There’s No Crypto Winter in Argentina, Where Startups Ramp Up to Meet Demand

While bitcoin advocates point to politically fraught Venezuela as a prime example of crypto adoption, they often overlook the more business-friendly hub a bit farther south. Since Argentina has a sordid history of banks restricting customer access, plus an inflation rate that hit 47 percent in 2018, bitcoin isn’t a hard sell these days.“I was raised with my father telling me never trust the Argentine peso and my story was the story many Argentinians had,” Santiago Siri, founder of the blockchain startup Democracy Earth Foundation and investor in several Argentinian crypto startups, told CoinDesk. Indeed, Argentinian usage of the peer-to-peer exchange LocalBitcoins hit an all-time high of 9.4 million Argentine pesos in weekly volume in December 2018. Despite broader market dips, this growth has continued to surge in 2019 at a rate that dwarfs anything witnessed during the 2017 token boom, when the peak was 5.7 million Argentine pesos. That figure would currently represent a slow week in Argentina’s 2019 P2P market.None of this is to say that Argentinian companies haven’t felt the strain of crypto volatility, but local demand and interest remains steady. Plus, a recent influx of Venezuelan immigrants has infused Buenos Aires with underbanked communities that need financial tools and remittance services.“The sector is growing, it’s growing very well. It’s providing a lot of jobs,” Siri said. “People are using these technologies for real survival needs and finding themselves in a better world than if they had to trust the government.”

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This election year will have a significant impact on long-term indirect tax rules, rates, and risks. More immediately, federal, state, and local tax policymaking, fiscal conditions, and technological disruptions will muddle the short-term indirect tax environment in the United States. This white paper will cover the important tr


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Webull partners with Dow Jones to drive greater financial literacy and empower retail investing decisions

Webull Corporation | January 30, 2024

Webull, a leading online broker for global investors, has launched an initiative to drive financial literacy, announcing its partnership with Dow Jones, a global news and business information services provider and the publisher of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The agreement aims to drive greater levels of financial literacy among retail investors by empowering Webull customers with curated award-winning content from The Wall Street Journal, including news, analysis, and essential insights on managing personal finances. The collaboration provides access to the publication's trusted and reliable journalism to help Webull users make better educated and informed decisions around their financial goals. Webull users will receive a curated round-up of WSJ articles on its news feed within the app. New and renewing Webull customers will also receive a WSJ subscription. "Webull was founded on the principle of democratizing investing and making it more accessible and inclusive - especially for first time investors. In this regard, we've already seen success, with a robust number of our active members being first-time investors," said Anthony Denier, Webull Group President. "Through this partnership with Dow Jones, we want to put the power of the world's leading financial publication straight into the hands of our customers with content that helps investors make better financial decisions with greater confidence." "Financial literacy, powered by trusted and credible journalism, leads to better decisions," said David Martin, Chief Revenue Officer for Business Intelligence at Dow Jones. "We are delighted to work with Webull and look forward to putting the Journal's high-quality and award-winning business news, information and analysis at the fingertips of millions of Webull users on its platform to help elevate their decision making process." Financial literacy has been identified as a key barrier to entry to investing for many people, with research from the World Economic Forum revealing that 40% of non-investors chose not to invest because they do not know how or find it too confusing. In addition, approximately 70% said they would be more likely to invest, or invest more, with expanded financial education. With the trend of retail investors skewing younger, the initiative aims to address knowledge gaps by providing access to actionable and outcome-oriented information to help educate and shape the way new and existing users navigate fast-changing markets in an informed and responsible manner. About Webull Webull is a leading digital investment platform built on next generation global infrastructure. The Webull Group is headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida and backed by private equity investors located in the United States, Europe and Asia. Webull serves tens of millions of users from over 180 countries, providing retail investors with 24/7 access to global financial markets. Users can put investment strategies to work by trading global stocks, ETFs, options and fractional shares, through Webull's trading platform, which is currently available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, South Africa, Australia, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil and Canada. Webull also offers investment education services, with lessons covering a wide range of topics. About Dow Jones Dow Jones is a global provider of news and business information, delivering content to consumers and organizations around the world across multiple formats, including print, digital, mobile and live events. Dow Jones has produced unrivaled quality content for more than 130 years and today has one of the world's largest news-gathering operations globally. It is home to leading publications and products including the flagship Wall Street Journal, America's largest newspaper by paid circulation; Barron's, MarketWatch, Mansion Global, Financial News, Investor's Business Daily, Factiva, Dow Jones Risk & Compliance, Dow Jones Newswires, OPIS and Chemical Market Analytics.

