DD
MM
YYYY

CATEGORIES

PAGES

DD
MM
YYYY

spot_img

CATEGORIES

PAGES

Home Blog Page 12

Raenest Expands into India and the Philippines to Tap Asia’s Booming Freelance Economy

By
Ojukwu Emmanuel
-
0

Raenest, a Nigerian-based cross-border payments and remittance startup, has launched its services in India and the Philippines, marking its expansion into South and Southeast Asia.

The move is aimed at serving freelancers and digital professionals who earn income across borders, particularly those working with clients in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other global markets.

As part of the expansion, Raenest is introducing Raenest FastTrack, a feature that gives Indian freelancers near-instant access to their Upwork earnings. With FastTrack, users can receive payouts in under one hour, including on weekends and public holidays, eliminating long waiting periods and traditional bank delays.

In both India and the Philippines, users can open foreign currency accounts in U.S. dollars, British pounds, and euros, allowing them to receive international payments as if they were local. The platform supports payments from up to 190 countries in major currencies, offering freelancers a seamless way to manage global income.

Raenest is also enabling users in these markets to receive stablecoins USDT or USDC via multiple blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Binance, Polygon, Tron, and Solana. These stablecoin payments are automatically converted at a 1:1 rate to U.S. dollars, after which funds can be withdrawn directly to local bank accounts in local currency. The company describes the experience as fast, flexible, and borderless.

The Asian expansion follows Raenest’s entry into the U.S. market in October 2025, where it rolled out several new products, including faster freelance payouts, stock investing, and stablecoin conversion. While not all of these newly launched products are currently live in Asia, Raenest confirmed that users in India and the Philippines now have access to its core payment tools, excluding local currency wallets and U.S. stock investments.

The decision to enter these two markets was driven by strong data around the size and growth of the freelance economy.

“These two markets, India and the Philippines, are the top countries when it comes to freelancers who are based in their home countries but working with companies in the US, the UK, and other parts of the world,” Victor Alade, Raenest’s co-founder said.

According to Alade, internal company data showed repeated sign-up attempts from users in both countries even before the official launch, alongside broader indicators such as freelancer population size and earning potential.

Raenest has clarified that it is entering South and Southeast Asia as a foreign-currency platform rather than a replacement for domestic banks. In addition to FastTrack-linked Upwork payouts, users in both markets can receive stablecoin payments that are automatically converted to dollars. Funds held across different wallets can then be withdrawn to local bank accounts.

The company is also rolling out invoicing tools to help freelancers and consultants bill clients, manage invoices, and track income within the app. Revenue in these new markets will be generated primarily from customer deposits into Raenest Global Accounts and from withdrawals, following the same model used in its existing markets.

Founded in 2022 by Victor Alade, Richard Oyome, and Sodruldeen Mustapha, Raenest began as an Employer of Record (EOR) before evolving into a multi-currency accounts platform for individuals and businesses across Africa. Through its consumer product, Geegpay, the company enables freelancers, creators, and solopreneurs to receive payments from platforms such as Upwork, Fiverr, and Gusto.

Raenest says it now serves over 700,000 individual customers and has processed more than $1 billion in payments to date. Its business banking service, launched in March 2024, has also gained traction as an alternative for African startups following the exit of Mercury from the continent. The platform currently serves around 300 businesses, including Moniepoint, Helium Health, Fez Delivery, and Matta, and has processed over $100 million in transactions since launch.

Operating in an increasingly competitive African cross-border payments market, Raenest competes with players such as Cleva, Grey Finance, and LemFi. However, its dual B2C and B2B approach positions it to serve both individuals and businesses receiving international payments. As the company continues to scale, it plans to further expand its reach to better serve Africans in the diaspora and freelancers across emerging markets.

MrBeast Pushes Deeper Into Fintech With Acquisition of Gen Z Banking App Step

By
Samuel Nwite
-
0

The deal signals how major creators are turning their vast audiences into launchpads for regulated financial products, blurring the line between influencer culture and mainstream consumer finance.

YouTube megastar MrBeast has taken a decisive step beyond content and consumer goods, announcing that his company, Beast Industries, is acquiring Step, a fast-growing banking app aimed at teenagers and young adults.

The move marks one of the clearest signs yet that creator-led businesses are positioning themselves as serious players in the financial services sector, not just entertainment. It is also a marker of how far the creator economy has matured, and how influence, once monetized mainly through advertising and merchandise, is now being deployed to reshape entire consumer-facing industries, including finance.

Step sits at the intersection of two powerful trends. One is the long-running effort to bring younger users into the formal financial system earlier, particularly in the U.S., where credit histories play an outsized role in determining access to housing, education, and employment opportunities. The other is the struggle of fintech companies to sustain growth as venture funding tightens and customer acquisition costs rise sharply.

