From 0 to 1631, Fifteen Years of China’s Village Banks; Buffett’s Record in China

Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1223

From 0 to 1631, Fifteen Years of China’s Village Banks

The risk events of village and town banks in some areas made this thing that started in 2006 attract many people’s attention.

China’s rural financial system has undergone several rounds of reforms since 1979. From the establishment of rural credit cooperative foundations across the country in the mid-1980s, to the establishment of a large number of rural credit cooperative banks in 1995, to the reform of rural credit cooperatives in 2003, the the problem of non-performing assets.

In 2006, a new round of rural financial reform was launched. The Central No. 1 document of that year proposed to “allow private capital and foreign capital to participate in rural community financial institutions”, “vigorously cultivate small loan organizations initiated by natural persons, corporate legal persons or corporate legal persons”, ” Guide farmers to develop mutual fund organizations and standardize private lending.” At the end of the year, the then China Banking Regulatory Commission issued “Several Opinions on Adjusting and Relaxing the Access Policy of Banking Financial Institutions in Rural Areas to Better Support the Construction of a New Socialist Countryside”.

China’s rural financial market has entered the period of village banks.

Sichuan Yilong Huimin Rural Bank is the first rural bank in China. It was established on March 1, 2007. Its shareholders include Nanchong Commercial Bank and five enterprises. On December 13 at the end of the year, the first foreign-funded rural bank opened, Hubei Suizhou Zengdu HSBC Rural Bank Co., Ltd. The bank is a wholly-owned subsidiary of HSBC.

On March 1, 2007, China’s first rural bank, Sichuan Yilong Huimin Rural Bank, was established. Click to see larger picture

Rural banks are different from rural commercial banks in terms of positioning, nature and entry threshold. For example, the registered capital of a rural commercial bank shall not be less than 50 million yuan, and the requirements for rural banks vary according to the place of establishment and the type of establishment, and the minimum amount is from 1 million yuan to 100 million yuan. This is also one of the necessary conditions for its rapid development later.

After the impact of the financial crisis in 2008 gradually subsided, the strong financing needs of regional small and medium-sized enterprises and relatively rigid net interest margins accelerated the establishment of village banks, which reached a peak in 2011 and registered 291 village banks a year. Rapid growth is in line with the top-level design of the China Banking Regulatory Commission. According to a plan in 2009, the competent authority hopes to establish 1,027 village and township banks from 2009 to 2011.

Huaan Securities, based on the statistics of Wind financial institutions, counted from Sichuan Yilong Huimin Rural Bank in 2007, China’s rural banks have grown from 0 to 1,631 in 15 years, with total assets of about 2 trillion yuan.

If these village banks are classified by the nature of their enterprises, there are 802 local state-owned enterprises (49.17%), 724 private enterprises (44.38%), and 92 central state-owned enterprises (6.45%). Shandong (126), Hebei (104) and Guizhou (84) are the provincial administrative regions with the largest number of village banks.

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Qian Shuitu, deputy director of the Agricultural and Rural Committee of the Zhejiang Provincial Political Consultative Conference, said in a paper that the 2006 round of reform was an incremental reform to explore the pilot opening of the rural financial market. financial backwardness.

He mentioned that the new type of village and town bank with private capital participation has “brought unprecedented impact” to the rural credit cooperatives, not only because the loan process of the former is much simpler, but also because the card of the shareholder’s bank can be issued to realize the national network. Pay all over the country. Taking Yilong, Sichuan as an example, when the village bank was established, the local rural credit cooperatives had not yet achieved city-level networking.

However, Zhang Yichun, director of the Finance Research Institute of Xiamen University, pointed out in an observation article published in the 23rd issue of “China Finance” in 2011 that the establishment of village banks is to provide “financial services for farmers, agriculture and rural economic development”, but agriculture is a weak industry. Farmers are scattered individuals and vulnerable groups, and rural areas are underdeveloped areas, which makes the risks of “three rural” loans far greater than industrial and commercial loans and loans to urban areas. Rural banks rely on the main sponsoring bank to realize inter-bank capital inflow and outflow, which also lays hidden dangers for future risks.

