9th SWEEP awards offers student startups a path for commercializing their ideas and innovations

9th SWEEP Innovation and Excellence Awards offers student startups a clear path to commercializing their innovations and ideas.

The recent 9^th SWEEP Innovation and Excellence Awards has granted cash prizes and product support to inventors for their innovative efforts. Here are the lists of winners.

• Champion – Colegio De San Juan Letran. The team was led by 5^th year computer engineering student Frances Marie Kagahastian. The team’s Switching and Monitoring System Using Android in Wireless Technology impressed judges and walked away with PhP 500,000 (US$ 12,300) in cash and same amount in grants for the school. They also bagged an extra P50,000 (US$ 1,230) for the Ericsson Networked Society Award. Their invention allows homeowners to monitor and control lights and electrical appliances via mobile technology.

• First runner up – Tarlac State University. This team was led by Ranier Rivera and their invention was Helmet Engineered for Accidents and Disasters. They won P200,000 (US$ 5,000) in cash and equivalent amount in grants for the school. The helmet facilitates rescue via reporting of location of an accident though GPS system.

• Second runner up – De La Salle Lipa. The team won P150,000 (US$ 3,700) in cash and equivalent amount in grants for the school. The system allows people to shop for groceries on mobile phones via Android application. This app also won an extra P100,000 (US$ 2,500) as Best Mobile Application from the Smart Developer’s Network.

• Best Business Case Award by IdeaSpace Foundation – University of Southeastern Philippines. The team was awarded P100,000 for their app called Wordify, a phone application that processes images of words and translates these into various languages without the need of internet connection.

• On-the-spot award from Voyager, Inc., a new Smart subsidiary – Ateneo de Manila University. The team was awarded P100,000 for Botika-On-The-Go, a mobile phone application that integrates medicine inventory, database on drugs information and drug stores directory with map integration.

The champion announced that their system is ready for deployment and can be set up in a home for P30,000 (US$ 740). According to IdeaSpace Foundation president Earl Valencia, submissions by students are showing a change towards mobile applications with electronic systems. Students have also elevated the level of competition, says PLDT and Smart technology head Rolando Peña, the founder of Sweep. Starting this year, the students were required to present a business model for their projects.

This year’s Sweep awards include the involvement of IdeaSpace, in which IdeaSpace will incubate winners’ creations, giving these ideas a clear path for commercialization. Currently, IdeaSpace is incubating three previous Smart Sweep submissions.

Source: Max Limpag

Image Credits: RS Gamboa

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Third-Party Mobile Browsers Dominate on Asia’s Smartphones

Spencer Ng is a client service associate director at TNS – a global market research firm. He is interested in anything mobile and currently runs Mobile Behave (A smartphone usage metering program) in key Asian markets. You can email him to find out more about the program.

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While Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google’s Chrome continue to slug it out on the desktop web browser front, mobile is a different story altogether. As smartphones continue to spread across Asia, the likes of UC browser and Opera have surfaced as key apps dominating the browsing experience on mobile.

While some of us might stick to the built-in browser that comes with our smartphones, what works on desktop may feel clunky on mobile, so more and more people are turning to a browser that is optimized for mobile, such as UC Browser or Opera. TNS Mobile Behave data ¹ suggests higher browsing activity on mobile app browsers as opposed to built-in browsers in Asia. In China for example, where Android smartphones account for a majority of the market share, the average time spent on the built-in browser is 4 minutes compared to over 14 minutes daily on UC browser alone.

And UC Browser, with its claimed 400-million user-base, is not the only app in the market driving users away from default, built-in browsers. QQ Browser also attracts substantial facetime on Android in China and accounts for over 10 minutes of time spent daily on average.

In India, where Symbian on feature phones and basic touchscreens still has a stronghold, users spend an average of 37 minutes each day on UC Browser alone. In fact, the only app that surpasses it is Whatsapp, which accounts for more than 1 hour of usage time each day (but it isn’t a browser, of course).