Founded as a teen-focused banking app, Step offers fee-free accounts, debit cards, and tools designed to help users build credit without taking on traditional debt. Its pitch has resonated with Gen Z parents and teenagers alike, helping it grow to more than 7 million users and attract roughly $500 million in funding. Celebrity investors and top-tier venture firms gave Step credibility, but scaling further in a crowded fintech landscape has remained a challenge.

That is where Beast Industries enters the picture. Jimmy Donaldson’s audience is not just vast, but unusually young and globally distributed. Unlike many influencers whose followings are concentrated on a single platform, MrBeast operates across YouTube, Shorts, gaming, and live formats, giving him repeated touchpoints with the same demographic Step is trying to reach. In practical terms, this offers Step something fintech startups rarely have: a built-in, trusted marketing channel with hundreds of millions of potential users.

Donaldson has framed the deal as a response to a gap in financial education, saying he was never taught how to invest, build credit, or manage money. That message aligns closely with Step’s positioning and helps soften a key risk for creator-led financial ventures: trust. Banking products require users to believe not just in the brand, but in its stability and intent. By leaning into a narrative of empowerment rather than profit, Beast Industries appears to be trying to anchor Step as a long-term platform rather than a quick monetization play.

Strategically, the acquisition also fits into the broader evolution of Beast Industries itself. The company has steadily moved away from being seen as a YouTube-first business. Feastables, its chocolate brand, has emerged as the main profit engine, while content increasingly functions as marketing rather than the end product. Other ventures, such as MrBeast Burger, highlighted the operational risks of scaling physical businesses too quickly, offering lessons that likely informed the more measured move into fintech through an established platform like Step.

Still, banking is a fundamentally different challenge. Unlike snacks or subscriptions, fintech operates under strict regulatory oversight, relies on partnerships with licensed banks, and faces reputational risks if products fail or users feel misled. Any misstep could quickly spill over into MrBeast’s core brand. That makes governance, compliance, and operational discipline central to the success of the deal, even if Beast Industries remains largely behind the scenes.

The acquisition also speaks to a shift in how fintech companies may grow in the coming years. For much of the last decade, growth was fueled by cheap capital and aggressive digital advertising. Today, with funding scarcer and scrutiny higher, distribution is becoming more valuable than novelty. Platforms that already command attention, whether social networks or creator-led ecosystems, are increasingly attractive partners or acquirers.

The deal may raise fresh questions about how financial products are marketed to younger audiences, especially when promotion is tied to entertainment figures with enormous influence. For competitors, it is expected to add pressure to rethink how they engage Gen Z customers who are skeptical of traditional banks but deeply loyal to digital communities.

In that sense, MrBeast’s move into fintech is less about one app and more about a broader reordering of consumer finance. As creators evolve into conglomerates, they are beginning to compete not just with brands but with institutions. Step may be the first major test of whether that influence can be converted into durable trust in one of the most sensitive sectors of the economy.

Google Waymo’s Contradiction as Humans in Philippines Continue To Make Most Critical Decisions

By
Ndubuisi Ekekwe
-
0

A quiet revelation is emerging: Waymo’s robotaxis may drive themselves on U.S. roads, but many of their most critical decisions are still made by human operators sitting thousands of miles away in the Philippines. Waymo, after all, is owned by Google’s parent company. Autonomy, it seems, is layered.

Waymo has long been held up as the gold standard of autonomous driving, a symbol of how far artificial intelligence has progressed beyond human control. Yet testimony at a recent U.S. Senate hearing has exposed a less visible but increasingly important reality: when Waymo’s vehicles encounter situations they cannot resolve on their own, responsibility often shifts to remote human workers, many of whom are based in the Philippines.

The disclosure by Waymo’s chief safety officer, Mauricio Peña, cut through years of marketing around “driverless” technology. Peña told lawmakers that in rare or complex scenarios, Waymo’s robotaxis can hand over control to remote operators who guide the vehicle through the situation. These workers act as a form of last-resort intelligence, stepping in when sensors, software, and pre-trained models are insufficient to safely navigate the real world.

This reminds me of an experience many of us had during industrial training in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. You would leave Port Harcourt in a new vehicle, driven by a polished professional. Everything felt regulated, certified, and safe. Then, somewhere around Ogoni on the way to Ikot Abasi, the road ended, and the sea began.

To cross it, you boarded a small speedboat manned by a driver who might not even be allowed through the gates of the oil company, often visibly drinking. Once the boat took off, all power and influence shifted. The man at the helm was a human “fish”, someone who could survive what you could not in the sea. Ironically, most people on board had swimming certificates, yet none could swim well enough to matter. In that moment, safety protocols dissolved, replaced by an uncomfortable trust in informal expertise. Yes, the roads are great for professional drivers but on the sea, anything could go!

