Increase in break-up borrowing following divorce or separation

According to conveyancing service provider, LMS, the proportion of borrowers remortgaging following a divorce or separation increased to 5% in May. This ‘breakup borrowing’ is up 3% from the previous month and up 2% on the same period last year.
As well as people refinancing to remove an ex-partner from their mortgage, the figures also include borrowers who need to raise funds to cover divorce settlements.
Remortgaging to pay off debts has also risen from 13% in April to 16% in May, while 26% of borrowers remortgaged to fund home improvements.
Commenting on the findings, Nick Chadbourne, chief executive of LMS, said: “While most borrowers remortgage to switch deals or save money, we have seen an increase in remortgaging for different reasons this month, including homeowners remortgaging due to divorce or to pay off debts.
“As divorce becomes simpler through innovations such as the government’s new online divorce system, so too is remortgaging. This may well be contributing to the use of remortgaging as a vehicle to raise fund for divorce settlements.
“In almost all cases customers are looking for an efficient process that delivers against both speed and value. A fees-assisted remortgage is the most appropriate vehicle, developed and refined for this process, it offers both customers and lenders great value and an efficient legal platform to make the switch.”
The most common reason for borrowers to remortgage is reaching the end of a fixed rate deal (63%) with demand for five-year fixed rate remortgages increasing year-on-year (up from 34% in May in 2017 to 42% in May 2018). However, in April 2018, five-year fixed mortgages made up 47% of the market, so there has been a decline month-on-month.
Nick Chadbourne added: “Demand for five-year fixed rate remortgages remains historically high as borrowers look to protect themselves from a potential base rate increase later in the year. While the popularity of five-year deals has dipped slightly month-on-month, they continue to dominate the market as borrowers lock in current rates for the long-term.
“Lenders are operating in a competitive landscape, given the volume of different five-year fixed rate products available. Borrowers may wish to consult a broker to ensure they get the best deal to suit individual requirements.”
Overall, equity released through remortgaging is at the highest level in ten months. At the same time, the gap between the average remortgage advance and the average redemption value of the original mortgage has widened.
Nick Chadbourne said: “The increase in the gap between mortgage advances and redemptions illustrates more borrowers are remortgaging to increase the size of their loans compared to previous months.”

Oppo’s former VP Sky Li resigns to form new technology brand Realme

NEW DELHI: Sky Li, former vice president of Oppo and head of Oppo's overseas business has officially resigned from Oppo and founded a new technology brand Realme. Li, who also previously served Oppo India as the country head has now joined as global CEO for Realme which started off as a sub-brand of Oppo.

In a letter to the Realme employees, Li introduced the new brand Realme while mentioning that the idea of creating the brand was born at the end of the last year. Realme is doing something similar to what Peter Lau did when he left Oppo and registered OnePlus.

Realme founder Sky Li led Oppo to grow in 3 markets to one that covers 31 countries and regions including Southeast Asia, South Asia, Middle East, Africa and Oceania, Realme mentioned in a release on Monday.

“Before leaving Oppo officially, I've been in charge of OPPO's global overseas market during these past few years, leading OPPO to grow from the business available in 3 markets to one that covers 31 countries and regions. The overwhelming response and trust from the young generation is something that has encouraged me to launch the new brand Realme,” Li wrote in the letter.

As reported by ET earlier, Realme is focusing on Rs 10000-20000 price range with its products for the India market. The brand has gained over 1% share in the second quarter with one month’s sales in India, as per Counterpoint Research.

The new online brand which is currently sharing production lines with Oppo in India is adopting “India-first approach” in a bid to garner a lion’s share in the country’s online channel, as part of which it will launch all new devices in India first before introducing it to any other global market.

On a casual note, Li wrote “I still remember the time during Diwali festival last year. I was dressed in a traditional costume to celebrate the festival along with our local colleagues.”

