BEIJING, April 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Chinese President Xi Jinping has reemphasized the need to boost the high-quality development of China’s western region during his inspection in Chongqing Municipality on Monday and Tuesday. He said the western region is of great importance for the whole country’s modernization.

This is the latest move by the Chinese president to promote the country’s regional development. Xi, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, just finished his inspection of central China’s Hunan Province last month. In Hunan, he stressed vigorously energizing the central region and promoting the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, aiming to bolster a more balanced regional development.

China’s western area consists of 12 provincial-level regions, covering over 70 percent of the country’s land area and containing 27 percent of China’s population. The western region is well-known for its abundant renewable energy sources such as solar and wind energy, and various underground mineral resources such as rare earth, bauxite, coal and natural gas, which accounts for more than 70 percent of the country’s total reserves.

In March 2019, in a meeting of the CPC central committee for deepening overall reform chaired by Xi, a guideline for advancing the development of the western region in the new era was passed. The guideline puts forward that by 2035, the western region will catch up with the eastern region in the fields of public service, infrastructure connectivity and people’s livelihood. China’s eastern region recorded nearly triple the GDP of the western region in 2023.

Five years on from the passing of this guideline, Xi pointed out that, though the western region has seen significant achievements, it still faces many development challenges. He urged the region to focus on its competitive local industries and accelerate its opening up.

Xi said at the symposium that the 12 provincial-level regions should develop modern manufacturing and strategic emerging industries such as new energy and bio-medicine based on local conditions, and speed up industrial transformation and upgrading. He added that tourism and other service sectors can be developed into the region’s pillar industries.

Xi made it clear that China’s economy is transforming from high-speed to high-quality development, so every region should develop its economy based on its specific conditions and play to its comparative advantages. During his inspection in Chongqing, he visited an international logistics hub, a community in Jiulongpo District, and a digital urban operation and governance center. Local officials introduced the development of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, urban renewal projects and city governance to him.

The trade corridor is a major channel between China’s western region and countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It reached 490 ports in 120 countries and regions as of January, and saw its cargo volume rise 21 percent year-on-year in 2023, according to the government work report of Chongqing Municipality.

Xi on Tuesday called on the region to accelerate the building of the corridor and better integrate itself with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to promote the opening up of the region. He had previously said that the active participation of China’s western region in the BRI would greatly improve connectivity between China’s eastern and western regions and between China and the outside world.

So far, the connectivity pattern has taken shape in the western region. China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data shows that a total of 35,000 China–Europe freight trains have been launched from the western region in the past five years, accounting for 50.5 percent of the country’s total. In 2023, the total import-export volume of the western region increased 37 percent compared to 2019.

As the western region is the birthplace of China’s great rivers such as the Yangtze River, Yellow River and Lancang River, and has many rare wild animals, Xi also vowed to safeguard national ecological security.

He stressed accelerating major projects for protecting and restoring ecosystems, boosting the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program to counter sandstorms and soil erosion in the northern region, and promoting energy saving and carbon reduction in traditional sectors, as well as the clean and efficient use of coal.

China started to implement the national strategy for the large-scale development of the western region in 2000. As of 2020, the average annual GDP growth of the region reached 10.2 percent, greatly closing the economic gap with other regions. More than 21.3 million hectares of farmland have been converted into forests or grassland, with the forest coverage rate surpassing 19 percent, data from the National Development and Reform Commission shows.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-04-24/5-years-on-Xi-reasserts-China-s-western-region-development-strategy-1t3CJMNHteM/p.html

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DUBAI, UAE, April 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Venom Blockchain and United Network have joined their strengths to create a revolutionary blockchain-powered payment infrastructure in a groundbreaking move that could redefine the future of global payments. This unique partnership aims to harness the speed and security of blockchain to transform the use of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and stablecoins. By integrating United Network’s robust payment infrastructure with blockchain smart contracts, this collaboration promises a payment system that can handle real-time card payments, thanks to Venom Blockchain’s impressive capacity of over 100,000 transactions per second (TPS). Key takeaways from this pioneering partnership:

• Speed Redefined: The Venom Blockchain backbone unlocks the potential for lightning-fast card transactions, blurring the lines between traditional payment methods and the world of cryptocurrencies.
• Scalability for the Future: Dynamic sharding empowers the system to expand alongside growing adoption, making it future-proof.
• Uncompromising Security: United Network’s payment cards, multi-factor authentication, and digital wallets, coupled with Venom’s focus on government-level security, create a fortress for transactions.
• The Power of Smart Contracts: Venom’s account abstraction allows the deployment of smart contracts, ushering in automation and streamlining payment processes.

