Now in the connected economy, China’s Tencent Holdings is launching an extended reality unit in a bid to branch out into the metaverse.
Additionally, Microsoft Qatar is partnering with FinTech startup CWallet to provide end users with more secure payments, and TD Bank is helping bring a new patient billing system to New Jersey’s largest hospital chain.
Chinese Tencent Holdings launches Metaverse division
Seeking to tap into the growing metaverse, Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings has formed an “extended reality” (XR) division, tasked with kickstarting Tencent’s software and hardware XR business.
The division would be overseen by Li Shen, chief technology officer at Tencent Games Global. The move adds more than 300 members to the company’s total workforce, at a time when Tencent has cut jobs and slowed its hiring.
The company, along with other big tech players in China like Bytedance and Alibaba, began ramping up investment in the metaverse earlier this year.
Microsoft Qatar teams up with CWallet whose tech stack will move to Azure
Microsoft Qatar has partnered with FinTech startup CWallet to provide end users with more secure payments.
As part of the partnership, CWallet Founder and CEO Michael Javier signed an agreement with Microsoft Qatar General Manager Lana Khalaf to migrate CWallet’s full technology stack to Microsoft Azure.
“At CWallet, data security, compliance and privacy are key priorities, as at all other FinTech organizations,” Javier said in a press release. “By partnering with Microsoft and migrating our technology stack to Azure, we can ensure our organization is running on the most reliable, scalable and robust cloud platform in Qatar.”
Hackensack Meridian, TD Bank, Nordis Payment Billing Team
TD Bank and Nordis Technologies are working together to bring integrated patient billing and payments to Hackensack Meridian Health, New Jersey’s largest healthcare system.
The system developed by TD Bank and Nordis makes revenue cycle operations more efficient through automation, while improving the financial experience for patients. Hackensack Meridian has been able to convert more than 180,000 paper and manual payment processes since the launch of the new system, it said in a press release.
Report: Metaverse Experts See Health in NFT Disruption
Marketers gathered at a recent Non-Fungible Token (NFT) event said recent declines in NFT values could be a sign of health.
Overall, the values of NFTs have fallen from recent highs, in part because they are often purchased using cryptocurrencies that have themselves fallen in value. The industry is going through a necessary maturation, said Julian Holguin, CEO of Doodles, owner of 10,000 NFTs.
“At the end of the day…I think you will [to] seeing a lot of great use cases from people treating them like lifelong projects and real businesses — not just a way to quickly generate capital,” Holguin said. “The future is incredibly bright.”
Obligo partners with Wells Fargo for no-deposit product for landlords and renters
Rental management platform Obligo is collaborating with banking giant Wells Fargo to expand its product offering.
Obligo said it is now the only security deposit alternative using bank-issued letters of credit for landlords and tenants. Landlords and property managers using Obligo get the added protection of Wells Fargo Letters of Credit, while tenants have the option to rent without having to post a deposit.
“Wells Fargo has been an incredible advisor on this initiative,” said Obligo CEO Roey Dor. “They share our vision of leveraging existing banking products in new ways to support proptech innovation and have been extremely nimble in helping this updated model come to life.”
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NEW PYMNTS DATA: THE CUSTOM PURCHASING EXPERIENCE STUDY – MAY 2022
About: PYMNTS’ survey of 2,094 consumers for The Tailored Shopping Experience report, a collaboration with Elastic Path, shows where merchants are succeeding and where they need to up their game to deliver a personalized shopping experience.