Airtel manages to hold on in the face of Jio's onslaught

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Microsoft continues Nadella’s quest for conversational AI

t is a strategy which we have been hearing a lot about over the last couple of months, and the inclusion of Semantic Machines adds further ammunition to the Microsoft AI garrison.
This acquisition is a perfect example of where CEO Satya Nadella wants to take the Microsoft business. When Nadella inherited the Microsoft throne, the business was in a trough, relying on a decaying legacy business while carelessly investing to chase segments which had already boomed. The Nadella strategy was to get out in front of the crowd with a heavy emphasis on cloud computing in the early days, and now a more acute focus on artificial intelligence. Semantic Machines builds on this vision.
“We are excited to announce today that we have acquired Semantic Machines Inc., a Berkeley, California-based company that has developed a revolutionary new approach to building conversational AI,” said David Ku, CTO of Microsoft AI & Research. “Their work uses the power of machine learning to enable users to discover, access and interact with information and services in a much more natural way, and with significantly less effort.”
The idea of conversational AI is a simple one. Take AI interactions from limited and specific questions to conversation based outcomes. With more of a focus on conversational AI, offerings like Cortana, the Azure Bot Service and Microsoft Cognitive Services will be able to become more intuitive, taking actions based on context and more nuanced enquiries. It becomes a much more natural interaction and will ultimately drive the normalization of the technology.
This is where the Semantic Machines acquisition could prove to be a valuable one, as it builds on the Microsoft mission statement. The objective of Semantic Machines is to develop a ‘new, language-independent technology platform that goes beyond understanding commands to understanding conversations’. While this does sound like a blue-sky ambition, the task is separated into several areas including extracting semantic intent from interactions, deep-learning models to enhance the concept of context, speech recognition, speech synthesis and reinforcement learning.
The conversational AI strategy does look like it is becoming a useful one for the Microsoft team, especially in the telco space, where operators are trying to reverse years of negative customer service experience. While it is not reasonable to assume 100% of customers would welcome virtual customer service agents, progress with conversational AI will make the virtual agents more intuitive, broadening acceptance, while also making them more useful.
TIM is one telco which has grasped onto the Microsoft AI experience for its customer services, and we suspect it won’t be the last. For industries which have traditionally struggled in the customer services space, the telcos being top of this list, Microsoft’s conversational AI department is certainly one to keep an eye on.

BSNL to invest Rs 4,300 crore for network expansion in 2018-19

New Delhi: State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) will invest about Rs 4,300 crore to expand network in 2018-19, and another Rs 5,000-6,000 crore is likely to be the utilised for government telecom projects, according to a top official.
The investment of Rs 4,300 crore earmarked for BSNL's own expansion will primarily go into strengthening the mobile network, upgrading broadband infrastructure and strengthening the core network, its Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava told .
"Rs 5,000 to 6,000 crore will be spent on the government projects like Bharat Net, Network for Spectrum, the Comprehensive Telecom Development Plan for North East, as well as boosting connectivity to Andaman with optical fibre network, and others," he said.
Other government projects that BSNL is executing include providing bandwidth to Lakshadweep Islands, and connecting remote areas of Arunachal Pradesh, he said.
"Government is investing in large connectivity projects, where private players are not going. BSNL is being used as one of the vehicles to execute those projects and we do that work on behalf of government," he said.
Shrivastava said that the telecom corporation will look to install 12,000 mobile towers for 3G services and 10,000 for 4G services. This will have a provision for 100 per cent expansion mapped to BSNL's 4G services roll out and spectrum allocation.
As per the latest report by telecom regulator, BSNL had 9.40 per cent share of mobile services market as on January 31 and had added 3.96 lakh customers during that month. MBI MR MR

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UIDAI set to introduce face authentication feature from July 1

The UIDAI had announced in January that it will introduce face authentication feature to help those who run into problems in biometric authentication.PTI  |  March 26, 2018, 18:54 IST

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Israeli police arrest telecom officials in graft case

Israeli police said Sunday they arrested senior officials from the country's national telephone company as part of an investigation into alleged corruption offenses. Israeli media said among those arrested were close associates of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is fighting for his political life after being accused of taking bribes from billionaire supporters.

