Blog

Posted on

Apple Card

At Apple Special Event on 25th March 2019 keynote, Apple Inc CEO, Tim Cook (Timothy Donald Cook) shared that the Apple Card is the result of years combined experience in delivering superior hardware, software, and service at Apply Pay. He shared that there is a compelling reason to start the service such as simple application, no fees, lower interest rates, clear reward programs, and privacy & security.

LotusCLUE

Mrs. Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay at Apple Inc announced the launched a new financial service called “Apple Card” to the qualified consumers at the United States. The credit card is issued in partnership with Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Apple Inc partnered with MasterCard to tap on to the network to make service available to merchants worldwide.

This is a smart credit card is will become native card to the Wallet, iPhone and Apple watch application upon successful approval and will be available to all Apple devices. The Apple Card comes with great value to users with the number of features. The accounting and transactional details on spending categories, balance, due in appealing colors, charts, names with merchant’s locations. The Apple Card service comes with great help services if there are any issues related to the transaction or overall experience. Mrs. Jennifer shared that the Apple Card comes with great reward called Daily Cash, 2% on daily spending and 3% on Apple Store purchase as cash back. There Apple Card comes with no yearly membership fees, no late fees, no international fees, no over-limit fees. The interest rate is calculated in real-time and will be of the low fee with multiple payment scheduling options. The Apple Card works with a special built-in chip on the iOS device to handle high-security. Apple propriety security features fingerprint or face-recognition authentication is used. Apple will maintain great privacy on customer data such as what you bought, how much you paid or where you bought it and will not learn about it.

Source: Apple Inc, Apple Card Media Release

Historically Apple Inc is the most innovative and disruptive in culture when it comes to its products and service. The Apple Card which is out of the box software, hardware and services sure to challenge traditional credit card issuing companies or financial institution who are, in a way less transparent to their customer in today’s FinTech and BlockChain context. It remains to be seen how the Apple Card will be adapted in the US and how soon Apple Inc will offer the services to other countries dictates on how the current industry players unfold in providing true value-based financial service experience to their customers worldwide.

Ref: Apple Special Keynote, 25th March 2019 & Apple Inc Media Release, Apple Card

Posted on

Apple tv+

Apple Inc, worlds best-known computer hardware, software, and service company such as iMac, MacBook, iPad, iPhone, iPad, iPod Mac OS, iOS, the release of all in new application service called Apple tv+.

Apple’s new app product Apple tv+ releases announcement is timely and strategic. The iOS device user base is large globally because of selling billions of devices and users. Apple is very successful with its innovative products such as iTunes, Podcast, Apple News and more. The ecosystem Apple apps are very wide. The new app, Apple tv+ aiming to provide exclusive shows, movies, documentaries featuring world-renowned artists such as Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg and more. 
The industry leaders such as YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, have their respective position in the market. The media giants from Hollywood such as Disney are preparing to enter the market. The on-demand content consumption over internet-enabled devices is very high and increasing because of technological advancements such as 5G, 4K or similar. 

The digital streaming and aggregation media business has a promising future in delivering great content in entertainment, sports, recreation, news and documentary industries. Online streaming business models such as subscription-based pricing, transactional (pay per content), advertisement revenue and hybrid (mix of all) are popular. The current market valuation of OSB is USD 20 billion and the yearly growth rate is 4 %. 

Ref: Apple Media Release & Public domain

Posted on

MOTREX Korea enters Nepal.

Image Reference © Motrex Co., Ltd, Korea

South Korean public listed company Motrex Co., Ltd which was founded in 2001 with its core business in IoT, in-vehicle infotainment and connected technology development entered into Nepal market. The company acquired necessary approval to operate in its base in Nepal from the Nepal Investment Board, government division which facilitates foreign direct investment in Nepal.

In the world of the automated and self-driving vehicle, the in-vehicle information and entertainment remain vital. Products and service such as real-time audio-visual navigational data to the driver, the audio and visual content to passengers are becoming increasingly popular for safety and pleasure. The remote control room management of vehicle or fleet is becoming more and more popular because of safe and cheap options. In the meantime gathering, the driver’s behavioral data helps in suggesting driver to apply correction measure to attend better and safe driving behavior which lowers the overall operational cost including insurance premiums. For better safety, the use of technologies to gather overall status of vehicle or components to analyze in real-time for planned maintenance and to avoid the unnecessary maintenance are the choice priority for fleet owners.

The Motrex move to have one of its base in Nepal with its core technologies such as Human Machine Interface, Rare Seat Entertainment as well as In-Vehicle Infotainment in the era of IoT is timely to gain local and regional market share in connected technologies. Other family business unit of Motrex such as MOTRAIN , KinectIQ, BLACKBOX have an opportunity to have 4-wheeler assembly plant and supplying automated parts, engine, chassis, transmission units, parts to manufacturers in the region including automakers in India. The group also has an opportunity in providing vehicle-related complete engineering and testing services to customers from the region. From this investment, Nepal will benefit from Korean FDI to Nepal as well as an increasing number of graduates youths in the field of electronic, mechanic and computer science have a great job opportunity to work with global technology companies from Korea.

A total of US$ 100 million investment by Motrex is an encouragement to global investors to tap into Nepal’s changing investment climate and exploit the untapped resources. Nepal is considered to be one of the emerging markets in South Asia with it’s projected GDP growth of 6-7% per year. Nepal population size is 30 million and has access to 1.4 billion population in China and 1.32 billion population in India.

Ref: Public domain

[DISPLAY_ULTIMATE_SOCIAL_ICONS]

Posted on

Nepal Pharma & Health Expo 2019


Association of Pharmaceutical Producer of Nepal (AAPON) is organizing 7th edition of Nepal Pharma & Health Expo 2019. The tradeshow event is organized at Chitwan Expo Centre, Bharatpur, Nepal. The event started on 1st March and will conclude on 3rd March and open to the public for free.