According to the statistics of CICC, the return on assets of new rural financial institutions (village banks, loan companies, and rural mutual cooperatives) dropped from 1.42% in 2014 to 0.66% in 2018, and the return on capital dropped from 10.1% to 5.62% , the agricultural non-performing loan ratio rose from 0.8% to 3.3%.

According to statistics from the “2021 Rural Bank Research Report”, from 2018 to 2020, the non-performing loan ratio of rural banks will increase from 3.66% to 4%.

After the outbreak of COVID-19, the macroeconomic environment has changed dramatically. On January 5, 2021, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued the “Notice on Further Promoting the Reform and Restructuring of Rural Banks to Resolve Risks”, which mentioned that “a few rural banks have gradually deteriorated into high-risk institutions”. In the same month, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and the People’s Bank of China officially issued regulations on the management of Internet deposit products, requiring commercial banks to invite deposits only through self-operated channels, and prohibiting the use of Internet companies’ traffic pools to invite customers to open accounts. (Gong Fangyi)

Buffett’s China record

A stock registration system of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange showed that on July 11, an extra 225 million shares of BYD (1211.HK) were in the account of the intermediary Citibank. The market presumes that these stocks belong to Buffett. In view of the process and practice of selling stocks by major shareholders of Hong Kong stocks, the market speculates that Buffett is about to liquidate BYD.

• After the news was released on July 12, BYD’s Hong Kong shares fell about 12%, and A shares fell more than 7% at one point. On the one hand, the market panic is because the 225 million shares account for about 20.5% of the share capital of Yadi’s Hong Kong shares, and a large-scale sell-off will depress the stock price; on the other hand, it is believed that Buffett’s exit itself is a huge negative.

• “Registration System” means the Central Clearing and Settlement System (CCASS) of HKEx. Shares held by shareholders of Hong Kong stock companies can be traded by transferring them to CCASS institutions (such as Citi, Standard Chartered, Morgan Stanley, etc.).
• Adding individual shares to the CCASS system does not mean selling. But it will basically be seen by the market as preparing for a sale. Before Naspers reduced its shareholding in Tencent and Wuyuan Capital reduced its shareholding in Kuaishou, the number of registered shares of the target company in the CCASS institution increased significantly.
• A senior Hong Kong stock salesman told “Latter Finance” that the market practice should be to transfer little by little, that is, to sell as much as you want, because it requires additional costs to transfer stocks that have been transferred to the CCASS system and then transferred back, and in a market dominated by institutions such as Hong Kong , no one will sacrifice the liquidity already gained.
• The market speculates that this is what Buffett Investment Company did, not only because the number of shares is the same as Buffett’s holdings, but also because no other single shareholder has a position of this size except BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu and his cousin Lu Xiangyang.

• Buffett has two notable investments in China (probably the only two in stocks). The earliest was to buy around 2003, and to sell PetroChina in 2007. During this period, the investment of 500 million US dollars increased by more than 7 times.

Buffett holds a position, and BYD is the only Chinese company in the table. Source: CNBC. Click to see larger picture

• The other is BYD. Buffett bought about 10% of BYD for $230 million in 2008. Now passively diluted to 7.73%.
• Without considering inflation and exchange rate effects, Buffett’s BYD shares are now worth about 60.795 billion Hong Kong dollars (as of the closing data on July 12), or about 7.745 billion US dollars.
• After 14 years of not selling one share, Buffett’s book rate of return in BYD is about 3267%, and the average annual rate of return is about 26.76%.
• The return on this investment is above Buffett’s multi-decade average. From 1965 to 2001, Berkshire Hathaway’s average annual return was 20.1%.
• It is also similar to the average annual yield of the most expensive A-share stock, Kweichow Moutai. Assuming that investors bought Kweichow Moutai at 85.84 yuan in early 2007 and sold it at a high of 2,627.88 yuan in 2021, the average annual rate of return for 14 years is about 27.68%.
• Among the A-share public offering funds, there is only one that has been established for more than ten years and has an annualized rate of return of more than 20%. (Lin Guangying and Gong Fangyi)

Seeing the world from 4.6 billion light-years away, everything is dust

• On July 11, NASA released the first color image taken by the James Webb Astronomical Telescope, showing what the universe looks like 4.6 billion light-years away from Earth. “Mr. President, if you put a grain of sand at your fingertips and keep an arm’s length from it, that’s what you see in the universe,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told U.S. President Biden at the press conference. part, but a speck of dust.”

