People

Inflation in Argentina at historic high 21%; government targets 5% by 2019

Argentina is struggling from soaring inflation, which is hovering at 21 percent. The inflation rate is expected to reach 25 percent in 2016. The government is targeting to bring it down to five percent by 2019. The soaring prices are forcing consumers to pay everything in installments.


3 American banks earn $6 bln from overdraft fee, ATM

JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America (BoA) and Wells Fargo earned over $6 billion from ATM service and overdraft fees. For the first time, US government in 2015 allowed banks to disclose details from ATM and overdraft fee revenues. The US banking consumers pay in the range of $4 to $5 to withdraw money from an out-of-network ATM.

Drought leaves SA farmers owing $7.5 bln to banks

The debt burden of South African farmers reached to over Rand 125 billion ($7.5 billion). The total debt of farmers was up 14 percent in 2015 to Rand117 billion. Economists alert that the prevailing slump in commodities markets, tighter monetary, fiscal policy, drought conditions and drop in value of Rand will trigger higher than expected inflation rate.

African startups commence 2016 with $10mln investment

Technology startups in Africa may get $10 million funding in early 2016 as Silvertree Capital sees the rosy picture. Silvertree Internet Holdings is keen on scaling technology and commerce companies and has already invested $5 million in business building operations and acquisitions. South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya are favored the most among African countries.


Latest News

Cartel kingpin El Chapo was recaptured on Friday, after his second escape from Mexico's top-security prison through a tunnel. The operation involves Mexican marine, aids from U.S authorities, as well as numbers of informants that adds up to more than 2,500 security and intellectual agents.
Morgan Stanley, has been reported to tatter with its fixed income division. Following the industry precedence of changing or reshuffling the executives, it has named Sam Kellie- Smith as the head of fixed income and commodities. The Wall Street Bank’s recent moves haven’t surprised the analysts at all.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has finally agreed to pay $5.1 billion on Wednesday to resolve a seven years’ pending dispute over faulty mortgage securities. The penalty amount remains lower compared to those counted by other Wall Street competitors. Fourth quarter profit of the firm may be hit by the penalty counting. But investors welcome the settlement and its share price rises by 1.5% on Thursday.
Hyundai Corp is expected to recall Elantra model vehicles from February 2016 onwards. It's noticed that the malfunctioning of electronic stability control system will suddenly result in reduction of engine power. The South Korean automobile major may recall over 150,000 Elantra vehicles to fix the stability control system in the vehicles.
Google’s product management VP, Clay Bavor, is appointed as the head of its newly created virtual reality (VR) computing division, showing that the tech company is now taking aggressive moves in the VR industry.
California Lottery Association announced Wednesday that the winning ticket for the $1.5 billion Powerball lottery is in Chino Hills in San Bernardino County.
Uber has changed its driver recruitment policy and advised the previously rejected applicant seeking for drivers’ job to take the benefit of proposition 47. This law allows nonviolent criminal offenders to downgrade their offence level to misdemeanor through submitting applications. Uber’s effort is believed to benefit the released inmates who aim to rebuild their lives.
GoPro Inc., Sun Mateo, California based company is going to cut 7% people out of its 1500 employees following poor sales revenue in Q4. Some technical issues have been blamed for sluggish sales during the fourth quarter from the action camera maker’s behalf. But the company axes over the employees to restructure expenses. However, analysts presume, the fall in sales revenue may not be up to that magnitude.
The United Nation released a report on Tuesday revealing that the migration rate has surge by 41 percent in 15 years. The report also shows that the United States is leading the ranking with the most migrants living in the country.
Amazon has recently updated its Echo Smart speaker. The added features include playing Jeopardy through voice commands. This trigger word makes the artificially intelligent in built smart speaker to respond and get engaged with question- answer phrases. The updated Echo smart speaker will be charged through docked stations instead of traditional plugging in system round the clock.