Zip folds Pocketbook app, telcos to block SMS scams, and gender pay gap nudges $1 billion weekly. Here are five things you may have missed this week.
Zip calls time on Pocketbook app
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) provider Zip is shutting down its popular money management app Pocketbook.
Zip paid $7.5 million for Pocketbook in 2016, and despite claiming to have 800,000 users, the app isn’t proving as profitable as hoped.
The closure of Pocketbook reflects Zip’s change of strategy as the broader BNPL market faces the headwinds of rising bad debts and intense competition.
At the same time, Zip and fellow BNPL provider Sezzle have scuppered plans for a merger.
As a sign of the sector’s woes, Zip’s shares have plummeted from a high of almost $13 in early 2021 to trade at just 50 cents at the time of writing.
Sezzle investors don’t have much to celebrate either with the company’s share price sitting at 20 cents, down from around $9 this time last year.
New rules to fight SMS scams
SMS scams account for one in three reported scams so far this year, and have left their victims over $6.5 million out of pocket.
But consumers no longer have to go it alone.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has put new rules in place requiring telcos to identify, trace and block scam SMS messages before they reach our phones.
The new rules also require telcos to share information about scam messages with other telcos and report identified scams to authorities.
ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin says…