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• Shown here is a galaxy cluster called SMACS 0723, which distorts space and time around it because of its size. NASA said there are thousands of galaxies in this image, some of which took 13 billion years to capture the light of the Webb telescope.

• The Webb telescope collected multiple wavelengths of light over 12.5 hours from a distance of a million miles from Earth (four times the distance between the Earth and the Moon) to create this image. It’s a relatively simple task, and NASA says some of the deeper pictures take weeks to image. At 10:30 p.m. on July 12, NASA also announced other Webb findings, such as the capture of water signatures in the atmosphere of a giant planet orbiting a sun-like star.

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• The main lens of the Webb telescope is 6.5 meters in diameter, more than twice that of Hubble, and it is the largest astronomical telescope sent to the universe by humans. It began in the 1990s, when NASA, on the advice of astronomers, seriously planned a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope—a telescope with a larger lens that could collect infrared light to further explore the secrets of the universe’s origins. Many astronomers believe that the results of the Webb telescope will completely change astrophysics as we know it now, and rewrite the history of the universe as we know it.

• According to the original plan, the Webb telescope only needs to invest 500 million US dollars, can be launched in 2007. Due to various reasons, the project was severely overrun and the launch time was delayed several times. NASA wanted to give up at one point, but finally persevered. When the Webb telescope launched on December 22, 2021, it was 14 years behind schedule and more than 20 times over budget. (He Qianming)

Global recession is expected to deepen, the dollar is the biggest winner

• Today (July 12) intraday, the euro hit parity against the dollar, the lowest level since December 2002; the exchange rate at the beginning of the year was about 1 euro to $1.13. The yen against the US dollar also fell to 137 yen against the US dollar yesterday, the lowest level in nearly 24 years.

• The exchange rate reflects the supply and demand of each country’s currency to a certain extent. A stronger dollar can be simply understood as an increase in demand for the dollar relative to other currencies and a shortage of supply. The most direct reason is that the Federal Reserve aggressively raised interest rates in the context of rising inflation, and the market expects that the supply of US dollars will decrease, thereby boosting the exchange rate; in addition, due to the deepening risk of global recession, investors began to buy US dollars for safety, which also pushed up the demand for US dollars.

• Weaker currencies do the opposite. For example, the Bank of Japan insists on monetary easing (low interest rates, maintaining supply) in order to seek economic recovery in the later stage of the epidemic; European interest rates are also significantly slower than the United States, and the face of energy problems, which increases the risk of recession, further weakens the demand for the euro.

Twenty years later, 1 euro is less than 1 dollar. Click to see larger picture

• Investors may also be involved in volatile markets. Some analysts believe that the euro fell to parity against the dollar, in part because of the recent active “short euro” trading. Citi analysts recently recommended clients to short the euro against the dollar, and Nomura Securities also predicted that the euro against the dollar would fall to 0.98 in August.

• As for the specific impact, the analysis believes that for the inflation problem that the world is concerned about, a stronger dollar will help the United States curb import inflation, but it will affect the overseas income of multinational companies. On the contrary, weak currencies in other countries may also lead to capital outflows and further declines in the stock market. In addition, limited by the strong dollar, the price of gold also fell to its lowest level in more than nine months this week. (Lin Guangying)

Haidilao considers spin-off of overseas catering business to list in Hong Kong

• On July 11, Haidilao announced that it was considering spinning off Super Hi, its catering business outside of Greater China, and listing it separately on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Listing or adopting the method of “listing by introduction + distribution in kind”, that is, no new shares are issued or financing, and the shares are directly distributed to existing shareholders. The announcement stated that the spin-off is conducive to the better development of domestic and overseas businesses.

