI
■ Amazon India launches live commerce during festive season sale
■ Sebi to restart review of $440 million Digit Insurance IPO: report
Meta halts hiring, plans ‘restructuring’ as recession fears hit Big Tech
Meta Platforms is the latest Big Tech firm to announce a pause in hiring and subsequent restructuring amid fears of a global recession. These fears have been triggered by high inflation, a prolonged war between Russia and Ukraine, global supply chain shortages and dwindling ad spends.
Catch up quick: The Facebook parent’s decision comes after similar announcements by tech majors such as Apple, Microsoft and Google. In June, Meta said it planned to cut its hiring of engineers by at least 30% this year.
Worryingly, this is possibly the first time since the 2008 financial crisis that Apple and Google have cut their headcounts and frozen hiring.
According to data compiled by Crunchbase, over 32,000 US tech workers, including those at Big Tech firms, had been laid off as of late July.
Zuck talk: “I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilised by now, but from what we’re seeing it doesn’t yet seem like it has, so we want to plan somewhat conservatively,” Zuckerberg told employees during a weekly Q&A session, Bloomberg reported. His comments come two days after World Trade Organisation chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said a recession was around the corner.
Nasdaq bloodbath: Apple shares buckled on Thursday, wiping off $120 billion from its market cap, after a rare analyst downgrade exacerbated another wave of selling pressure. The iPhone maker dropped 4.9%, dragging other Big Tech firms down with it. Amazon and Alphabet shed nearly 3%, while Microsoft dropped 1.5%.
Shopee layoffs: Meanwhile, layoffs at ecommerce platform Shopee – owned by Singapore’s Sea Ltd – have gathered pace. The company has also asked sacked employees to pay for damaged work computers to the tune of $349 per Apple system.
Also Read: Google to wind down Stadia game streaming service
No more extensions, implement card tokenisation by Oct 1: RBI
The Reserve Bank of India on Friday signalled it would not extend the October 1 deadline for companies to implement tokenisation of card-based payments.
What’s that? Tokenisation is a process by which credit and debit card details are replaced by a unique code or token, allowing online purchases to go through without exposing sensitive data. The central bank’s new rule requires all merchants to delete customers’ debit and credit card details before October 1 and replace them with unique tokens.
Driving the news: RBI deputy governor T Rabi Sankar said the central bank would not hold back innovation because a few stakeholders weren’t prepared.
“The feedback that we have from virtually all stakeholders is that it (tokenisation) is perfectly ready,” Sankar said. “I believe there are a few participants who may not be ready, but that would largely be because of their unwillingness to comply.”
Sankar said about 35 crore tokens had already been created and about 40% of transactions – worth Rs 63 crore – in September were made using tokens.
No more extensions: After three extensions in the past 18 months, the RBI said in July it would not extend the tokenisation deadline again and told all stakeholders, except for card issuers and card networks, to purge customers’ data before October 1.
“We have given many extensions so that the system is comfortable switching over,” Sankar said.
Recurring payments fears: We reported recently that top merchants had asked the RBI to direct banks, payment aggregators and card networks to ensure that recurring token-based payments had been tested widely to avoid disruptions.
Amazon India launches live commerce during festive season sale
Amazon said it has launched a live commerce feature in India called Amazon Live, which will let customers interact with content creators. These creators will showcase products, answer customers’ questions in real time, run polls, and offer limited-duration deals, the company said.
We were the first to report on September 14 that Amazon planned to launch live commerce ahead of the festive season sale, which kicked off on September 23.
Details: Amazon Live will run 15 live streams from 10 am to 1 am every day. More than 150 content creators are live-streaming during the ongoing Amazon Great Indian Festival, the company said.
The company has already run live commerce sessions with celebrities such as badminton player PV Sindhu and actor Parineeti Chopra, Kishore Thota, director, customer experience and marketing, Amazon India, told us.
“We want to make the shopping experience exciting and meaningful for our customers, while allowing brands to have a deeper engagement that resonates with today’s savvy shoppers,” he added.
Tweet of the day
Sebi to restart review of $440 million Digit Insurance IPO: report
India’s markets regulator will restart a review of a $440-million initial public offering of Digit Insurance after the company resolved certain compliance issues that had led to the regulator putting the process on hold, Reuters reported, citing two sources.
Catch up quick: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) put Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa-backed Digit Insurance IPO’s in “abeyance” earlier this month, saying certain observations had been issued, but did not elaborate.
Reuters has previously reported that the regulator was concerned that privately-held Digit issued shares to more than 200 individuals in the past financial year, which is not allowed under Indian laws and regulations.
Resolved: One of the sources said Digit gave an explanation to the regulator about the share issue, which the company said did not violate the regulations. Sebi agreed with Digit’s reasoning and decided to remove the IPO’s “abeyance” status from Monday and restart the review process.
Viceroy targets child safety, protecting minors’ data in second Truecaller report
After putting the spotlight on Truecaller’s potential tax fraud and redundant business model, activist short-seller Viceroy Research has turned its attention to how the company’s software allegedly collects data of minors.
Viceroy Research, a US-based international investigative financial research group, said it had fielded calls from concerned data protection specialists in India on how Truecaller handles consent for minors.
To be sure, Truecaller’s privacy policy says the company does not intentionally collect data from those under the age of consent for entering into binding legal contracts.
Indian laws say people under the age of 18 cannot enter into such contracts. Obtaining child consent has no legal validity in the country and the consent of a guardian is required.
Stock walloped: The Sequoia-backed company’s shares fell over 2.3% intraday on Thursday to 39.99 Swedish kronor (SEK). This followed its over 20% rout on the Nasdaq Stockholm on Wednesday.
Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Zaheer Merchant in Mumbai and Gaurab Dasgupta in New Delhi. Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi.
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