In Indonesia, Opera Mini is the dominant player. Opera software states that Indonesia is now their second-largest market for mobile ad impressions. It is the only browser amongst the top 10 apps ² on TNS’ Android panel in Indonesia and is also one of the most regularly-used apps. On average, the app is accessed seven times daily, with each session lasting over two minutes.

While surplus of choice is obviously a boon for consumers (especially since these browsers are free), it is becoming crucial for advertisers to understand the implications of this for marketing tactics and business growth. Browsers have collected a huge amount of user data from sites browsed within the app – this drives the optimization of mobile advertising inventory across their ad networks. Clearly, browsers are becoming a place to drive visibility of your brand or product for consumers on the go.

For mobile app browsers, it’s anybody’s guess which one would emerge as the victor in Asia. Clearly, different players dominate different countries and they will inevitably ride on the coat-tails of the rapidly changing smartphone landscape. No single market is the same. Understanding consumer profiles and usage in each market (and on each OS) will be key in determining which mobile app browser can monetize better and extend their influence further across the browser ecosystem.

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1. TNS has actual behavioral metrics captured via an app installed on our smartphone user panels. Called Mobile Behave, we captured usage data from over 3,300 smartphone users across five markets over a period from August to October 2012.

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2. Ranked by percentage of users.

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Kickstarter’s Oscar victory spells tough road for Asia’s crowdfunding scene

If there’s an Oscars-related story more fascinating than Anne Hathaway’s unsurprising win for Best Supporting Actress in Les Misérables, it has to be this: a Kickstarter-funded short film has won an Oscar.

Inocente — which tells the tale of a 15-year-old girl in pursuit of her dream of being an artist — won the golden statue for Best Documentary (Short Subject). It had raised USD 52,527 from June to July last year. That’s the sixth Kickstarter-funded movie to be nominated for an Oscar — with three of them receiving the nod this year.

The win is further indication of how far crowdfunding has come in the United States, but it also points to the challenges that beset Asia’s attempt to replicate the same level of success.

Also read: Overview of crowdfunding pioneers in Asia

Asia needs its own Hollywood

While the awards ceremony is a celebration of top talent in the American film industry, what is not revealed is that there is a large pyramid of producers, actors, screenwriters, and directors who are aspiring to reach the pinnacle.

The size of the US film industry is staggering — it contributes USD 175B to the economy and employs about 2.1 million workers. What this means is that there is a sizable amount of breakout talent waiting to be discovered, solving the supply side equation for a crowdfunding platform.

In contrast, the film and entertainment sectors in Asia is much smaller. Even if we combine the Korean and Bollywood film industries, they would still not have the clout and global appeal that the American counterparts have.

Geographical, language, and cultural differences might further limit the reach of Asian films, given the smaller size of their domestic markets.

The disparity between the entertainment industries of East and West is no accident. In certain Asian countries, pursuing the non-conventional path of a career in the arts industry is still discouraged by parents, who would very much prefer to see their children take up a stable job.

The education system, particularly in East Asian countries like Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan, also discourages kids from exploring their non-academic interests due to the intense pressure to ace examinations.

Even the entertainment industries itself are sometimes reflective of its cultural environment. KPop and Taiwanese pop, for instance, are produced with a industrial-like quality, resulting in manufactured sounds that don’t inspire much imagination. Scratch below the surface, and you would find that their respective indie music scenes are struggling.

As such, the pyramid of aspiring film and musical talent diminishes as economic and cultural strictures siphon away potential entertainers into careers in civil service, finance, and banking.

With less room to experiment, the pool of top-notch amateurs and film enthusiasts shrinks. That’s bad news for crowdfunding sites in Asia, where budding talents should form the bulk of its users.

A complex problem

As two-sided platforms, crowdfunding sites need both supply and demand to work. Unfortunately, restrictions on the supply side limit will also put a cap on demand.

