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Dubai Government Warns Against DubaiCoin Cryptocurrency Scam
The price of DubaiCoin rose from $0.09 to $1.13 within just 24 hours after a press release claimed it would be Dubai’s official cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency investors have been facing some serious challenges lately. Prices of all major cryptocurrencies have been falling steadily ever since Elon Musk drew attention to Bitcoin’s energy consumption in a series of tweets, ultimately announcing Tesla’s decision to stop accepting Bitcoin as a payment method.
Watching their cryptocurrency portfolios deflate at an alarming rate, many investors have been turning their attention to various alternative cryptocurrencies and tokens of questionable value and origin, hoping that at least some of them will skyrocket in value.
This perhaps explains why a cryptocurrency called DubaiCoin increased by more than 1,000% after just 24 hours since its creators published a press released on a website called DubPay (website no longer available) and managed to get it listed on PR Newswire. Another reason for DubaiCoin’s short-lived success was certainly the fact that the press released claimed that it would become Dubai’s official digital currency.
“DubaiCoin will soon be able to be used to pay for a range of goods and services both in-store and online, with the clear intention for the coin to be used in place of traditional bank-backed currencies,” the press release said. “Circulation of the new digital currency will be controlled by both the city itself and authorized brokers.”
Also Read: The Top 3 Altcoins To Keep An Eye On In 2021
The price of DubaiCoin rose from $0.09 to $1.13, and it would likely continue to climb even higher if it wasn’t for Dubai’s government decision to issue a tweet in which they called DubaiCoin an elaborate phishing scam designed to steal personal information from its visitors.
The company responsible for the creation of DubaiCoin, ArabianChain Technology, has also used Twitter to publicly deny all claims made in the press release. Victims of the scam have rushed to social media calling for actions to be taken against online publications that were quick to promote DubaiCoin as Dubai’s “official cryptocurrency” without validating the source of the news.
News
NEOPAY Wants To Follow Merchants Across Channels And Borders
A controlling 65% stake in noon payments would give NEOPAY access to marketplace sellers, online merchants and the payment flows they generate.
It’s been a long time since checkouts were single defined places. A merchant might take payments at a physical register, on its own website and through an online marketplace, sometimes in more than one country. NEOPAY wants to follow those transactions wherever they happen.
The UAE payments company has entered into an agreement to acquire a 65% controlling stake in noon payments. NEOPAY already runs the acquiring infrastructure that lets merchants accept card payments, along with omnichannel acceptance and a merchant services platform. This new deal would add noon payments’ embedded payments platform, e-commerce gateway and merchant network across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. That would considerably expand both NEOPAY’s digital commerce capabilities and its regional reach.
For merchants, the attraction is a single provider for online and in-store payments, plus faster settlements, data and analytics, and value-added financial services.
“Payments should be simple, reliable, and built for the markets they serve,” said Faraz Khalid, CEO of noon. His counterpart at NEOPAY, Vibhor Mundhada, added: “We have built a strong payments business in the UAE, and our ambition is now to take that capability across the region”. The acquisition, Mundhada added, would “expand our footprint into Saudi Arabia and Egypt” while reinforcing NEOPAY’s position at home.
Also Read: In Kuwait, Your Surgeon Might Be Operating From Another Country
NEOPAY is also keen to point out potential payment volume increases. The company says noon payments’ integrations with marketplace sellers and online merchants create high transaction density in some of the region’s fastest-growing digital commerce segments. It also believes control of the business would give it access to those merchant relationships and payment flows, and speed up the rollout of alternative payment methods and installment options.
The combined roadmap targets faster merchant onboarding, better payment performance, tighter fraud controls and embedded financial services. The deal could also strengthen cross-border payments and settlement along key regional commerce corridors.
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