Investment in fintech booms as upstarts go mainstream
Jul 12th 2021AN AIR OF hype habitually surrounds the founders of startups and their venture-capital backers: everyone is an evangelist for their latest project. But even allowing for that zeal, something astonishing is going on in fintech. Much more money is pouring into it than usual. In the second quarter of the year alone it…
South Africa’s government deploys the army to quell unrest
Jul 12th 2021JOHANNESBURGSHOPPING CENTRES should be a symbol of South Africa’s progress. Their core customers, as well as their staff, are the black middle class that has grown since apartheid. Over the past few days, however, looters have overrun malls in cities such as Pretoria, Durban and Johannesburg. Thousands of criminals have ransacked shops, dragging…