In today’s top news, Google phone data shows variance around the globe for how people are following stay-at-home orders, and Silver Lake is investing $750 million in India’s Jio. Plus, Larry Kudlow said the White House hasn’t decided on a third round of PPP loans.
Google Phone Data Reveals Mixed Stay-Home Compliance
Phone data compiled by Google’s parent Alphabet shows that many people initially ignored stay-home mandates, but were increasingly compliant in April. As the coronavirus curve flattened in the U.S. and Australia, more people made their way to parks and work, while Brazil, Japan and Singapore continued to stay home, the data indicates.
India’s Jio Gets $750M Boost From Silver Lake
Private equity firm Silver Lake is investing $750 million in India’s telecommunications giant Jio Platforms. The deal follows Facebook’s recent $5.7 billion Jio investment, which gave the social media giant an almost 10 percent stake in Jio, which is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries.
Kudlow: Third Round Of SBA PPP Loans ‘May Be’ Necessary
Larry Kudlow, director of the U.S. National Economic Council, said that the White House has made no decision regarding additional emergency loan funding due to the coronavirus pandemic, but that the third allotment of money might be necessary.
Georgia’s Push To Reopen Falls Flat As Consumers Stay Home
Georgia has snapped up most of the nation’s focus over the last week, as Gov. Brian Kemp has pushed the most aggressive and comprehensive slate of mandatory reopenings in the U.S. so far. But it seems consumers aren’t quite flooding back into local establishments at the desired rates.
Why Consumers Aren’t In A Rush To Restart The Economy
As economists, governments, policymakers and medical experts build cost benefit models to decide when it’s safe to reopen the economy, consumers are doing their own cost benefit analyses. Karen Webster says that the decision to get back to their once normal routines will depend upon whether consumers believe the benefit of the degraded experience that awaits them in a partially reopened economy outweighs the cost of the health risk they face if they do. Based on the latest PYMNTS research of nearly 12,000 U.S. consumers, she says that many are likely to sit it out. For now. Maybe even for the rest of this year.
Wells Fargo on Fraud Decisioning And The New Consumer’s New Normal
The last eight weeks has scrambled financial institutions’ tried and tested fraud-fighting approaches as transactions once seen as “abnormal” have become the new “normal.” In the FI Fraud Decisioning Playbook, Colleen Taylor, head of merchant services for Wells Fargo, discusses how artificial intelligence (AI)-powered data analysis is helping financial institutions (FIs) adjust to these shifts in buying behaviors and avoid false positives.
US Power Grid Eyed As Latest Front In Cyberspace War
President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week that declared a national emergency, tied to threats that may be lobbed at the U.S. power grid. The executive order, which came on May 1, bans the use of equipment that was manufactured by companies under the control of foreign adversaries. As part of the order, a task force is directed to be established to help protect the power grid.
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