• In fact, the two are quite different in scale and mode. According to the 21st Century Business Herald, Haidilao currently has 64 overseas restaurants, including 17 in Singapore, 12 in the United States, 8 in Japan, 6 in South Korea, and others in Malaysia, Vietnam, Canada, Indonesia, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Thailand. . Compared with the end of last year, the number in North America and Oceania remained unchanged, and there were two fewer in Europe.

• In the past financial reports did not disclose overseas performance separately, but you can refer to the data of stores outside mainland China (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions): as of the end of 2021, there were 114 stores, accounting for 8% of the total, with revenue of 2.72 billion yuan, accounting for 7%; Taiwan rate fell to 2.3 times/day, lower than the mainland’s 3 times/day; however, per capita consumption increased by 2.8% to 197.9 yuan, while the mainland fell to 101.2 yuan for two consecutive years.

• The data reflect pattern differences. For example, a lower table turnover rate may mean that there is not enough passenger flow to support the scale, and pricing power may increase profit margins; many reports also mentioned that Haidilao encountered cultural differences overseas, including switching to small hot pots to adapt to meal-sharing habits, “detailed service” ” may offend privacy, etc. At least for now, it seems that it is difficult for Haidilao to replicate the domestic growth logic overseas.

• However, Haidilao’s domestic business is currently in trouble. Adding stores in 2020 will not increase profits, and the previous logic of “high-scale growth + high operating efficiency” has been interrupted; last year, it planned to close about 260 underperforming stores, with a one-time accrued loss of over 3.65 billion yuan and a loss for the whole year 4.16 billion yuan. (Lin Guangying)

Tencent and Mercedes-Benz cooperate to develop autonomous driving

• On July 11, Tencent and Mercedes-Benz signed a memorandum of cooperation to establish a joint laboratory for autonomous driving. On the same day, Tencent also signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with FAW Jiefang for in-depth cooperation in vehicle information security basic capacity building, product development technology, testing and verification technology, and cutting-edge technology research. At the 2022 new product launch conference last month, Tencent Smart Mobility released the “Smart Car Cloud”, a one-stop cloud solution customized for the smart car industry.

• I have tried in-vehicle hardware and car networking, all of which are tepid. In the early years, Tencent launched two in-vehicle smart hardware products, Tencent Lobo and Tencent Shenyan, both of which have been discontinued. In November 2017, Tencent Automobile Association launched the “AI in Car” ecosystem, and reached cooperation with OEMs such as GAC, Changan, Geely, BYD, and Dongfeng Liuqi. It is said that the system can provide users with personalized services with its own social, payment, entertainment and other functions, covering car life scenarios. In 2018, Tencent launched the TAI car intelligent system, which can be understood as “AI in Car” version 2.0.

• Casting a wide net to invest in and get involved in the entire automotive industry chain. In terms of vehicle manufacturing, Tencent has invested in NIO, Harmony Forteng, FMC, AIWAYS, BYTON, Tesla, WM Motor and many other companies. Among them, in 2017, Tencent acquired 8.1675 million shares (5%) of Tesla in the open market for US$1.778 billion, becoming its fifth largest shareholder.

• In addition to vehicle manufacturers, Tencent has also invested in Didi, Mobike, Lyft, FightCar and other companies in the shared travel field at home and abroad. Tencent is also involved in related car sales and parts manufacturing. For example, the new automobile media “after you have a car”, the Internet car solution provider “Siweizhilian”, the automobile comprehensive service provider “Car Life”, etc.

• Although Tencent has always claimed that it “does not build cars”, its attempts in the automotive field have never stopped. (Intern Zeng Xing)

OTHER NEWS

On July 11, there were “69 + 278” new cases of new coronavirus infections in mainland China, and the number of medium and high-risk areas in Shanghai hit a new high since the epidemic.

