Category: 3. Business

Mobile banking accounts cross 120m

Mobile banking. Design: Ibrahim Yahya

KARACHI:

A few years ago, there was a debate over whether Pakistanis would adopt digital banking and, if so, how quickly — a common phenomenon in any society, as fear of the unknown often prevails before the acceptance of new ideas. However, following the Covid-19 lockdowns and support from international donor organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Pakistan has witnessed a tremendous rise in the use of advanced banking modes, with over 120 million customers now using mobile apps for personal and commercial transactions on a daily basis.

According to recent data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), more than 25.8 million customers of commercial banks were using mobile banking by the end of the first quarter of the financial year 2025-26. Customers of branchless banking using mobile apps surged to 87.9 million by the end of September 2025. In addition, customers of fintech operators were also on the rise, standing at 6.27 million by the end of the same period.

There are 34 commercial banks, 14 branchless banking operators and six fintech operators of Electronic Money Institutions operating in Pakistan, according to the Quarterly Payment System newsletter published by the banking regulator. These customers are utilising mobile banking for the transfer of funds, payment of utility bills, booking of tickets, online shopping, digital loans and credit, mobile top-ups and other services. Among them, a significant majority are using multiple mobile apps of different banking companies at the same time.

The growing utility of mobile banking apps among the masses in Pakistan reflects the increasing adoption of technological trends over the past few years, made possible by the rising use of smartphones and internet services, said Abdullah Tariq, a software engineer and mobile app architect.

He added that financial institutions, including banks and branchless banking operators, have invested heavily in the development of their mobile apps, particularly in customer interface and backend systems, resulting in improved customer experience, reliability and utility. The mobile apps empower users to transfer funds easily with a single click within a few seconds, significantly transforming the country’s banking landscape by enhancing transactions while saving time and cost for both customers and banking companies, Abdullah Tariq said.

With the emergence of digital banks and fintech operators, and their innovative services for earned wage access, digital insurance and digital investment, transaction values through mobile banking are expected to grow at an accelerated pace, he added. According to the SBP, a total of 2 billion transactions worth Rs337 trillion were made through mobile banking apps offered by banks, branchless banking players and Electronic Money Institutions. This accounted for 81% of all payments through digital channels, as total transactions stood at 2.5 billion during the period from July to September 2025.

These transactions include account- or wallet-initiated payments made by customers to merchants at both online and physical stores.

Ibrahim Amin, a banking and financial consultant, said mobile phone adoption by Pakistanis was greatly facilitated by the banking regulator in recent years through the launch of the RAAST payment system and QR payment options, enabling customers of banks and branchless banking operators to make instant financial transactions without any cost. He added that the role of branchless banking operators had enabled merchants, including shopkeepers and service providers, and their customers to use digital payments instead of cash.

He said customers of commercial banks generally made high-value transactions, whereas customers of branchless banking and fintech operators carried out low-value transactions. Ibrahim Amin, who is chairman of TriStar International Consultant, said he foresaw increasing use of mobile banking services in the future, as bank customers continue to adopt convenient and fast modes of banking and the country’s young generation remains tech-savvy, preferring mobile apps.

He noted that banks offering the best mobile banking experiences would attract more customers, underscoring the need for continuous upgrades of backend systems, including safety features. At the same time, customers must be educated to avoid scams in the future.

According to a report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), only 21% of adults in Pakistan have access to a bank or mobile money account, amounting to approximately 91 million individual accounts as of 2025. In addition, companies, associations and non-governmental organisations also maintain accounts with banks.

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January 10, 2026
Town cashing-in on China’s billion-dollar appetite for luxury durian

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China’s surging demand for durians is shaping South East Asia’s farming towns

Driving around Raub, a small town in Malaysia, it’s impossible to miss the prickly fruit that powers its economy.

You can smell it from the steady stream of trucks winding through mountain roads, leaving a faint fragrance on their trails.

