Download
Netflix user data disappoint, Amazon biometrics trial and 'Britcoin'
Daniel Harries

Welcome to the final week of Global Business Daily.

Our newsletter is coming to an end. We've really enjoyed delivering the biggest business news to you for the past year-and-a-half. If you enjoyed it, please sign up now for our daily COVID-19 newsletter.

You can also keep up with all our news on Facebook – just "like" our page to get updates.

And for now, here's your regular update. 

Daniel Harries,

Digital correspondent

 

French luxury goods company Chanel lost its trademark fight with Huawei after a top European court said their logos bear no similarity.

Germany's top court has refused to issue an injunction blocking the country's participation in the European Union's more than $900 billion coronavirus recovery fund, clearing the way for the launch of the fund and its common borrowing aimed at supporting green and digital economic development.

Tencent Holdings is the best of China's cloud services providers when it comes to tackling carbon emissions and procuring from renewable sources, Greenpeace said in a research report.

Global hedge fund assets rose to more than $3.8 trillion in March 2021, driven by the best first-quarter performance in 21 years and more investors putting cash to work with the industry, according to data from Hedge Fund Research.

Royal Dutch Shell said it was conducting a feasibility study with partners to trial the use of hydrogen fuel cells for ships in Singapore, the first such move for the oil major.

 

READ MORE:

Does it pay to work at home?

The fascination with the Chinese language

UK red phone boxes up for 'adoption'

 

Russia's President Vladimir Putin declared he wanted Russia's total net greenhouse gas emissions to be less than the EU's over the next 30 years, a goal he described as tough but achievable.

Australia's prime minister has proposed spending an extra $417 million on hydrogen and carbon-sequestration projects, seeking to burnish his government's green credentials ahead of a climate summit to be hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden.

Amazon is rolling out biometric technology at its Whole Foods stores in Seattle, U.S., letting shoppers pay for items with a scan of their palm.

Instagram is rolling out a feature to prevent users from viewing possibly abusive messages by filtering offensive words, phrases and emojis on the photo-sharing app.

Airline Emirates may need to raise more cash this year, possibly through another equity injection from the Dubai government, if demand for air travel does not pick up soon, its president announced. 

 

Watch: Europeans often struggle with the Chinese language – below is a video explainer telling you what you need to know and why most of what you think you know might be wrong anyway.

03:49

 

The UK finance minister, Chancellor Rishi Sunak, has told the Bank of England to look at the case for a new "Britcoin," or central bank-backed digital currency, aimed at tackling some of the challenges posed by cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.

We spoke to Sean Kiernan, CEO at Greengage, a bank that engages in the crypto market, on the subject. 

The Chancellor's announcement yesterday, to launch the task force for central bank digital currency, highlights really what is the backdrop of a lot of work from central banks globally to look at this topic of a digital currency. And the pound sterling, being one of the strongest currencies globally, is an obvious place to start from for what's called the 'stable coin,' or a currency that's linked to one of the national fiat currencies like the pound sterling.  

 

There has been a lot of chatter in other central banks, which ones do you think are making particular strides here? 

Actually, China is one of them. There is a really interesting study from PWC that came out this month that highlights the work of about 60 central banks around the world. The UK, according to this study, is the top country looking at this within Europe, but not the world. Within Europe, I think there are a lot of potentially more conservative governments across the West, given that they already have very strong central currencies, there's probably less of a push to export this. But we're very excited to be in the UK and in a jurisdiction that is forward-looking in this particular sector. 

 

And finally... After booming during the pandemic, Netflix has announced a below-expectations growth in subscribers – sending shares of the world's largest streaming service down 11%.

Source(s): Reuters ,AP

Search Trends