• On July 11, 69 new cases were confirmed locally, including 22 in Guangdong, 9 in Henan, 9 in Hainan, 8 in Shandong, and 5 each in Shanghai, Anhui and Jiangsu. There were 278 new asymptomatic infections in mainland China, including 64 in Henan, 54 in Shanghai, 54 in Shandong, 23 in Jiangsu and 20 in Guangdong.
• There are “5+54” new local infections in Shanghai, of which 1 case was confirmed and 2 cases of asymptomatic infection were found in society.
• As of 16:00 on July 12, Shanghai had 16 high-risk areas and 234 medium-risk areas, hitting a new high since the epidemic.
• At present, the epidemic in Shanghai has involved 16 districts, of which all 10 streets and towns belonging to Putuo District have positive infections.
• Guangdong added local infected people “22+20”.
• On July 12, Zhuhai, Guangdong reported 3 new confirmed cases, which were kindergarten teachers and childcare workers. From the 12th, Zhuhai suspended offline teaching in schools of all levels and types.
• “9+64” new local infections were added in Henan. Among the confirmed infections, there were 6 cases in Zhumadian City and 3 cases in Zhengzhou City.
• There are 8 high-risk areas in Henan Province (5 in Zhumadian City, 1 in Nanyang City, and 2 in Zhengzhou City); 7 are medium-risk areas.

The latest valuation of Chuanhema is 6 billion US dollars, which is 40% less than expected at the beginning of the year.

According to media reports, people familiar with the matter said Alibaba-owned Hema is seeking financing at a valuation of $6 billion, a sharp decrease from the $10 billion valuation reported earlier this year. According to the news, on the one hand, the epidemic has affected the business prospects. In addition, Hema is still losing money, and investors are worried about whether it can achieve profitability and maintain growth in the short term. Hema plans to raise US$400 million to US$500 million in this round. If the terms are successfully finalized, it will be its first independent financing. For details, please refer to our report at the beginning of the year.

In 2022, among the Fortune China 500, Kuaishou, Didi, and Suning Tesco have the most losses.

The latest edition of Fortune China 500 was released today. The total revenue of the 500 listed companies last year was 62 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.4%, accounting for more than half of the year’s GDP (114 trillion yuan) and net profit of 4.7 trillion yuan. The top four in terms of revenue are still Sinopec, PetroChina, China State Construction, and Ping An, JD.com rose to 7th (+4), and Alibaba rose to 11th (+3). In terms of losses, Kuaishou, Didi, and Suning.com ranked the top three, with losses of 78 billion yuan, 49.3 billion yuan, and 43.2 billion yuan respectively; the biggest losses last year were Hainan Airlines, Air China, China Eastern Airlines, and China Southern Airlines, with a total loss of over 101 billion yuan.

China has comprehensively relaxed the requirements for settlement in large I-type cities with a permanent urban population of 3 million to 5 million.

On July 12, the National Development and Reform Commission issued a notice on the implementation plan for new urbanization during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, which mentioned that the restrictions on settlement in cities with a permanent population of less than 3 million in urban areas will be completely lifted, and the I-type large urban residents with a permanent population of 3 million to 5 million will be fully relaxed. Urban settlement conditions. By the end of 2021, China’s Type I cities include Changchun, Hefei, Changsha, Nanning, Urumqi, Shijiazhuang, Xiamen, Ningbo, Fuzhou, and Huizhou. Previously, Changchun has achieved zero threshold settlement, and Shijiazhuang, Nanchang, etc. are basically close to zero threshold.

In the second quarter, offline passenger traffic declined, Anta brand retail sales experienced negative growth, and FILA declined even faster.

The retail sales of the Anta brand in the second quarter of this year recorded a year-on-year decrease of mid-single digits (4%-6%), while the FILA brand recorded a year-on-year high-single-digit decline (7%-9%). FILA is down by low single digits year over year. The company said that mainly due to the impact of the epidemic, offline passenger flow has decreased significantly, and the willingness to spend has also weakened; while FILA, which is more distributed in high-tier cities, is more affected. Anta’s revenue last year was 49.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 50%, of which Anta brand accounted for 49% and FILA accounted for 44%.

Fosun’s luxury goods group’s revenue in 2021 will increase by more than 50% year-on-year, and it plans to list SPACs by the end of the year and continue to acquire new brands.

