In the first quarter of the year, Spain’s largest bank, Grupo Santander SAN , earned EUR 1,205 million, up significantly from the EUR 401 million it earned in the trailing quarter. Most of this increase was due to the non-recurrence of special loan loss provisions in the fourth quarter; excluding this, earnings were up 18%…
PayFast, a leading South African payment processor, started offering the digital currency bitcoin as a payment option, making it available to the firm’s 30,000 merchant customers. It becomes the first payment processor in South Africa, and one of the first anywhere, to offer the cryptocurrency as an option. The subject of Africa and developing markets…
In the first quarter, BASF BAS continued to rely on its diversified product mix in what has been a challenging market environment for chemical producers. BASF’s agriculture and oil and gas businesses propped up sales in the first quarter, as revenues increased 4.8% year over year. On a geographic basis, management noted that growth in…
Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) officially announced it accepts Bitcoins for online purchases. This includes purchases on all items on Dell.com. The retailer is accepting Bitcoins as part of a pilot program for U.S. based consumers and small businesses. Should the test go well, the option will expand outside the United States. Dell has just announced that…
Let us take a look at two Heavyweight Software stocks in the news, Amazon.com (NASDAQ AMZN) & Agilent Technologies (NYSE A). Both promise some upside in their price levels in the future. Here we take a closer look at the two stocks. Amazon.com (AMZN) has recently launched its ebook subscription service, Kindle Unlimited. The new…
In another sign of Bitcoin adoption, Google Inc (NASDAQ GOOG)’s popular currency conversion calculator will now feature the digital payment method. The adoption of Bitcoin into a currency calculator marks the first time a non-fiat currency has been included in Google’s “currency” convertor. The digital payment method Bitcoin is now the first non-fiat currency to…
