Facebook Pay and Moody’s Rating
What’s Happening This Week?
Hey,
Did you hear — Facebook launched Facebook Pay?
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Like, Share and pay… Facebook launched its payment service ‘Facebook Pay’. It aims to tie all Facebook family apps — Instagram, Messenger, Whatsapp & Facebook for payments.
At present — you can try the social network’s payment feature only on Facebook and Messenger in the US. The facility is expected to work with PayPal and all major credit/debit cards.
Social -> Finance? Looks like Facebook wants it all… remember ‘Libra’? Their crypto venture. However, Facebook Pay is not linked with the cryptocurrency Libra or wallet Calibra. And yes… There is WhatsApp Pay for India too.
Where is WhatsApp at… Parent company Facebook has been testing WhatsApp Payments in India for about 18 months now. The hiccup… earlier this month RBI shared its concerns regarding data localization of WhatsApp to the supreme court. WhatsApp was also battling spygate Pegasus controversy — Uh oh! However, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says — “WhatsApp Pay to be launched in India soon!”
In India, to use these wallets eKYC is mandatory… Usually, the Two primary documents required are:
It is mandatory to link Aadhaar with PAN by 31st December 2019. Need help Linking Aadhaar with PAN? We are here to help!
Insult to injury? Moody’s investor service had recently downgraded India’s rating outlook from “stable” to “negative” i.e “Baa2-”, its the 2nd lowest investment grade. Ouch! Moody’s provides international financial research on bonds issued by companies & governments.
The synopsis . . . according to the credit rating giant, if India fails to achieve a speedy growth rate, the debt burden will rise. So, India needs to make Investments and get its economy back on track. Since slow economic growth will dampen income growth.
Their forecast . . . A budget deficit of 3.7% of GDP for FY 2019–20 — while, the nation’s debt is expected to remain at 68%. The economic conditions have made investments difficult and growth has slowed down to 5%.
In response. . . The Finance Minister stated that they had taken policy decisions to support the domestic economy — like — i) Exemption of startups from ‘angel tax’, ii) Merger of public sector banks, iii) Unprecedented corporate tax rate cuts.
To summarize. . . The economic situation is critical — Uh-Oh! Making investments would require more funds — given the current debt scenario, it is unlikely that the government would opt to borrow funds. Enough Pessimism! World Bank in the survey upgraded India’s ranking by 14 positions on ease of doing business. Let’s hope the new reforms have a positive impact on the economy. Fingers Crossed!
Mark Mobius