The Lanvin Group, a luxury group owned by Fosun, estimated that its revenue last year increased by 52% year-on-year to 339 million euros, partly due to the acquisition of the Italian shoe brand Sergio Rossi in the second half of last year, and the French luxury brand Lanvin increased by 108% year-on-year to 73 million euros. Euro, Austrian knitwear brand Wolford rose 15% year-on-year to 1.09 euros. The group said that it had achieved balance of payments last year and is expected to be profitable in 2024; it plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange SPAC in the fourth quarter of this year, and will continue to acquire new brands next year.

CIFI Holdings plans to sell Shanghai Songjiang Property for RMB 187 million to maintain the level of cash flow.

On the evening of July 11, CIFI Holdings announced that it planned to sell 11,700 square meters of Shanghai Songjiang property to Lingyu International for 187 million yuan. CIFI Holdings Group expects to record a gain of approximately RMB 10.85 million from the sale of these properties. The proceeds from the Disposal are intended to be used as general working capital of the Group. In addition, CIFI Holdings has repurchased its 5.50% US dollar bond due in January 2023 on July 8 with a principal of US$5 million, equivalent to about 1.67% of the total principal of the US dollar bond, and said that in the future When the time is right, this dollar bond will be repurchased further. CIFI’s recent capital operations show that it maintains cash flow and manages debt carefully.

AVAR completes two rounds of multi-million dollar financing, virtual clothing can be worn by real people.

Metaverse 3D virtual label AVAR announced the completion of two consecutive rounds of multi-million dollar financing. Among them, the seed round was led by Weiye Capital, and the angel round was led by Huachuang Capital. AVAR has virtual human IP, virtual clothing brand, and digital art generator. Its core technologies are 3D procedural generation framework, character fusion algorithm, and AR application. Virtual clothing and accessories can be worn by real people through AR filters or artificial synthesis, and consumers can wear virtual clothing to take photos or generate videos. At the same time, AVAR plans to provide a virtual human framework for the C-side, allowing users to wear virtual images to realize “real people and virtual people hold virtual assets simultaneously”.

“Obi Island: Dreamland” mobile game officially beta, another childhood classic after “Moore Manor”.

On July 12, the mobile game “Obi Island: Dreamland” was officially launched in mainland China. This is a diversified and open community game that allows users to communicate with friends and family across geographical restrictions, achieving low latency and A realistic blend of virtual and real worlds. It is reported that “Obi Island” is one of the IPs with the longest operating time and the most extensive influence, and has accumulated the most registered users among all the IPs of BIO. You IP has over 300 million registered users. This is another sentimental card from the era of page games played by the publisher Thunder Games after the release of the mobile game “Moore Manor” in June last year.

Only Apple PC shipments achieved positive growth in the second quarter, up 9.3% year-on-year.

According to market research firm Gartner, Apple computer shipments in the second quarter were 6.365 million units, a year-on-year increase of 9.3%. In the same period, global PC shipments were 72 million units, down 12.6%, the largest drop in the market in nine years. Apple is the only one Suppliers with positive growth. In the second quarter of global PC shipments, Apple ranked fourth with a market share of 8.8%. In 2020 and 2021, Apple’s market shares were 7.6% and 8.5%, respectively. The rising market share is mainly due to the M1 chip. roll out.

Hyundai Motor plans to build its first pure electric vehicle plant in South Korea.

The Hyundai Motor Union said on Tuesday (July 12) that the company plans to build its first pure electric vehicle plant in South Korea, aiming to start production in 2025, the first it has opened in South Korea in 26 years. Earlier, Hyundai Motor announced that it will spend 6.3 trillion won (about 33.135 billion yuan) to build an electric vehicle factory in Georgia, the United States, with an expected annual production capacity of 300,000 vehicles. The reason why car companies continue to build pure electric vehicle factories is that the most difficult product is not an electric car, but a factory that makes cars.

Mercedes’ second-quarter sales fell 16 percent from a year earlier to 490,000 vehicles.

Affected by the shortage of semiconductors and the epidemic, Mercedes-Benz Group’s total passenger car sales in the second quarter fell by 16% year-on-year to 490,000 units, of which Mercedes-Benz pure electric vehicle sales increased by 90% year-on-year to 23,500 units. Mercedes saw the biggest drop in the Chinese market, down 25% to 160,000 units. It wasn’t just Mercedes-Benz that was affected over the same period. BMW said last week that its second-quarter sales fell 19.8% to about 560,000 vehicles.

