Biz Builder Mike

You can't sail Today's boat on Yesterdays wind - Michael Noel

Biz2Credit Teams Up With AICPA & CPA.com to Launch New Small Business Funding Platform

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Small business funding platform Biz2Credit announced on Tuesday it is teaming up with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), its business and technology arm, CPA.com, to launch a new small business funding platform, CPALoanPortal.com. According to Biz2Credit, the platform was created to help with the process for CPA firms advising small businesses both on loan forgiveness under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and additional small business financing options.

Biz2Credit also explained that the platform adds new CPA-centric capabilities to the automated PPP loan forgiveness tool the companies introduced in July that has been used by over 30,000 borrowers and more than 5,000 CPAs and financial professionals.

“[The platform] incorporates the PPP forgiveness calculator developed by the AICPA and is available to any business approved for a PPP loan. The platform produces all government forms required under the PPP program, supports calculations on payroll and other expenses, and produces a master report with the applicant’s electronic signature that can be delivered to the underwriting lender.”

The basic loan forgiveness tool is included in CPALoanPortal.com, with enhanced functionality now available specifically for CPA firms to support clients more efficiently. These features include:

  • Functionality that allows firms to easily aggregate clients, customize engagements and track progress on loan and financing applications
  • Integration to additional lending options for clients
  • Enhanced customer service for CPA firms

Two subscription tiers, premium and enterprise, are also available based on the number of users and volume of loan applications a firm is managing. The original basic loan forgiveness application service remains free. Speaking about the platform,  Biz2Credit CEO Rohit Arora, added:

“The PPP loan forgiveness process is only the start of the journey to recovery for many small businessesMany will need continued support and sound financing as the economy continues to slowly recover from the impact of the pandemic. That’s why the additional lending options we’re providing in CPALoanPortal.com are critical. It’s also crucial that CPAs play a key role in guiding small businesses through these decisions, particularly when it comes to financing. We’re committed to helping firms serve their clients better at this critical time and in the future.”

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Iran to Provide Crypto Miners With More Electricity Subsidies

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The Iranian government has continued its crusade to support the country’s fledging crypto mining space. In its latest show of help, Tehran has announced a program that will allow miners to access a significant surplus of energy.

A Great Time to be an Iranian Crypto Miner

According to reports from local news media, the Iranian Thermal Power Plant Holding Company (TPPH) has announced a plan to provide three power plants’ electricity output to miners in the country. The program, which will be conducted after a tender, improves miners’ access to one of their most fundamental resources, thus improving their overhead efficiency.

Mohsen Tarztalab, the agency’s head noted that the country’s struggling economy had been a concern for the government. It now seeks to create an enabling work environment that will benefit companies and provide employment opportunities. The country’s electricity has also seen a significant gap between revenues and expenses, and the government sees crypto mining as a means to improve revenues and provide income for the state.

However, the initiative comes with a condition, as miners will only be able to get the output from expansion turbines in plants. According to Tarztalab, this process won’t include any consumption of liquid fuels. By using just natural gas, the government is hoping to make the process as green as possible.

Tarztalab noted that the expansion turbines are independent and don’t participate in the national grid’s electricity production process. So, the government will be able to conduct this electricity transfer without necessarily affecting the country’s electricity production capacity.

A Structured Mining Industry Yields Results

So far, Iran has done a laudable job of legitimizing the crypto mining industry and providing an enabling environment for players. So far, the process has yielded some positive results. In July, local media house Mehr News Agency reported that the Ministry of Industry, Mine, and Trade had issued 14 mining licenses to foreign companies, as investments in the country continued to surge.

Iran’s mining license requirement began earlier this year, as Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri issued a directive to that effect. To get a license, miners would need to disclose information on their officials, the mining equipment they use, and the size of their operations. A report from the country’s Banking and Economic System Reference Media (IBENA) back in January confirmed that over a thousand companies already got their licenses.

Another incentive for registered miners is a reduced power rate, with Mehr News Agency reporting that miners are now getting charged as low as $0.11per kilowatt-hour (kWh). For peak summer season (June to September), however, they will have to pay $0.46 per kWh.

The government has also set up a process that rewards citizens for blowing the lid on illegal mining facilities. Last month, Tavanir, the state power company, announced that it had shut down 1,100 of such criminal outfits already. Per reports, every whistleblower gets a 100 million rial ($480) reward for their help.

Iran to Provide Crypto Miners With More Electricity Subsidies

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World’s “Smartest” Cities: Singapore, Helsinki, Zurich, According to Smart City Index Report for 2020

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Singapore, Helsinki (in Sweden) and Zurich (in Switzerland) have been named as the world’s “smartest” cities during this year. They’ve managed to outperform other major European and global financial hubs, according to the Smart City Index Report for 2020.

Geneva is another Swiss city that was ranked in the top 10 smartest cities (at the seventh spot).

The report has been published by the Institute for Management Development (IMD) and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).

The 2020 Smart City Index ranked 109 cities, which is 7 more than the 2019 inaugural edition. The rankings were determined by using economic and technological data. The Index also took into consideration the perceptions of local residents about how “smart” they think their cities were. It has been released under the guidance of the IMD Smart City Observatory (SCO).

The Index results for 2020 aim to provide insights into how digital technology is serving an important role in supporting critical services during the COVID-19 crisis. According to the report, there’s a positive correlation between “smarter” cities and those that have the most effective response to the Coronavirus.

In each city that has been ranked this year, 120 citizens were asked various questions during  April and also in May 2020 about the technological provisions of their cities across several  areas, including health and safety, mobility, activities, opportunities and governance. The score for each city has been determined using the “perceptions” of the past couple years that the survey has been conducted.

The top 3 “smartest” cities in 2020 represent a reshuffling of last year’s rankings. During 2019, Singapore was ranked first, Zurich came in second and Oslo (in Sweden) was third. Some of the most noticeable changes and arguably the most important findings of the 2020 Smart City Index were in underdeveloped cities across the globe.

The report noted that if we simply added free Internet services or WiFi to a city like Medellin (which is notably up by 19 places in the rankings in 2020), the locals would have perceived the positive change in their quality of life with technology to be quite significant.

Notably, a technologically advanced city like Zurich has residents that would naturally expect major changes or improvements to existing tech solutions before they would “perceive” anything to have really become better than before.

Singapore’s government has introduced several initiatives that will most likely continue to support digital technology adoption in the Asian country. Financial technology firms Active.ai, Cardup, Funding Societies, PolicyPal, and Transwap will be receiving new investments from Singapore’s AMTD Group.

Razer Fintech and Franklin Templeton will be offering digital wealth management services to Millennials in Singapore and other Asian countries.

Meanwhile, in Switzerland (a country that’s home to smart cities like Geneva and Zurich), the SIX Group will be leveraging Luxembourg Fintech LUXHUB’s Open Banking technology to streamline Switzerland’s financial sector. Switzerland’s Credit Suisse will also introduce app-only banking services to compete with Fintech Challengers.

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