There is an Igbo saying: a bird that flies off the ground only to perch on an anthill is still very much on the ground. Waymo’s autonomy fits this wisdom. If its most critical decisions are still made by human operators in the Philippines, then the real question is no longer just about Waymo’s engineering.

It is about who those humans are, how they are trained, and how much judgment we are delegating to people we never see. In the age of AI, technology may scale but accountability remains stubbornly human.

Waymo Admits Its Robotaxis Are Often Controlled By Workers In The Philippines

By
Samuel Nwite
-
0

Waymo’s robotaxis may drive themselves on U.S. roads, but many of their most critical decisions are still made by human operators sitting thousands of miles away in the Philippines.

Waymo has long been held up as the gold standard of autonomous driving, a symbol of how far artificial intelligence has progressed beyond human control. Yet testimony at a recent U.S. Senate hearing has exposed a less visible but increasingly important reality: when Waymo’s vehicles encounter situations they cannot resolve on their own, responsibility often shifts to remote human workers, many of whom are based in the Philippines.

The disclosure by Waymo’s chief safety officer, Mauricio Peña, cut through years of marketing around “driverless” technology. Peña told lawmakers that in rare or complex scenarios, Waymo’s robotaxis can hand over control to remote operators who guide the vehicle through the situation. These workers act as a form of last-resort intelligence, stepping in when sensors, software, and pre-trained models are insufficient to safely navigate the real world.

What unsettled lawmakers was not simply the existence of human intervention, but where that intervention takes place. The Philippines has become a global hub for outsourced digital labor, from call centers to content moderation and data labeling. Waymo’s reliance on Filipino contractors places the country at the center of America’s most advanced autonomous driving program, even as public messaging continues to emphasize full autonomy.

The logic is partly economic and partly structural for Waymo. Remote driving and support roles require a large, always-available workforce trained to respond quickly to unpredictable scenarios. The Philippines offers a deep labor pool with strong English proficiency and long experience supporting U.S. technology firms. Costs are lower than in the United States, and maintaining round-the-clock coverage across time zones is easier. In practice, this makes the Philippine workforce a quiet but critical component of Waymo’s safety architecture.

The arrangement, however, raises uncomfortable questions about what autonomy really means. If a robotaxi in San Francisco freezes at a construction zone or behaves unpredictably around emergency vehicles, a human operator in Manila or Cebu may be the one deciding how it proceeds. That human judgment, mediated through screens and networks, becomes part of the driving system itself. Autonomy, in this sense, is not the absence of humans but a reorganization of where and how their labor is used.

But this has prompted safety concerns. Senators pressed Peña on latency and reliability, given the physical distance between vehicles and operators. Even small delays in communication could matter in traffic situations unfolding in seconds. Peña maintained that Waymo has built safeguards into its systems and that remote intervention is tightly controlled. Still, the hearing underscored a basic tension: the more robotaxis are deployed at scale, the more edge cases arise, and the more human backup is required.

The focus on foreign workers also reflects a broader shift in Washington’s thinking about technology and national control. Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey called the use of overseas remote drivers “completely unacceptable,” framing the issue not just as a labor question but as one of sovereignty and security. Lawmakers voiced unease about critical transportation decisions being influenced by workers outside the United States, particularly as autonomous vehicles become more integrated into urban infrastructure.

Waymo’s case is especially sensitive because of its hardware choices. Unlike Tesla, which builds and controls its own vehicles, Waymo uses cars manufactured in multiple countries, including China. Although Peña emphasized that Waymo’s autonomous systems are installed and managed in the U.S., the combination of foreign-built vehicles and foreign-based operators has fueled suspicions about vulnerabilities in the system. In an era of heightened scrutiny over supply chains and data flows, even indirect links to China or other overseas networks attract political attention.

For the Philippine workforce itself, the role highlights another recurring pattern in the AI economy: essential labor that remains largely invisible. Much like the content moderators and data annotators who helped train large language models, remote operators supporting robotaxis occupy a gray zone. They are central to system performance but rarely acknowledged in public narratives about innovation. Pay, working conditions, and long-term career prospects for these workers are seldom discussed, even as their decisions can carry real-world consequences.

Although Waymo is not alone in this model, its prominence makes it a test case. The company has positioned itself as a leader in safe, scalable autonomy, operating commercial robotaxi services in multiple U.S. cities. As deployments expand, reliance on remote human support may grow rather than shrink, at least in the near term. That reality complicates claims that autonomy will soon eliminate human involvement in driving altogether.

