Google fires 48 for sexual harassment over past 2 years | Digital Asia

Google CEO: 48 employees fired for sexual harassment over two years – Reuters

Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced in an email to employees on Thursday that the company has fired a total of 48 employees over the past two years over sexual harassment allegations, with 13 of them holding senior manager positions or beyond, Reuters reported.

The email was written as a response to a report on New York Times, which stated that Google offered pay-out to protect three senior executives from harassment allegations.

Pichai also said that none of the fired employees received exit package, and that employees can report harassment incidents anonymously using an internal tool.

ByteDance reportedly closes US$3B, values at US$75B – Bloomberg

Chinese media giant ByteDance has closed US$3 billion of funding from SoftBank Group and other “major” investors, putting its valuation to US$75 billion, Bloomberg reported.

Citing anonymous sources, the funding is said to secure ByteDance's position as the world's biggest privately backed startup.

The funding aims to accelerate the startup's international expansion plan.

ByteDance also continues to be in talks with other potential investors.

Also Read: Today's top tech news, October 9: Microsoft invests in Grab, Google+ to shut down

Hong Kong halts e-wallet auto top-ups after missing funds – South China Morning Post

Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has ordered e-wallet operators to suspend auto-transfers via the Faster Payment System to top-up octopus, Alipay, and WeChat Pay, South China Morning Post reported.

The suspension order followed two police reports from users who discovered an unauthorised fund transfers of combined HK$110,000 (US$14,000).

The police is now investigating the reports.

More Indonesian banks to include Alipay, WeChat Pay – DailySocial

In addition to BNI, which had recently launched a partnership with Alipay and WeChat Pay, more Indonesian banks have the opportunity to accept the payment services on its merchants, according to DailySocial.

BNI Transactional Banking Services Division Manager Auzaiy said that the deal that the two payment services made with the bank was not exclusive, opening up opportunities for other banks to secure similar partnership.

Alipay and WeChat Pay are not legally allowed to launch its services in Indonesia as a stand-alone service as the companies are required to partner with banks and have at least 51 per cent of local ownership.

Banks that partnered with these services should also have BUKU IV status. In the country, banks in the category that has received license to operate QR code-based services are BRI and CIMB Niaga.

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