Today in the Connected Economy: Google Investing $1.2B in LatAm

Today in the connected economy, Google makes a five-year, $1.2 billion commitment to Latin America that includes building the longest underwater cable in the world.

Also, Mastercard joins forces with a group of NFT markets to provide easier and safer purchases, and Amazon’s CEO discusses his companies “big bets.”

Google to Invest $1.2B on LatAm Digital Economy

Google plans to invest $1.2 billion in Latin America to promote the region’s digital transformation and economic development.

The tech giant says the funding will advance three large projects in the region: hiring engineers digital wallets and constructing the world’s largest underwater cable.

In addition, $300 million of the investment will go toward Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, which backs sustainability NGOs and economic opportunities for women

Mastercard Partners With NFT Marketplaces for ‘Easier and Safer’ Purchases

In an effort to make buying non-fungible tokens (NFTs) “easier and safer,” Mastercard has joined forces with several NFT marketplaces to allow payments for NFT purchases on its network.

According to Mastercard, the companies include Immutable X, Candy Digital, The Sandbox, Mintable, Spring, Nifty Gateway and Web3 infrastructure provider MoonPay. The partnership will elt customers purchase NFTs with their Mastercard cards, either on the companies’ marketplaces or using their crypto services.

The NFT marketplaces represent a broad portion the NFT sector, Mastercard said, and generated more than $25 billion in sales in last year in categories like art, sports, video games and collectibles.

Amazon to Invest in Video, Autonomous Vehicles, Satellites, CEO Jassy Says

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the supply chain crisis has seen his company ordering things “significantly earlier” than it before to ensure timely deliveries.

Speaking at the Bloomberg Technology Summit, Jassy said Amazon would be keep investing in big bets, despite the flagging growth and sales with the current economic conditions.

Among the big bets:  building a grocery chain, launching a cluster of internet-beam satellites, Alexa software and Zoox, the company’s autonomous taxi company. The CEO added encouraged by the future of Amazon’s streaming service, citing programming such as the new TV show set in the “Lord of the Rings” universe.

UAE’s ADQ Launches $100M Tech Fund in Jordan

The United Arab Emirates’ ADQ had created a $100 million technology-focused venture capital fund in partnership with Jordan’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship.

The venture capital firm said the fund aims to support high-growth tech firms and the growth of the digital economy in Jordan, which is home to 27% all tech entrepreneurs in the region.

“We established the $100M Fund with the Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship in recognition of the strong potential of Jordan’s tech ecosystem,” said H.E. Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi, Managing Director and CEO of ADQ. “Jordan’s dynamic marketplace offers vast investment potential in sectors where we have significant expertise.”

Razer Fintech Adds PT E2Pay Global Utama for Indonesia Expansion

Razer Fintech, the financial technology offshoot of gamer-focused brand Razer, has purchased Indonesian B2B2C digital payment facilitator PT E2Pay Global Utama, in an effort to expand its offline to online (O2O) digital payment network into Indonesia.

E2Pay provides payment gateway, eMoney and remittance services licenses to merchants and financial institutions in Indonesia, complementing Razer Merchant Services, Razer Fintech’s business-to-business (B2B) arm regionally.

“E2Pay is one of Indonesia’s very few digital payment players that has a comprehensive set of licenses across various payment gateway services, eMoney, and remittance,” said Razer Fintech CEO LiMeng Lee.

“The acquisition of E2Pay allows us to accelerate our entry into Indonesia, one of the fastest-growing digital economies in Southeast Asia, as well as be able to better serve the digital payment needs of our regional and global merchants as the single partner of choice.”

Western Union Partners With Mambu for European Digital Banking

Western Union is partnering with cloud banking platform Mambu to offer digital banking products to European customers.

The companies say Mambu will let Western Union launch new banking products that can be configured with external applications. With Western Union’s WU+ offering, customers can use one app to quickly set up an account for spending and saving purposes.

“Our ambition is to provide market-leading financial solutions to our customers,” said Thomas Mazzaferro, WU’s Chief Data and Innovation Officer. “By partnering with Mambu we have built our digital banking products and services starting in Europe with Germany and Romania.”