The Senate hearing suggests that regulators are beginning to look past the surface of AI systems to examine the labor structures beneath them. Scrutiny of Waymo’s Philippine workforce is unlikely to fade. It touches on safety, labor practices, national security, and the credibility of autonomy itself. The technology may be cutting-edge, but its foundations rest on human judgment — relocated, outsourced, and largely unseen.

EU Moves to Rein In Meta’s AI Strategy on WhatsApp, Threatens Interim Measures

By
Samuel Nwite
-
0

By threatening interim measures against Meta, EU regulators are signaling that access to dominant platforms like WhatsApp will be treated as a frontline competition issue in the AI era, not one to be settled years later.

European Union competition regulators have taken a decisive step against Meta Platforms, warning that they may order the U.S. technology group to stop blocking rival artificial intelligence services from WhatsApp while an antitrust investigation is still ongoing.

The move underscores Brussels’ growing determination to intervene early in fast-moving digital markets, particularly as AI becomes embedded in services used daily by hundreds of millions of people.

On Monday, the European Commission said it had sent a statement of objections to Meta, formally accusing the company of breaching EU competition rules by abusing a dominant position. At issue is Meta’s decision, implemented on January 15, to allow only its own Meta AI assistant to operate on WhatsApp, effectively excluding competing AI chatbots from access to the messaging service’s Business API.

What makes the case especially significant is the Commission’s stated willingness to impose interim measures, a tool used sparingly in EU antitrust enforcement. Such measures are designed to prevent “serious and irreparable harm” to competition before a final ruling is reached, reflecting regulators’ concern that delays could allow market power to become entrenched beyond repair.

“We must protect effective competition in this vibrant field,” EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said, arguing that dominant technology companies should not be allowed to leverage their existing platforms to tilt emerging AI markets in their favor.

Ribera said the Commission was considering swift action to preserve access for competitors to WhatsApp while the investigation proceeds, warning that Meta’s policy risks causing lasting damage to competition in Europe.

The case sits at the intersection of two forces reshaping global regulation: the rise of generative AI and the EU’s increasingly interventionist stance toward Big Tech. WhatsApp is one of the most widely used messaging platforms in Europe, giving Meta a powerful distribution channel at a time when AI companies are racing to integrate chatbots into consumer and business workflows. Regulators fear that denying rivals access to such a platform could distort competition at a formative stage of the market.

Meta has rejected that view, saying the Commission is overstating WhatsApp’s importance as a gateway for AI services. In an emailed statement, a company spokesperson said there was “no reason for the EU to intervene,” adding that users can access AI tools through app stores, operating systems, devices, websites, and partnerships across the industry. The spokesperson said the Commission’s reasoning “incorrectly assumes the WhatsApp Business API is a key distribution channel for these chatbots.”

The dispute echoes similar concerns raised outside Europe. In December, Italy’s competition authority moved against Meta on the same issue, prompting the Commission to cite the Italian case as a precedent for considering interim measures. By contrast, a Brazilian court last month suspended an interim order imposed by that country’s antitrust agency, illustrating how regulators and courts globally are still grappling with how to apply competition law to AI-driven markets.

However, the urgency appears to outweigh the risk of legal pushback for Brussels. The Commission has repeatedly argued that traditional antitrust timelines, which can stretch over several years, are ill-suited to digital markets where competitive dynamics can shift in months. In AI, officials worry that first-mover advantages tied to user access and data could lock in winners long before regulators reach final decisions.

The investigation also highlights the EU’s willingness to press ahead with enforcement despite criticism from the United States, where officials and industry groups have accused European regulators of disproportionately targeting American technology companies. The Commission has insisted that its actions are technology-neutral and grounded in law, even as geopolitical tensions rise around trade, industrial policy, and technological leadership.

The outcome of the case could have implications far beyond Meta. A decision to impose interim measures would send a strong signal to other platform owners that integrating proprietary AI tools into dominant services may attract swift regulatory scrutiny if rivals are shut out. It would also reinforce the EU’s broader strategy under its competition rules and new digital laws to keep markets open while technologies are still evolving.

The case adds to Meta’s mounting regulatory burden in Europe, where it is already subject to obligations under the Digital Markets Act. For the AI sector, it sharpens a central question: whether control over platforms with massive user bases will be allowed to shape the competitive landscape of artificial intelligence, or whether regulators will step in early to keep those gateways open.

The Commission said its decision on interim measures will depend on Meta’s response and its right of defense. Even so, the warning alone marks a turning point, suggesting that in the race to define the AI economy, Europe is no longer prepared to wait until the finish line to decide whether the competition was fair.

1...111213...8,189Page 12 of 8,189

© Tekedia. All rights reserved.

Term & Privacy

© Tekedia. All rights reserved.

Term & Privacy