With a lack of sufficient talent who are setting up fundraisers, these platforms will have trouble attracting enough donations. Limited contributions means less revenue for the platforms, hindering scalability.

It would seem like many of the obstacles is beyond the control of these platforms. The challenges facing the entertainment industry are identical to the ones facing the technology industry, another benefactor of Kickstarter in the United States.

Again, for platforms like Crowdonomic and Togather.Asia to succeed in funding tech startups, there has to be a strong pyramid of engineers, creatives, and designers who have the potential to upset the established order in the tech world.

There’s no doubt that these people exist in Asia. One example would be Zap in the Philippines, an exciting startup that I think is applying technology in a way that’s unique to its environment.

Asia’s crowdfunding sites would need to search harder to feature ideas like these, ideas that can both excite and attract mainstream attention.

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Mobile World Congress Day Zero: Firefox OS grabs limelight from Android

Though the Mobile World Congress (MWC) gets formally underway only today, February 25th, 2013, many mobile companies chose Day Zero, the day before the event, to unveil their products.

The Mobile World Congress is the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry that happens every year at Barcelona. Even though BlackBerry revealed BlackBerry 10 in January, HTC announced the HTC One last week and Samsung is expected the unveil its latest flagship phone, the Samsung Galaxy S4 on March 14, the MWC will still see a ton of announcements and launches.

Among a slew of launches of smartphones powered by Android, Mozilla unveiled its partners for Firefox OS. Here are the key highlights from Day Zero of Mobile World Congress 2013.

Lenovo unveils trio of tablets

Lenovo was one of the first companies to kick off MWC by launching a trio of tablets running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The Lenovo A1000 is an entry-level device, featuring a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 16GB of which can be expandable by up to 32GB with microSD. The Lenovo A3000 will be powered by 1.2GHz quad-core MTK processor, and features up to 64GB of expandable storage through microSD. Unfortunately it has an underwhelming 1024×600 IPS display, but does come with support for HSPA+.
Lenovo is calling its S6000 a mobile “home Entertainment” center, This 10.1-inch tablet also comes with an IPS display which has a fairly sub-standard 1280 x 800 resolution. It comes with a 1.2GHz MTK 8389/8125 quad-core processor, HSPA+ connectivity. This tablet is fairly thin and light, measuring only 8.6mm thick and weighs just 560g. All three tablets from Lenovo are expected to go on sale in Q2 of the year.

Firefox OS gets closer to release

In what was the biggest announcement of the day, Mozilla said that it had the backing of 18 mobile network operators and four mobile phone makers for its open-source mobile operating system – Firefox OS. The handset manufacturers on board are Alcatel, ZTE, LG Electronics, and Huawei. Chipmaker Qualcomm will power these phones.

Third-party applications on Firefox phones will be based on HTML 5. The initial set of devices running Firefox OS are expected to be low cost.

The phones are expected to hit the markets as early as April and the first Firefox OS devices will be available in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela.

Huawei announces “world’s fastest smartphone”

Huawei, unveiled what it claims to be the “world’s fastest smartphone,” the Ascend P2. The Ascend P2 is powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core processor and has LTE Cat 4, which Huawei says can achieve download speeds of up to 150Mbps. The smartphone, which is 8.4mm thick, features an infinity edge 4.7-inch IPS HD in-cell touch display with Corning Gorilla Glass. The Ascend P2 will ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, but will Huawei’s own Emotion UI 1.5 overlay. It comes with a 2420mAh battery. The Ascend P2 will sport a 13-megapixel rear camera.

Samsung looks to take on iPad Mini, Apple TV

After being leaked online multiple times in the days leading to MWC, Samsung announced the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0. Looking to take on the iPad Mini, the Note 8.0 will come with a 8-inch WXGA (1280×800) display, 1.6GHz quad-core processor, 2GB RAM, internal storage of 16 or 32GB which can expandable up to 64GB via a microSD card, a 5-megapixel rear camera, 1.3-megapixel front camera, Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) and a 4,600mAh battery. The Note 8.0 will come with the S-Pen, which can be used to write, highlight and draw. The screens can also sense when the pen hovers over the screen, providing additional functionality. The HSPA+ variant of the Galaxy Note 8.0 can also make and receive phone calls. The Note 8.0 is expected to hit the markets in Q2 of this year.

