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Weekly Lists
August 10, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 25
bne:TMT
French car share BlaBlaCar buys Russian rival BeepCar
Iran hurries to import 20,000 tonnes of newsprint amid newspaper fears
of shortage under sanctions
Robots to collect debts for VTB bank
French online car pooling service BlaBlaCar will acquire its rival in Russia BeepCar owned by internet services major Mail. ru Group, Kommersant daily reported citing the announcement of the companies. The deal will start a partnership under which BlaBlaCar will be promoted across Mail.ru platforms.
Car pooling is an emerging segment in Russia's rapidly growing digitally-enhanced transportation market. Boosted by the economic crisis, BlaBlaCar wants to modernize travelling in Russia. The French intercity online car sharing comes to Russia's regions. Mail. ru and taxi-aggregator Vezyot have recently concluded a convertible loan agreement in preparation for a new investment round.
Iran’s Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade has permitted the quick import of 20,000 tonnes of newsprint into the country to ad- dress fears that a shortage was set to hinder the printing of news- papers, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting reported on August 8.
The imposition of unilateral US sanctions on the Iranian economy on August 7 is having unintended consequences across various industries. The Iranian news industry still very much relies on printed newspapers to push the lines of the various factions of the Islamic Republic’s ruling elite. The industry has made relatively little use of the internet, with only a few newspapers offering full paid services online. That makes it extra vulnerable to any lack of paper for printing.
Russia's second-largest VTB Bank will start using robots to collect overdue debt, according to the deputy head of VTB Anatoly Pechatnikov as cited by Vedomosti daily on July 31.
VTB has currently announced a number of digitally-driven initia- tives, including a possible alliance with Chinese AliBaba group, try- ing to catch up with market leader Sberbank that adopted an ambi- tious digital strategy and is continuing its rollout of high-tech and AI products and services.
Pechatnikov argued that tests of the automated debt collection at early stages of overdue loans have shown better performance and lower costs than that of human collectors, while not being susceptible to the stress and emotional wreckage of the job.