You can see it too: the green spikes of a giant sculpture, murals painted fondly on low walls and road signs that proclaim: “Welcome to the home of Musang King durians.”

A gold mining town in the 19th Century, Raub has seen its economy take on a new hue of yellow in recent years. Today it’s better known as the land of the Musang King — a buttery, bittersweet variety that the Chinese have dubbed the “Hermès of durians”, as prized as the French fashion house.

Raub is one of many South East Asian towns that sit at the heart of a global durian rush, pumped by China’s growing demand. In 2024, China imported a record $7bn (£5.2bn) worth of durians — a three-fold increase from 2020. This is where more than 90% of the world’s durian exports are now headed.

“Even if only 2% of Chinese people want to buy durians, that’s more than enough business,” says Chee Seng Wong, factory manager of Fresco Green, a durian exporter in Raub.

Wong recalls how farmers cut down durian trees to make room for oil palms, the country’s main cash crop, during an economic downturn in the 1990s.

“Now it’s the other way round. They’re chopping oil palms to grow durians again.”

BBC/Koh Ewe

Durians are the pride of Raub

A very hungry China

With an aroma that has been likened to cabbage, sulphur and sewers — depending on who the nose belongs to — the durian packs a pungence so divisive that it’s banned on some public transport and hotels. It has been maligned for gas leaks, and was the reason a plane was grounded after passengers remonstrated against the smell wafting from the cargo hold.

Fans from the region have christened it the “King of fruits”, but on the internet it has earned a less flattering tag — the world’s smelliest fruit — as tourists unused to its odour seek it out with squeamish curiosity.

Yet it has found a growing fanbase in China: as an exotic gift exchanged among the affluent; a status symbol to be unboxed on social media; and the star of culinary heresies from durian chicken hotpot to durian pizza.

Thailand and Vietnam are the top durian suppliers to China, accounting for nearly all of its imports. Malaysia’s share of the market is sprouting fast, having earned a reputation with premium varieties such as the Musang King.

The average price of durian starts at less than $2 (£1.4) in South East Asia, where they are grown in abundance. But luxe versions like the Musang King could cost anywhere from $14 (£10) to $100 (£74) a pop, depending on their quality and the season’s harvest.

“Once I ate Malaysian durian, my first thought was, ‘Wow, this is delicious. I have to find a way to bring it to China’,” says Xu Xin, who has been sampling durians at a shop in Raub. The 33-year-old sells the fruit back home in northeastern China, and is on the hunt for the best durians to import.

BBC/Koh Ewe

Visitors to Raub are delighted with its durians

With her are two durian exporters from southern China, one of whom says business has been booming. The other expects it to continue: “There are so many people who haven’t eaten it yet. The market potential is huge.”

It’s easy to see why they’re so confident. Seated nearby is a large Chinese tour group — one of many that have been flocking to rural Malaysia for a bite of the fruit.

Eagerly they dig into platters of durian, carefully arranged from the mildest to the richest. If eaten in the right order, locals say, fresh notes should emerge with each glob on the flight: caramel, custard and finally, an almost alcoholic bitterness heralding the Musang King.

Such pedantry is perhaps why Malaysian durians have earned a special place on the Chinese table.

“Maybe in the beginning we only liked durians that were sweet. But now we look for things like fragrance, richness and nuanced flavours,” Xu says. “Nowadays there are more customers who walk into the shop and ask, ‘Are there any bitter ones in this batch?’”

BBC/Koh Ewe

Durians arranged from mildest (top left) to richest, ending with the Musang King (bottom right)

Raub’s durian dynasties

Just hours before the durians ended up on Xu’s plate, they were painstakingly harvested at a nearby farm owned by Lu Yuee Thing.

Uncle Thing, as he’s known in town, owns the durian shop, along with several farms. He is one of many success stories in Raub, where durians have made millionaires out of farmers. In family businesses like his, sons often help with transporting durians while daughters handle accounting and the finances.

“Durian has contributed a lot to the economy here,” Uncle Thing says.