Looking to take on the Apple TV, Samsung also debuted an Android-powered set top box, the Samsung HomeSync, that combines Google TV features and a home media server. It will come with 1 TB storage, WiFi and Ethernet access, and an interface powered by Jelly Bean with full access to the Google Play Store. The HomeSync will have a 1.7Ghz dual-core processor, 1GB of memory, an additional 8GB of flash storage, Bluetooth 4.0. 802,11n, HDMI 1.4 and support all standard video and audio codecs. The device will go on sale in April.

HP gets an Android flavor

Hewlett-Packard, which stopped selling its WebOS-based TouchPad just 7 weeks after launch, is getting back into the mobile market with the HP Slate 7. It will cost just $169 when it goes on sale in April in the US. The Android 4.1 Jelly Bean-powered Slate 7 has a 7.0-inch, 1,024 x 600 resolution FFS+ LCD, 1.6GHz, dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU, 1GB RAM, 8GB internal memory with microSD card slot, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/b, Bluetooth 2.1, 3 megapixel rear camera, VGA front camera, stereo speakers and Beats Audio.

Alcatel announces One Touch Idol, One Touch Idol X and and One Touch Star

Apart from announcing the One Touch Fire which will ship with Mozilla’s Firefox OS, Alcatel also announced three new Android phones – One Touch Idol, One Touch Idol X and and One Touch Star. The flagship One Touch Idol X will running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean on a 5-inch LCD, with an edge-to-edge design. Powered by a quad-core MediaTek 6589 C PU with 16GB of internal storage, the Idol X will feature a 13MP camera and a 2000 mAh battery.

Related posts:

1. Karbonn launches Android 4.1 ‘Jelly Bean’ tablet in India, Priced at Rs. 6,990/
2. Google Nexus 7 available (unofficially) in India for Rs. 17,000
3. Tablet To Watch Out For: Huawei’s 7 inch Mediapad Tablet [Runs on Android 3.2]

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Dave McClure: Indian Entrepreneurs should appreciate the India Opportunity [An UnPluggd Conversation]

In a freewheeling conversation with NextBigWhat, 500Startups’ founder, Dave McClure talks about his experience working with Indian startups, the $5mn startup wallah fund, his earlier Indian connections (Coimbatore) and importantly, he has a lot of candid advice for Indian entrepreneurs – primarily related to the Indian opportunity and the known beasts, i.e. design and marketing skills.

Bonus tip : Don’t miss out the last 10 seconds of the conversation!

Recommended Read : Focus on traction. Communicate and inspire. Money will follow: Paul Singh, Partner @500Startups

Related posts:

1. Dave McClure sets up 500 Startup Wallah, a $5 million fund to back Indian startups
2. Dave McClure: “We will Invest in atleast 5-10 Indian Startups in 2012”
3. The decade of Angels and entrepreneurs in India: Paul Singh [UnPluggd Speaker #3]

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Quipio is Instagram for Text Messaging. Developers share how they optimized for a global audience since the beginning.

Quipio has launched its app for a global audience since day one, and highlights the importance of optimizing for different networks and environments.

Another app which recently came to our attention is Quipio, an app that provides an effortless way to share beautiful thoughts and moments with people. Jordan Crook of TechCrunch called the newly launched app Instagram for Text Messaging. The user experience is simple: Insert your message or personal quote. Apply pre set filters for the text or add a photo as the background. Share it with your social network. Done. It does all the work for you.

Quipio sees growing traction

Founded by Zubin Wadia, Harshit Surana and Miles Egan, Quipio has garnered a total of 70,000+ downloads since its launch a little more than two weeks ago. From the downloads, co-founder Zubin shared with us that there has been more than 48,000 Quips created. An average user also spends more than 10 minutes per day on Quipio.

