Kerala expat faints after winning Dh10 million in Abu Dhabi raffle; 9 out of 10 winners are Indians

Bengaluru, Jan 16: Amping up the online payment experience for consumers, Razorpay, the leading full-stack financial services company, today launched a new product, Instant Refunds for businesses.

This new feature activates refunds and credits the customer's source account across payment methods such as credit card, net banking, and UPI within a minute of initiation.

India is one of the fastest-growing online retail markets today. About 71 per cent of internet users in the country purchase products online. Today, the refund process has two major pain points for both the end customer and the business.

First, a delay of five-seven business days for the customer in receiving the money because of multiple intermediaries like the acquiring bank, issuing bank and the networks (VISA/MasterCard/Rupay).

Second, the lack of transparency during the entire refund process for both the customer and the business. This long cycle of processing refunds is a significant problem with every popular payment method in the industry.

By issuing refunds instantly, Razorpay will help businesses retain their customers, build trust through an improved hassle-free payment experience and provide complete transparency on refunds to both the business and the end-user.

This new feature will also reduce the dependence on manpower as every refund issue on an average leads to ten service emails or calls from customer support teams.

"Instant Refunds are the new normal and central to great customer experience. A lot of consumers fail to use online payment methods as they feel getting refunds through an online platform is a very time-consuming task; hence they prefer CoD as the best alternative. Given the technological advancements being made in the fin-tech ecosystem, its fair for customers to expect refunds as fast as possible. A solution like Instant Refunds will not only help build consumer confidence in digital payments but also reduce losses for e-commerce companies where CoD has become an expensive option with more than 50 per cent online transactions made through cash", said Shashank Kumar, CTO & Co-founder of Razorpay.

"Our Instant Refunds feature ensures that the refund is processed at a 3600x faster pace than the normal expected time of five-seven business days. The team is focused on creating new technologies designed to make the entire payment lifecycle hassle-free. We believe this new feature will make customers experience a notch higher, help brands create a competitive advantage, and even make them more profitable", he added.

Razorpay's growth has been uphill, particularly in the last two years. With a 500 per cent growth in 2019, the company has been witnessing a healthy growth rate of 35 per cent month-on-month.

The company also recently launched its corporate credit cards for its partner businesses, RazorpayX current accounts, support for freelancers and homepreneurs, and acquired Opfin, a payroll and HR management software company.

Currently powering payments for over 800,000 businesses including the likes of Indigo, BSE, Thomas Cook, Reliance, SpiceJet, Aditya Birla, Sony, and Oyo, the team plans to increase this count to 1,400,000 by this year. The full-stack financial solutions company expects a 4x growth in its revenue by the end of the next fiscal year.

This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article.

Bosnia, Jul 12: Bosnians commemorated on Saturday the massacre of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, marking the 25th anniversary of killings that shocked the world and have stood out as Europe's only atrocity since World War Two constituting genocide.

Nine newly identified victims were buried at a flower-shaped cemetery near the town, where tall white tombstones mark the graves of 6,643 other victims.

"After 25 years we succeeded in finding his mortal remains, so they can be laid to their final rest," said Fikret Pezic, who buried his father Hasan.

The remains of some 1,000 victims of the massacre in the eastern town during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war are still missing.

Ifeta Hasanovic decided to bury incomplete remains of her husband, saying: "We were aware they cannot be complete after 25 years, at least there are some, I did not want to make any new delays."

World leaders addressed the ceremony by video link, unable to attend because of coronavirus epidemic. Instead of the tens of thousands visitors who typically attend the commemoration each year, only a few thousand came after organisers banned organised visits.

During the Bosnian war, Bosnian Serb forces pushed non-Serbs out of territories they sought for their Serb statelet. Fleeing Muslims took shelter in several eastern towns, including Srebrenica, that were designated as United Nations "safe zones".

On July 11, 1995, the Serb forces commanded by General Ratko Mladic overran Srebrenica, which was protected by lightly armed Dutch peacekeepers.

They sent women and children away and captured and executed the men and boys they found. The bodies were dumped into mass graves and later exhumed by U.N. investigators and used as evidence in war crimes trials of Bosnian Serb leaders.

"We grieve with the families that tirelessly seek justice for the 8,000 innocent lives lost, all these years later," said U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Washington brokered Bosnia's peace deal months after the massacre.

Most people at the commemoration were Muslim Bosniaks, reflecting conflicting narratives about the bloodshed - which hinders reconciliation nearly 25 years after the end of war in which about 100,000 people were killed.

The U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted Mladic and his political chief Radovan Karadzic over Srebrenica genocide but they remained heroes for Serbs, many of whom deny that genocide happened.

On Saturday, the Serbs in the nearby town of Bratunac organised an event marking July 11 as the "Srebrenica Liberation Day".

Sefik Dzaferovic, the Bosniak chairman of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, called for legislation that would ban denial of genocide.

"There can be no trust as long as we witness attacks on the truth, denial of genocide and glorification and celebration of executors," Dzaferovic told the commemoration gathering.

Bengaluru, Jan 8: Accusing the BJP of running a "fake news factory" at full potential, former chief minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday said according to reports only Rs 669 crore of additional flood relief funds are being released by the Centre for the state as opposed to the ruling party's claim of Rs 1,869.85 crore.

Reacting to his attack, the State BJP unit, without clarifying on the actuals of the amount being released, said it believed in speaking the truth and not spreading lies.

Siddaramaiah, leader of the opposition in the state assembly, tweeted: "Reports from State govt officials tells that only Rs 669 crore of addl funds (sic) are released in 2nd instalment as opposed to the claim of Rs 1870 Cr by @BJP4Karnataka leaders. At a time when manufacturing industries are closing, BJP's fake news factory is running at full potential!!"

Calling BJP leaders "devotees of the God of lies," he said in another tweet that Prime Minister Narendra Modi released an additional Rs 669.85 crore moved by Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa's plea, taking the total amount to Rs 1,869.85 crore. He said it was funny that they were attempting to depict the total relief amount as 1200+1869.85 equalling to Rs 3,069.85 crore.

Siddaramiahs tweet was in response to Karnataka BJPs tweet last night claiming that the High-Level Committee (HLC) Chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah has approved the release of Rs 1869.85 crore as central assistance to the state towards flood relief. This was in addition to Rs 1200 crore already released by the Centre in October 2019, the BJP unit had said.

On Monday, the HLC had approved additional central assistance to seven states affected by floods last year, from National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), including Karnataka.

While a PIB release states that Rs 1869.85 crore was approved for Karnataka, according to sources in the state government the figure was inclusive of Rs 1,200 crore released in October. Earlier in the day, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa while expressing confidence that more funds will be released in later stages, maintained that Rs 1869 crore has been released in addition to Rs 1,200 crore earlier, and thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"...funds will never be enough, they (central government) will release in stages, they have released such big amount- earlier Rs 1200 crore, now again Rs 1869 crore- I thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi for it," he told reporters here.

Revenue Minister R Ashoka said the state government will press for more funds in the days to come, and the state government will fulfil promises made to those hit by floods.

Karnataka faced two spells of unprecedented rains and floods last year, resulting in widespread damage to life and property, following which the state government had submitted a report to the centre claiming loss was to the tune of about Rs 38,000 crore.

Reacting to Siddaramaiah's attack of "fake news factory" against it, the state BJP tweeted "Ayyo @siddaramaiah Avare, We surrender to You as we are incapable of running Fake News Factory like You or @INCIndia.

We believe in speaking the Truth like Gandhiji, not spreading lies like Goebbels. Kannadigas still remember the "Lies Bhagya (a scheme)" you gave them as CM from 2013-18."