BlackRock said it was underweight U.S., European and U.K. equities, with a neutral stance on emerging-market stocks.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said it downgraded its view on developed market equities to “neutral” as the Fed signaled excessive tightening, but increased its holdings of investment grade credit Consider overweight stocks. BlackRock said it is now underweight U.S., European and U.K. equities, while maintaining a neutral stance on Japanese and emerging-market equities.

Amazon promotes its smart shopping cart, Dash Cart, another exploration of convenient payments.

Amazon said it is expanding its smart shopping cart to a Whole Foods store in Massachusetts and will roll out to other locations in the coming months. It is reported that Dash Cart was launched in its Fresh grocery store in September 2020, and it was not well received at the time. Dash Cart, built on the “Just Walk Out” cashierless technology, uses a combination of computer vision algorithms and sensor fusion technology to track and count items, and customers don’t need to queue to check out. Additionally, shoppers can exit through a special aisle and Amazon will automatically debit their credit card for the purchase amount.

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In addition to bringing the technology to Whole Foods Market, Amazon will also introduce a new, larger version of the Dash Cart that holds 4 grocery bags (up from 2 previously) and comes with a lower shelf for bulkier items . Whether it’s Amazon Go, an unmanned store that opened for the first time in 2018, or Dash Cart, a smart shopping cart that turns shopping carts into self-service cash registers to simplify queuing and payment procedures, Amazon’s efforts to better meet consumers’ needs and shopping formats technological exploration.

According to Philipp Sandner, founder of the Blockchain Center, some developing countries are paying wages in cryptocurrencies.

Philipp Sandner, founder of the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center, said that in Argentina, Brazil, Turkey and some developing countries in Africa, some people have begun to accept cryptocurrency for wages due to rising inflation and unstable financial systems. According to the “2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index”, the adoption rate of emerging markets has led developed countries, with Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Ukraine, and Kenya ranking the top five. Previously, due to economic turmoil, Argentina and Brazil have proposed allowing the use of cryptocurrency to pay wages. bill.

Meta launches Sphere, an AI knowledge tool that can identify fake news.

Meta announced an artificial intelligence tool called Sphere, built on a repository of 134 million public web pages, capable of verifying the citation sources of knowledge in the system to identify fake news. Wikipedia is currently the first user of Sphere, which can scan entries through this tool and confirm whether the citations of knowledge in the entry are credible. Meta has been accused of providing fake news, and the functionality of Sphere has not been verified, and it is unclear if this is just a PR act of Meta.

Bill Ackman can’t find a suitable SPAC target, returns $4 billion to investors.

In a letter to shareholders, Ackman highlighted factors such as unfavorable market conditions and stiff competition from traditional IPOs that hindered his efforts to find suitable companies to incorporate special purpose acquisition companies. In July last year, Ackman had tried to buy a 10% stake in Universal Music spun off by French media group Vivendi through his special purpose acquisition company, an investment that Ackman turned to after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission opposed the deal. his hedge fund. “While there have been some deals that could have had an impact on PSTH over the past year, none of them met our investment criteria,” Ackman said. For the prominent hedge fund manager, setbacks were limited.

Gap CEO Syngal was fired for failing to lead the company out of trouble.

According to media reports, after serving as CEO of Gap for two and a half years, Sonia Syngal was fired by the company because rising costs and deep discounts on merchandise could wipe out the company’s second-quarter operating profit. Gap announced in a statement that chairman Bob Martin will immediately take over as interim CEO. It is reported that in 2019, Gap also fired Yat Peck, then CEO, after operating problems, and finally promoted Syngal, 52, from the head of Old Navy to CEO of Gap in March 2020.

Text | Gong Fangyi, Lin Guangying, He Ganming, intern Xue Yujie, and intern Zeng Xing

Editor | Gong Fangyi

The title picture comes from the movie “The Fast and the Furious”

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