When asked about funding, Zubin told us that they are currently 100% bootstrapped and while the team wanted to raise capital, “no one was going to take them seriously for consumer web until they have significant traction.”

You can download the app for free from the iTunes App store.

How Quipio optimized their app for a global audience since the beginning

Perhaps what is more interesting about Quipio is how the app has been optimized for a global audience from the beginning. There are a lot of apps out there which are designed with specific audiences in mind, and when it comes to a stage of expansion, they then go through costly design overhauls to internationalize/localize the experience and transliterate their apps for various audiences. Avoiding this, Zubin shared with e27 how Quipio is optimized for the global audience from the beginning.

There are three ways:

1. Quipio is all about self-expression with scripture and photos, so the outputs from symbolic languages are actually more beautiful than just English or Latin languages. We went to significant lengths to support Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese and other languages natively within the Quipio experience. One doesn’t have to be a native speaker/writer of English to enjoy Quipio.

Key Takeaway: Expression is inherently the output of one’s cultural experiences and history. It’s personal and thus the native language of your audience must be incorporated when possible.

2. Another measure we took was keeping the interface almost entirely symbolic. We strongly believe that a language-neutral interface allows a user to impose their own cultural perspective onto an action or intent, yet leaves the result of the action unchanged. It doesn’t matter whether the “<” icon is interpreted as “distribute” or “share” or “give”, what matters is that the user delivers their creation to followers, friends and family.

Key Takeaway: Let the user interpret the user experience in their context. Persuade without imposition or presumption.

3. Quipio was deliberately made bandwidth efficient so that users on 2.5 and 3G networks can still have an excellent experience. When you create a textual Quip, you are only sending a few kilobytes over your cellular connection. Your friends on Quipio see a very beautiful output but that’s because Quipio reuses common fonts, backgrounds and highlight colors. Once the application knows what it needs to render, it does it in real-time. No 500KB transfers required! The result is a fast and fluid experience regardless of cellular bandwidth.

Key Takeaway: Don’t assume that cellular networks are identical globally. Account for bandwidth-challenged environments and optimize for them.

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[Singapore] Startup Workshop with mentor of 500 Startup and TechStars

Startup Workshop with mentor of 500 Startup and TechStars

George Karidis, the Chief Strategy Officer of SoftLayer and mentor at world-famous accelerators TechStars and 500 Startups, along with SoftLayer Catalyst Community Manager Casey Lau will be holding a 1-day Startup Workshop on 3 March 2013.

This event is free to all Catalyst members and other working startups that are looking to supercharge their startups – all you need to know about pitching, marketing and hosting.

The agenda will be:

Pitch Workshop
Growing Your Startup for the Global Market
‘Go-to-Market’ Strategies
Startup Marketing Tips & Tricks
The Power of Cloud
TechStars-style Mentoring Live with George Karidis
FOOD and DRINKS!

What you need to bring with you:

You will pitch your startup and get live feedback. So bring your best elevator pitch and decks.
The workshop is highly interactive, so bring your questions as 50% of the workshop will be focused on helping your startup, not just listening to us.
Challenges your startup faces in Singapore and in the global market.

Event details:

• Start: Sunday, 3 March, 2013 04:00 p.m.
• End: Sunday, 3 March, 2013 07:00 p.m.
• Venue : The Studio Bar, 778 North Bridge Road, Singapore – 198746
• Register here
• Organizer : SoftLayer

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GuideMeSingapore.com lists business trends in Singapore for 2013

In 2013, Singapore will see more foreign companies and an increase in entrepreneurs. That is no surprise, with its well-developed infrastructure, business-friendly policies and hub location.

Contributing to the increase in entrepreneurship is the ease of starting a business and tax exemptions for start-ups. The minimum paid-up capital is only S$1, and it takes less than a day to register a Singapore company.