Police revealed few details about the case and quickly slapped a gag order on its details. But Israeli daily Haaretz reported that police are investigating a possible relationship between the company, Bezeq, its controlling shareholder Shaul Elovitch and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to Channel 2 TV, Netanyahu allegedly received favorable coverage from the Walla news site, a Bezeq subsidiary, in exchange for regulation that earned Elovitch hundreds of millions of shekels. The channel says two people arrested are Netanyahu associates and that Netanyahu, who held the communications portfolio until last year, is expected to be questioned.

Netanyahu denied wrongdoing, saying the accusations would amount to nothing and that they were part of a witch hunt by a hostile media.

Journalists from the Walla news site have indicated they were coerced to refrain from negative coverage of Netanyahu.

"I was witness to the despicable pattern in which this media outlet tried to suck up to Prime Minister Netanyahu," said Dov Gil-Har, a former Walla journalist. In a statement broadcast on his current TV show, Gil-Har said he tried to appeal to management but did not elaborate further because of the gag order.

The new probe comes days after police announced there was sufficient evidence to indict Netanyahu for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in two separate cases.

Netanyahu is accused of receiving lavish gifts from Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer. In return, police say Netanyahu had operated on Milchan's behalf on U.S. visa matters, legislated a tax break and connected him with an Indian businessman.

In the second case, Netanyahu is accused of offering to give preferential treatment to a newspaper publisher in exchange for favorable coverage.

Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing in those cases.

Telecom companies may ring in stable 2018

The Indian telecom industry, having weathered one of its most turbulent years, is looking at a more stable twelve months where tariff wars will ease out, revenues from customers will increase, companies will assemble their merged entities and go slow on its shopping spree. The sector, with its three big players, will instead focus on data, innovative services and other forms of business within the industry keeping the customer in mind.

"2018 will be an important year for telcos and tower companies alike, as the national telecom policy (NTP 2018) will be unveiled, paving the way forward for a conducive ecosystem," said Rajan S Mathews, director general of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). He said that consolidation in the sector will take firm shape and eventually result in improved margins for the telcos.

"Telcos may also look to sell their tower assets to fund capex, which along with consolidatio ..

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Ofcom to introduce automatic compensation for telecoms service failures

Customers suffering poor landline and broadband services will be automatically compensated under a new scheme to be rolled out in 2019, though at lower rates than previously outlined

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Customers suffering poor landline and broadband services will be automatically compensated under a new scheme to be rolled out by the telecoms regulator Ofcom, though at lower rates than previously outlined.
Ofcom estimates under its proposals, to be rolled out in 2019, up to 2.6 million more landline and broadband customers could receive up to £142 million a year in new compensation payments.
This annual compensation estimate has fallen from £185 million Ofcom estimated in March when it launched its consultation, having now cut the compensation rates it will set across all three service areas identified.
The regulator had earlier proposed it would set compensation if a service isn't fixed within two days at £10 a day; £30 per missed appointment if an engineer fails to turn up for a scheduled appointment or cancels with less than 24 hours notice; and £6 a day for delays in a scheduled start date for services.
Those figures have now been revised downward to £8 a day if a service has been down two full working days; £25 per missed or late rescheduled appointment; and £5 per day for missing a service start date.
The regulator said as a result of its intervention, BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Zen Internet – who together serve around 90 per cent of landline and broadband customers in the UK – have “agreed to introduce automatic compensation, which will reflect the harm consumers suffer when things go wrong”.
The regulator said it will continue to monitor the scheme, and will step if measures agreed are not fully implemented.
Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom’s consumer group director, said: “Waiting too long for your landline or broadband to be fixed is frustrating enough, without having to fight for compensation.
“So providers will have to pay money back automatically, whenever repairs or installations don’t happen on time, or an engineer doesn’t turn up.
“People will get the money they deserve, while providers will want to work harder to improve their service.”
Alex Neill, managing director of home services at Which?, said: “We are pleased that compensation for poor broadband is going to become automatic, as it is now such an essential part of all of our everyday lives.
“For all consumers to get what they're entitled to, it’s vital that all providers play fair and sign up to this scheme.”