All together 30 multinational, 120 Indian pharmaceutical, 10 Nepalese hospitals, and a number of pharmaceutical companies are participating in the event. Participating brands and companies are showcasing their line of products and services in therapeutic dosage forms including sterile products. The participants and organizer believe that this platform will be helpful in exploring the opportunities to collaborate, to acquire and adopt the newest technology and innovation in the industry. Nepal’s pharmaceutical manufacturers are working to develop Chitwan Shaktihor Industrial area as major drug industrial area in Nepal.

In parallel, organisers of the event, the partners and stakeholders are collaborating with the National Transplantation Center of Bharatapur Hospital in Chitwan to communicate the importance of organ donation.

Today the total market size of Nepal’s drug industry is  NRs 45 billion (US$450 million) out of which 20 billion is covered by Nepal’s drug & pharmaceuticals and 25 billion equivalent foreign companies. Nepal’s pharmaceutical producer are following international standard, the newest technology, the innovative process, materials to produce quality products.

All together 53 drug industries are in operation in Nepal and many more of these industries are in the stage of establishment. Ayurveda, a traditional form of medication and healing has served a small industry sector. They are producing various lines of product and four producers are CPP (Certificate of Pharmaceutical Product) and exporting to markets such as India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, and African nations. Pharmaceuticals or drug manufacturers wanting to export from Nepal have to obtain an export license from the Department of Drug Administration (DDA), Nepal and registering the product to desired foreign market.

More information on event & partners can be obtained from the link below:

Event organizer

Associate Members

Platinum Sponsor 

Diamond Sponsor 

Gold Sponsor 

Silver Sponsor 

Media Partner 

Annapurna Post

Posted on

Nepal Investment Summit 2019, March 29-30, Hotel Soaltee Crowne Plaza, Kathmandu Nepal.

The Government of Nepal is organizing Nepal Investment Summit (NIS) from 29-30 March 2019 at Hotel Soaltee Crowne Plaza in Kathmandu to promote Nepal as a promising investment destination in Southasia. 

The Summit will bring together high-level government authorities, leading business executives from across the globe, senior officials of the international financial institutions, representatives of global lending agencies, national and international experts, non- resident Nepalis, and international development partners. The Summit, which will bring Nepal’s leading private sector umbrella organizations, such as the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Confederation of Nepalese Industries and Nepal Chamber of Commerce as co-organizers, will not only showcase new investment opportunities in Nepal but also share a range of policy reforms that Nepal has undertaken over the years to promote Nepal as the best investment destination in the region.

Last year, Nepal achieved of long-awaited political stability and formed a new government with the commitment rule of law and good governance. The economic policy reforms are being drafted and are in the course of implementation with flexible labour laws. The current economic growth rate is a good state. The power supply situation for retail, commercial and industrial activities is now 24 hours online. Nepal government is embarking socio-economic development with clear vision and roadmap and offer immense multi-sector investment opportunities to investors globally. The government will also be offering a host of new projects for investment with the signing of a number of agreements with new business ventures.

The Summit will be inaugurated by the Right Hon’ble Prime Minister of Nepal, addressed by prominent leaders from political, business and financial sectors. The Summit will hold plenaries and breakout thematic sessions, covering various components such as policy environment, sector-specific potential investment areas, and experience sharing of investors, among others. This summit is a platform for foreign investors to network with the representatives of Government agencies, leaders of Nepal’s successful business organisations representatives and representatives from the globe. 

Currently, the organising committee has confirmed the number of prominent individuals as dignitaries and as a resource person to the event. From Singapore and the Asia region, below are the speakers list to the event;

  • Mr Hartwig Schafer, Vice President, World Bank, 
  • Mr Shahzad Nasim, Executive Chairman at Meinhardt Group 
  • Ms Sonia Bashir Kabir, Managing Director, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Laos, Microsoft Asia Pacific
  • Mr Masahiro Miyashita, General Manager, Sumitomo
  • Mr Chandra Balani, Head of Business Development, Rest of India and SAARC, Amazon Internet Services
  • Mr Mike Bolsover, CEO, Silver Heritage Group
  • Prof. Glenn Mccartney, Associate Professor in International Integrated Resort management, University of Macau
  • Mr Xu Gang, President/CEO, Huaxin Cement
  • Mr Ravi Kant Jaipuria, Founding Chairman, Varun Beverages Ltd
  • Ms Rubana Huq, Managing Director Mohammadi Group, Bangladesh
  • Mr Arnab Bandyopadhyay, Lead Transport Specialist (Waterways), The World Bank
  • Mr Rajiv Gandhi, CEO and MD, Hester Bioscience Ltd
  • Mr Shixin Chen, Vice President, ADB
  • Mr Nirukt Sapru, CEO – Vietnam, ASEAN and South Asia Cluster Markets, Standard Chartered Bank
  • Mr Hans Peter Lankes, Vice President, Economics and Private Sector Development, IFC
  • Mr Stephen Schwartz, Head of Asia Pacific Sovereign ratings, Fitch
  • Mr Deepak Bagla, CEO, InvestIndia
  • Mr Sivasuriyamoorthy Sundara Raja, Executive Director, Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA)
  • H.E. Abdullah Al Salleh, Under Secretary for Foreign Trade, – Ministry of Economy UAE
  • Ms Keiko Honda, Vice President and CEO, MIGA
  • Mr Srini Nagarajan, Managing Director and Head of South Asia, CDC Group
  • Dr D J. Pandian, VP and Chief Investment Officer, AIIB

Useful link on the event;