Gloomy as the economic outlook might seem, the Republic will continue attracting foreign companies and entrepreneurs with its business-friendly policies and hub location in the region, according to GuideMeSingapore.com’s annual list of business trends for Singapore,.

The Singapore business incorporation portal has predicted, among other trends, that there will be an increase in the number of new companies set up in 2013, with it exceeding the Singapore business registration numbers in the previous year.

It suggests that as Asian companies are currently growing at a much faster rate than developed countries, and with the establishment on many European and North American operations in Asia, Singapore will see disproportionate benefits from this.

“Take the example of Goldman Sachs, which recently announced plans to hire 1,000 individuals in Singapore. Wall Street firms are recognizing that it simply makes more sense to move operations here — the taxes in Singapore are lower, and they will be more in-tune with their target markets in Asia,” said Jacqueline Low, Chief Operating Officer of Janus Corporate Solutions, a Singapore company registration services firm, and the parent company of GuideMeSingapore.com.

“Asian companies are setting up operations in Singapore because it helps them gain marketing and investment traction. BDO Unibank, the largest bank in the Philippines, recently opened a Singapore representative office,” added Jacqueline.

GuideMeSingapore.com also claims that there will be an increase in local entrepreneurship in Singapore in the year ahead. With the rising number of venture funds, angel investors and initiatives set up by government agencies to foster higher entrepreneurship among the young, who are said to be risk-takers.

“Schools such as NUS have initiatives providing mentoring and network opportunities for students. This will create a positive cycle — more young Singaporeans will start businesses, their success in turn will inspire others in their network to strike it on their own. This trend will also help maintain the city’s consistently low unemployment rate,” she predicted.

A hot topic to many, foreign immigrants will cause a surge in population, predicts GuideMeSingapore.com. With plans to increase the aging population from 5.1 million to nearly seven by 2030, mainly through immigration, the government will have to try and find the right balance.

“On one side, a too restrictive immigration policy will stifle the country’s economic growth, while on the other side, a very liberal policy will further add to the unhappiness of Singaporeans,” added Jacqueline.

Image Credit: Holiday in SG

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NulisBuku Responds to New Rivalry from Gramediana, Now Has 27,000 Members

Indonesian self-publishing service NulisBuku has been making steady progress since we covered the company in 2011. Co-founder (Ollie) Aulia Halimatussadiah spoke with us and shared some details of the company’s progress both offline and online. She also talked about her thoughts on Indonesia’s biggest publishing company Gramedia and its plans to open a self-publishing service in the near future.

In December, NulisBuku held a writing competition called “Tulis Nusantara 2012.” The competition partnered with the Indonesian ministry of tourism and creative economy and generated more than 3,000 entries in three weeks. The team also went to 12 cities in Indonesia to give writing workshops about writing and self-publishing. As an author herself, Ollie is glad that the team can help a handful of new, aspiring writers realize their dream to get books published and made available in bookstores.

At the moment, NulisBuku has more than 27,000 members with more than 2,000 books self-published. The company’s social pages now have almost 11,000 Facebook fans and 50,000 Twitter followers. On Twitter, Ollie says that they regularly hold tweeting activities like a poetry at night with the hashtag #PuisiMalam and also creating ‘flash fiction’ in only one hour using the hashtag #FF2in1.

A couple of weeks ago, publishing giant Gramedia launched its newest website, Gramediana to become a major, new rival to the startup. Although Gramediana is still in its beta version, included inside the site’s future offerings is a self-publishing service similar to NulisBuku. Ollie commented:

Nulisbuku started the self-publishing service in October 2010, and at that time only a few were interested in the self-publishing business. We built our ‘Nulis Buku Club’ (NBC) community all over Indonesia and grew the number of self-published books in our website. With Gramedia’s decision to enter the self-publishing business, it assured us that we’re on the right track, that the self-publishing business will grow massively in the future. We still have room to grow and a lot of potential in the young Indonesian market. We’re happy that there are more people and support involved in this ecosystem to create bigger awareness in self-publishing.

