Rising to calls

Twitter police in action, ICICI's quarter, and Snap's big moves

Apr 26, 2021

Hi 👋, Tanvi here.

Filter Coffee hits your inbox every morning with notable tech and business news scoops to jump start your day.

Let’s go ahead and get started:

What’s hot? ☕

It was an unusually quiet Sunday for the news cycles, and rightly so given the situation. Let’s do a quick rundown of everything that matters and leave you to better things...

✅ Priorities, priorities—Twitter apparently was asked to take down some content critical of the GOI’s response to rising COVID cases in India. 50 or so tweets from citizen accounts have vanished, and apparently a Facebook clean up job is on too—the timing of the action screams misplaced priorities, and is adding to the long list of clumsy moves by GOI in dealing with the current crisis.

✅ Mend your ways—Global credit card issuer and processor, American Express, has been asked to stop adding any more users in India starting next month over data localization issues. No biggies, but RBI is not happy with the way Amex stores data on Indian consumers, oftentimes using foreign servers falling outside GOI’s legal jurisdictions, and this is probably one of the first actions taken under the data localization laws brought in 2018 to protect consumers from abuse of their data assets.

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Banking doesn’t have to be boring

Most banks, designed around the needs of the older generations, leave huge gaps that fail to meet the needs of today’s teenagers.

Yodaa’s out to change that. The company’s financial lifestyle app is designed for emerging demands of modern teenagers in India and SeAsia.

Users get their own cool card powered by Mastercard, with complete control over their finances, and a chance to master their money game early-on in life, through practical experience in a safe environment.

Besides, the Yodaa app also ensures parents have complete control and visibility over a teen’s expenses, making it super easy to set budgets, or even contribute to savings plans.

Yodaa’s mission is to raise a generation of financially aware teenagers for the new decade, and the product is part of Singapore-based financial technology company Atlantis.

Rising on the occasion 🐦

Twitter has literally become an online control center for coordinated action, and it's phenomenal to see startups, corporates, and individuals stand up to the needs of the times.

Zomato will be partnering with Delhivery, through a non-profit arm Feeding India, to source oxygen concentrators and medical supplies, and deliver them to families and facilities in need.

Zomato is also out raising ₹50 crores for the initiative, with the CEO urging other similar ventures to step up. Urban Company wrote off ₹5 lakh to the cause.

Meanwhile, logistics service provider Delhivery promised to provide logistical aid in flying two oxygen-loaded planes from China. Last week, the Tata Group had announced that they’ll be importing liquid oxygen cylinders, while Reliance donated 700 tonnes of oxygen to Maharashtra.

Likely a thousand more ventures doing their part in the background, and it's truly remarkable to see the “strides” India made in last-mile logistics, supply chain infra, communications, etc. being put to a fruitful use during this crisis.

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Banks holding good 📈

Last week we had HDFC bank give us some clues on what to expect from the broad Indian banking sector, which had just started to stand on its two feet this quarter. Over the weekend, ICICI bank somewhat relayed a similar sentiment.

Quick look at the major details:

Interest income of ₹10,431 crores, up 16.8% YoY—which shows that folks are still paying their dues to banks
Profits of ₹4,402 crores, up 260%—which is better than what the markets expected (don’t get too carried away by the bloated growth, ICICI had deflated profits last year)
Bad assets, or loans at risk of default, came in at 4.96%, vs. 5.42% last year signaling a steady improvement

Among other things, home loans were on the rise, up 22%, small and medium enterprises lending business is growing, up 33%, and the bank’s credit card business grew a cute 11%.

Lastly, bank management seemed pretty positive about growth holding up well despite COVID 2.0’s carnage, but investors are smarter than to be carried away so easily…

Tommy Dewey Waiting GIF by NOW WE'RE TALKING TV SERIES

Stitching together innovation 👻

Remember Fit Analytics? The startup that uses AI to help consumers determine their clothing sizes using a 3D scan of their body, had been acquired by Snapchat in a much hyped deal. Well, fresh filings reveal, Snap paid up a sweet $124 million for the project.

Snap’s visual-tech related acquisition spree, all aimed at kickstarting embedded ecommerce operations, isn’t getting the attention it deserves. In addition to Fit Analytics, they recently got:

Screenshop, which builds computer vision models to identify shopping items in photos and make a catalog of similar products
Ariel AI which creates accurate 3D models of people from a bunch of images

In total, the business spent $205 million on acquisitions in 2020, all of which has almost exclusively gone to purchase futuristic AI or AR, all helping build these uniquely advanced and ambitious tools and features that could solve critical pain points of today’s online shopping experiences.

Why care: social commerce is inevitably going to be the largest driver of e-commerce sales in the future, with the total market pegged to grow 25%+ rates $1.5 trillion+ by 2025.

Snap’s been trying to push into social commerce for a while now, but this laser sharp IP acquisition strategy throws rare color into how vividly bold Spiegel’s dreams really are.

Closing out—who’s dealing? 💰

Earnings circus is in town—and this week brings some of the biggest showdowns from tech land, offering a full picture into the state of digitization of the world economy, 12 month since the pandemic came knocking.

Who’ll be on:

Markets will be looking at Amazon to understand if ecommerce growth has slowed—especially as global consumer started to go out a bit
Google’s Cloud business and growth in YouTube (especially in light of Netflix’s problems) will be the focus
Microsoft, as always, will give a thorough picture of the cloud boom
Then there is Spotify (music streaming still growing?), Apple (how them devices sellin’?), Twitter and Facebook (is engagement still good?)
Lastly, Visa and Mastercard bring beer to kick off the fintech party

Meanwhile, Dalal Street favorites including Tech Mahindra, Bajaj Finance, Maruti, Titan Co, SBI Cards and a host of other bellwethers will be ready for a date in Mumbai—albeit, all mostly overshadowed by the gloomy haziness of COVID cases rising.

What else are we snackin’ 🍿

😷 The PM now cares - The PM CARES Fund will set up 551 Pressure Swing Adsorption medical oxygen generation plants at public hospitals across the country, amidst all the flack that GOI is taking for poor management of the crisis.

🤝 Biden lifts a finger - The US steps in with support on raw materials to accelerate production of COVID vaccines, medical equipment and protective gear. Bunch of public health experts will be deployed to work closely with the Indian admin as well.

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