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Financial Management

Synechron Launches 'Synechron Nexus' AI Solutions Suite in Fulfilling the Promise of AI With Ready-to-use Solutions

Synechron | February 02, 2024

Synechron, Inc., a leading global digital transformation consulting firm focused on financial services and technology organizations, announces the launch of its Synechron Nexus suite of nine Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions that are ready to be deployed within weeks. This array of generative AI-led solutions was designed to span the nexus between human expertise and AI, while enabling users to automate manually intensive tasks, increase project speed, drive operational efficiencies, and reduce costs across various key business tasks. Each solution, divided among three value streams, allows Synechron clients to improve their operations, reduce friction in their processes and boost productivity. Business Growth: Practical, innovative applications that enhance business capabilities Synechron Amplifai is a GenAI-powered market research solution. Its automated research capability saves significant time in a wide range of use-cases, reducing the tedium of gathering, analyzing and reporting market news, trends and strategies. Synechron Clarifai is a tool for summarizing and analyzing call-center transcripts. Conversations are flagged for non-compliance and further human review/actions. Synechron Simplifai centralizes project portfolio data and metrics for streamlined executive decision-making, informing effortless, data-backed decisions for executive and steering committee groups. Operational Efficiency: Advanced solutions to streamline processes and elevate internal operations Synechron Nexus Chat is built on a conversational AI model, understands and engages in a comprehensive range of scenarios and supports plug-ins for real-time data and integration, while delivering human-like conversational responses and text, safely and securely. Synechron Replai is an AI-driven, RFP and proposals tool, streamlining proposal creation with high-quality, insightful responses, with the ability to search the internal knowledge repository for fast access and content re-use. Synechron Unifai is an AI-driven HR solution, designed to simplify interactions between company HR functions and employees, such as policy information and employee-specific payroll details. Synechron Identifai collects comprehensive online market intelligence and provides an in-depth understanding of business, emerging technology trends, or any research topic. Developer Productivity: Toolkit to optimize timelines, minimize costs, and automate practices across the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) Synechron Codifai is an SDLC productivity improvement tool, using automation in code generation, unit test case generation, legacy code migration, code optimizations, and automatic code documentation. It works closely with Synechron Verifai which addresses software testing aspects. Synechron Verifai is a GenAI tool for SDLC productivity, using automation in code generation with a focus on QA test case generation, automated test script generation, synthetic test data generation, and bug detection and bug fixing. It works closely with Synechron Codifai which addresses software development efficiency. This new Synechron Nexus AI suite of real-world, practical business solutions, combined with the five formalized RiskTech.AI Accelerators (launched in October 2023), leverages Synechron's AI Practice expertise globally. The creation of AI-led business solutions has been a passion of Synechron's for over a decade, and the firm's commitment to innovative excellence has won the firm eight prestigious AI industry awards to date. Faisal Husain, Synechron's Co-founder and CEO, said of the launch of the Synechron Nexus AI Suite of solutions, "We are proud to be releasing this extensive array of AI-enhanced solutions that go beyond the hype, and provide significant, tangible benefits to business operations. AI and GenAI-rich tools are not just ideas we offer to our clients, but key process accelerators that we ourselves at Synechron are deploying across our company, as we offer ways to integrate the benefits of this technology with human expertise." Ryan Cox, Co-head of Synechron's AI Practice in the UK, added, "Our team has developed, tested, and successfully integrated these advanced AI solutions. Our approach is to strategically guide our clients to integrate AI effectively within their business processes. We identify the key areas where AI can bring the most impact, aligning our solutions to their unique business needs. This targeted approach ensures significant value creation with maximum benefit." Prabhakar Srinivasan, Co-head of Synechron's AI Practice in Bangalore, India, commented, "Artificial Intelligence has proven to be a wonderful force for driving business enhancements by quickly synthesizing extraordinarily large data sets. The Large Language Models used learn over short span of time on how to optimize each firm's proprietary information, thereby boosting productivity and allowing businesses to realize time and cost savings as they optimize tasks." About Synechron At Synechron, we believe in the power of digital to transform businesses for the better. Our global consulting firm combines creativity and innovative technology to deliver industry-leading digital solutions. Synechron's progressive technologies and optimization strategies span end-to-end Artificial Intelligence, Consulting, Digital, Cloud & DevOps, Data, and Software Engineering, servicing an array of noteworthy financial services and technology firms. Through research and development initiatives in our FinLabs we develop solutions for modernization, from Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain to Data Science models, Digital Underwriting, mobile-first applications and more. Over the last 20+ years, our company has been honored with multiple employer awards, recognizing our commitment to our talented teams. With top clients to boast about, Synechron has a global workforce of 15,000+, and has 48 offices in 19 countries within key global markets.

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Spotlight

This election year will have a significant impact on long-term indirect tax rules, rates, and risks. More immediately, federal, state, and local tax policymaking, fiscal conditions, and technological disruptions will muddle the short-term indirect tax environment in the United States. This white paper will cover the important tr

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