Ollie is now preparing a new look as well as new features and services for the NulisBuku website. The team is going to focus on distribution this year to accommodate further exposure of its writers’ self-published books. NulisBuku is also brewing up a few strategic partnerships this year.

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[Singapore] Social Entrepreneurship Experience and Development (SEED) info session

SEED info session

Sharing and info session about the programmes that Social Entrepreneurship Experience and Development (SEED) offers in its June/July attachment programme.

SEED aims to increase the awareness of youths in Singapore of Social Entrepreneurship in Singapore by organizing a short attachment programme during the June holiday. Interns would be able to work in an Social Enterprise in a group of 4-5 and would experience first hand the difficulties that these Social Enterprises face.

Social Entrepreneurs from 18Chefs, Silverspring, Claystreet would be present at the event!

Event details:

• Start: Friday, 1 March, 2013 11:00 a.m.
• End: Friday, 1 March, 2013 01:00 p.m.
• Venue : Marina Bay Sands Convention Hall F
• Register here
• Organizer : Social Entreprenurship Experience and Development (SEED)

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Cyber Fraud in India: INR 52.7 Cr in 2012, ICICI Bank tops the chart

The number of reported cases of cyber fraud has nearly halved in the last three years while the amount involved has gone up by 30 % in from 2010 to 2012, according to information shared by the Minister for State for Finance in the Parliament on Friday.

In 2010, there were 15018 cases of cyber fraud including fraud relating to ATM, Debit Cards, Internet Banking and Credit Cards while the number came down to 8322 in 2012. The amount involved in these frauds went up from Rs 40.5 cr in 2010 to Rs 52.7 cr in 2012. It showed a decline in 2011 at Rs 36.72 cr

Of the banks which reported fraud in 2012, ICICI bank reported the most number of cases followed by Citibank, American Express and Standard Chartered bank.

Bank Cyber Fraud in India 2012

Interestingly, Axis Bank has reported a very low number of cases but the amount reported is at par with banks that have reported a high number of cases. It could have been on the receiving end of a major fraud.

In a recent post on NextBigWhat, Sanjay Swamy, the Managing Partner early stage investing firm AngelPrime had written about minimizing credit card fraud. The three steps he suggests involve eliminating land line based point of sale terminals, enabling pay at table option for restaurants and turning off the card when its not in use.

While India is still a predominantly cash based economy, as penetration of mobile phones increase and the technology heavy financial inclusion measures championed by the central government take root, electronic fraud is likely to go up.

Related posts:

1. How Reserve Bank of India (RBI) can facilitate eCommerce and Online Transactions in India
2. How India can minimize credit-card fraud in 60 days ["Eliminate Landline (un-encrypting) POS terminals immediately"]
3. HDFC Bank ranks No.1 online followed by ICICI Bank and SBI

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TeknoUp Earns Tens of Thousands of Dollars Every Month, Now Accepts Credit Card Payments

Indonesian gadget review and e-commerce site TeknoUp.com (¹) announced on Friday that it now accepts payment by credit card, which is powered by Indonesian payment gateway Veritrans. TeknoUp CEO Citra Purnawijaya then explained to us about the company’s progress last year:

We managed to be sustainable in 2012 in terms of growth and store traction. Without any advertisement unlike other giant e-commerce sites, we are happy with the state of TeknoUp organic growth, especially for the store.

Citra said that he is seeking further dominance and growth for TeknoUp as the local gadget portal in Indonesia this year. He shared that TeknoUp’s monthly revenue is still under IDR 1 billion (US$ 103,000) Though the company has had an Android app since 2011, it only plans to release its iOS app soon.

Besides TeknoUp, Veritrans is also powering design crowdsourcing company Sribu’s credit card payment system.

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1. Disclosure: East Ventures is an investor in TeknoUp, Sribu, and TechinAsia. See our ethics page for more information.

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