Remember what a basic phone looks like? Good, because soon all you’ll be left with is a memory.A new report from International Data Corp predicts that by 2019, only 27 percent of the phones sold in Africa and the Middle East will…

For the fifth consecutive year, MasterCard is teaming with Stand Up to Cancer, a charitable program tied to the Entertainment Industry Foundation, to raise funds to support cancer research. Sourced through Scoop.it from: http://www.pymnts.com

In the age of Big Data, context is key. There’s so much information flowing on a day-to-day (or in some cases, minute-by-minute) basis that it can be hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Sourced through Scoop.it from: http://www.pymnts.com

HopSkipDrive, a ride-sharing startup in California that helps parents get their kids from one place to another, has raised $3.9 million in seed funding. Sourced through Scoop.it from: http://www.pymnts.com

First Data, the payment technology solutions provider, has boosted its prepaid gift card roster with the acquisition of Transaction Wireless, a digital gift card company. Sourced through Scoop.it from: http://www.pymnts.com

S&P Dow Jones Indices, the world’s leading index provider, announced yesterday (July 14) that PayPal will replace eBay in the S&P 100 index, which measures the performance of large capital companies in the U.S. Sourced through Scoop.it from: http://www.pymnts.com

As Oracle strengthens its enterprise cloud service offering, the company has launched a slew of new SaaS products as it clamors to take over the market’s current number one player, Salesforce. Sourced through Scoop.it from: http://www.pymnts.com

The U.S. has one of the world’s most robust alternative lending markets, while mainstream banks have hit their highest levels of small business lending in years. So why has the level of confidence among SME owners just done a nosedive?…

Alternative lending is now a massive market on the globe, gaining the most traction in developed economies. Sourced through Scoop.it from: http://www.pymnts.com

Kazakhstan, an oil producer since 1911, has the second largest oil reserves as well as the second largest oil production after Russia in the post-Soviet space. Sourced through Scoop.it from: http://www.silkroadreporters.com