Christopher Louis Tsu, CEO of Venom Foundation: “Venom Blockchain and United Network are transforming payments. Integrating our blockchain’s capabilities with United Network’s infrastructure unlocks the power of smart contracts. It sets the stage for seamless CBDC and stablecoin transactions, a major step towards mass adoption.”

About Venom Blockchain
Venom Blockchain is a high-throughput Layer 0 blockchain platform known for its asynchronous dynamic sharding and Threaded Virtual Machine (TVM) – ensuring scalability, seamless cross-chain interactions, and developer-friendliness for Web3 applications and government solutions. https://venom.foundation 

About United Network
United Network brings expertise in ready-to-deploy payment infrastructure. Their solutions encompass proprietary bank cards, a digital wallet, POS and ATM support, and robust security systems, making them a leader in building national and global payment ecosystems for fiat-backed stablecoins and CBDCs. https://unitednetwork.ae 

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Contact for Venom foundation:[email protected]

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The enhanced banking application empowers community banks and credit unions to remain competitive, offering a seamless user experience across multiple platforms and new features for account holders  

LAKE MARY, Fla., April 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Today at Ignite! 2024, Finastra, a global provider of financial software applications and marketplaces, announced the availability of its latest mobile banking software, Next Gen Mobile Banking, a new digital banking experience for community banks and credit unions. The advanced mobile banking application provides a seamless user experience, offering financial institutions customization options and enhanced security features.

This comes as community financial institutions strive to maintain and grow market share in a competitive and consolidating landscape, which requires cutting-edge mobile banking offerings – particularly when it comes to obtaining the rising generations of account holders. With Next Gen Mobile Banking, Finastra empowers community banks and credit unions with features likely to appeal to customers and members of all ages, such as the app’s built-in personal financial management tools, with which financial institutions can offer account holders easy access to budget planners and more.

“Climate First Bank is a unique and digitally-driven financial institution, which means we need the right tools to support our growth and to give our customers the digital experience they expect and deserve,” said Marcio de Oliveira, executive vice president, chief technology and digital banking officer at Climate First Bank. “This new app enables us to provide a seamless, personalized, and easy to use mobile banking experience that supports our vision of reimagining finance as a force for good. We’re grateful to be an early adopter of Finastra’s new solution, and we look forward to working with our customers across both personal and business segments to take advantage of everything it has to offer.” 

As bad actors become increasingly sophisticated, preventing fraudulent activity is only more pressing for community financial institutions today. Next Gen Mobile Banking provides banks and credit unions with enhanced security features like Passkey Authentication, which offers seamless and robust protection against phishing and other threats. The expanded authentication method means that credentials cannot be guessed, intercepted, or reused, strengthening the overall security for the user. User Trusted Device Management is also enabled in the application, which offers account holders transparency and trust while mitigating unauthorized access to personal information.

“Finastra has delivered sophisticated digital experiences for many years, and this enhancement marks our commitment to creating solutions that provide community banks and credit unions with the features and security needed to help them stay ahead of the competition,” said Narendra Mistry, chief product and technology officer, Universal Banking at Finastra.”With Next Gen Mobile Banking, our customers can deliver an innovative and sophisticated user experience that is tailored to the unique needs of the communities they serve.”  

Other key features of Next Gen Mobile Banking include:

• Recognizing that each financial institution in the United States is unique, the solution offers a selection of interface templates, providing each institution with the power to personalize the mobile experience and to tailor the application to their specific needs.
• The solution was developed cross-platform, allowing for faster development cycles and easier deployment across different mobile operating systems.
• Since the application is built using a single codebase, a seamless user interface is available across both iOS and Android devices, enabling a consistent brand identity and customer experience for account holders. The unified code base also allows for rapid updates, enabling financial institutions to deliver the latest enhancements and features quickly and efficiently.

Next Gen Mobile Banking is now deployed for financial institutions participating in Finastra’s pilot program. The application is expected to be available for all Finastra Phoenix consumer banking customers in mid-2024.

About Finastra

Finastra is a global provider of financial software applications and marketplaces, and launched the leading open platform for innovation, FusionFabric.cloud, in 2017. It serves institutions of all sizes, providing award-winning software solutions and services across Lending, Payments,Treasury & Capital Markets and Universal Banking (Retail, Digital and Commercial Banking) for banks to support direct banking relationships and grow through indirect channels, such as embedded finance and Banking as a Service. Its pioneering approach and commitment to open finance and collaboration is why it is trusted by over 8,000 institutions, including 45 of the world’s top 50 banks.
For more information, visit finastra.com

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