Breaking: Polygon has laid off 100 people as part of a broader company restructuring, amid a prolonged crypto winter.
One interesting thing: The Supreme Court has started experimenting with live transcriptions of its hearings using artificial intelligence (AI). It will be used during the Constitution Bench hearing of the case pertaining to the Maharashtra political crisis.
“This will not just help the lawyers, but will also help law colleges analyse how the arguments are made,” Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said.
In today’s newsletter:
- UPI gets a global push
- Sequoia weighs in on governance issues
- How ChatGPT is impacting education, insurance
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Top 3 stories
UPI gets a global push
It’s definitely a big day for Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and India!
Today, the success of India's homegrown real-time payment system, UPI, resonated in Singapore as the two countries signed an agreement to establish cross-border connectivity between UPI and its Singaporean counterpart, PayNow.
Tell me more
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Managing Director Ravi Menon announced the launch of the UPI-Paynow linkage through a video conference.
- This basically means that Indians can now use any UPI-integrated payment app, such as Google Pay, Paytm, and others, to send money to their friends and relatives in Singapore, and vice versa
- Prior to the linkage, residents and businesses used physical wire transfers or SWIFT through banks or online transfers for a high fee
Who stands to gain?
The new UPI-PayNow linkage strives to address two prominent issues: the high cost and lengthy processing time involved in fund transfers.
- Migrant workers, students, travellers, and businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises trading with Singapore, stand to gain the most from this move.
"In today’s age, technology connects us in more ways than one and fintech plays a major role in creating that connectivity… The people who will especially benefit from this are migrant workers, professionals, students, and their families,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the launch.
Do read our explainer
Sequoia weighs in on governance issues
"When you have serious governance lapses, willful fraudsters will have their ways to fool Big 4 auditors. They are very difficult to catch. You need to double down on diligence."
This is Sequoia India's Rajan Anandan on how the startup ecosystem should focus on governance practices much earlier than the existing norm.
Why does it matter
Anandan's comments come at a time when four of Sequoia India’s portfolio startups have come under the radar for financial irregularities, the latest one being GoMechanic in January. Some key takeaways:
- By Series C financing round, a startup needs to have a CFO and an independent board of directors
- Startups should conduct internal and external audits. Incomplete audits in startups are unacceptable
“At the end of the day, founders need to be aware of what needs to be done and even investors need to ensure that these things happen. Venture capital is a business of trust,” he said.
Meanwhile…
Naukri.com founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani took a dig at new-age technology firms, which use multiple measures of unit economics. He said these companies should come out clear with profitability figures to avoid corporate governance issues.
"Founder should give bad news early and not disguise the unit economics... Contribution margin 1, contribution margin 2, contribution margin 3 is all rubbish. Sach bol do (Say the truth)," he said.
How ChatGPT is impacting education, insurance
As people become more accustomed to ChatGPT, they are uncovering additional use cases for this artificial intelligence (AI) platform.
While ChatGPT and its impact on education have been widely discussed, we heard about ChatGPT and its use in the insuretech segment for the first time today.
Tell me more
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) chairman Debasish Panda expressed optimism about how technologies such as blockchain, web 3.0, and ChatGPT can disrupt the traditional market.
“The world is also becoming more and more digital with India being a pioneer in tech and digital. India Stack, UPI, Aadhaar, and the account aggregator, all put together are a base for financial services. What used to take days, is now being done in seconds,” he said.
Meanwhile, Deborah Quazzo, managing partner at edtech-focused GSV Ventures, believes ChatGPT will be "the big thing in learning."
Plagiarism a threat?
“It’s just an academic phenomenon, right?” exclaimed Quazzo. She strongly believes that there are more upsides to ChatGPT in education than downsides.
“While it's pretty head-spinning right now to figure out where you ought to play, we think that's the next wave,” Quazzo said.
Her comments are significant as they come at a time when many people are still trying to understand the capabilities of ChatGPT. Educationists are also divided over whether it is a useful or "dangerous" technology. Only time will reveal what the true impact of ChatGPT will be.
Today in tech history: First burglar alarm installed
On this day in 1858, the first electrical burglar alarm was installed by inventor Edwin T. Holmes in Boston, Massachusetts. (Picture credit: Wikipedia)
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