Driving to his farm one morning, there is quiet pride in his voice as he points out the Japanese pickup trucks that have replaced the rickety jeeps he used to rely on for transporting crates of his fruit.

BBC/Koh Ewe

Uncle Thing is one of Raub’s big durian success stories

Still, farming is hard work. At 72, Uncle Thing wakes up at dawn every day and weaves around his hilly farm to collect ripened durians, either dangling from trees or nestling on nets close to the ground. A couple of years ago, a falling durian landed on his shoulder, leaving him with a throbbing pain that acts up now and then.

“It looks like farmers make easy money. But it’s not easy,” he says.

Once harvested, the durians are brought to Uncle Thing’s shop, where they are sorted into baskets ranging from Grade A, for the large and round ones, to Grade C, the small and odd-shaped.

Sitting in the middle of the sorting floor is a lone basket reserved for Grade AA durians, the handsomest of the lot.

Those will soon be flown to China.

BBC/Koh Ewe

The daily haul at Uncle Thing’s farm

A durian coup?

China’s insatiable appetite for durians has shaped up to be a nifty diplomatic tool.

Beijing has signed a flurry of durian trade agreements, touting them as a celebration of bilateral ties — not just with major producers like Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, but also budding suppliers like Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines and Laos.

“In this durian competition, everyone’s a winner,” declared a state media article in 2024.

The deals also dovetail with China’s investments in infrastructure in the region. The China-Laos Railway, launched in 2021, now transports more than 2,000 tonnes of fruit every day, most of them Thai durians.

But this clamour to keep up with China’s appetite comes at a cost.

Food safety concerns about Thai durians erupted last year, after Chinese authorities found in them a carcinogenic chemical dye believed to make the durians more yellow.

In Vietnam, many coffee farmers pivoted to durians, driving up global coffee prices that were already affected by severe weather.

And in Raub, a turf war has broken out. Authorities felled thousands of durian trees they said were planted illegally on state land. Farmers say they have been using the land for decades without any issue, and allege they are now being forced to pay a lease to continue farming there, or face eviction.

Getty Images

Durian trees and oil palms dominate Raub’s landscape

Meanwhile, a coup may be on the way in China’s island province of Hainan, where years of trial and error are bearing fruit. Its durian harvest for 2025 was expected to reach 2,000 tonnes.

Like in so many industries, from renewables to AI, China has long pushed to be self-sufficient in food too.

Even as it reaps the fruits of this durian diplomacy, it is eyeing what state media calls “durian freedom”.

“For one thing, we won’t have to rely on Thai and Vietnamese vendors when buying durians anymore!” proclaimed an article in August.

BBC/Koh Ewe

Can Hainan unseat Raub in the durian supply chain?

That is still a distant dream. Hainan’s first home-grown durians hit the market with much fanfare in 2023, but accounted for less than 1% of China’s durian consumption that year.

But the way Uncle Thing sees it, “Hainan has already succeeded in its experiment… If they have their own supply and start importing less, our market will be affected.”

He shrugs it off for now: “That is not something we can worry about. All that we can do is take good care of our farms and boost yields.”

Ask anyone else in Raub about Hainan’s quest, and your question will be swatted away with a smug comeback: they are still no match for Malaysian durians.

And yet, as China chases “durian freedom”, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the Musang King sits on an ever shakier throne.

Continue Reading

January 10, 2026
Town cashing-in on China’s billion-dollar appetite for luxury durian

China’s insatiable appetite for durians has shaped up to be a nifty diplomatic tool.

Beijing has signed a flurry of durian trade agreements, touting them as a celebration of bilateral ties — not just with major producers like Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, but also budding suppliers like Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines and Laos.

“In this durian competition, everyone’s a winner,” declared a state media article in 2024.

The deals also dovetail with China’s investments in infrastructure in the region. The China-Laos Railway, launched in 2021, now transports more than 2,000 tonnes of fruit every day, most of them Thai durians.

But this clamour to keep up with China’s appetite comes at a cost.

Food safety concerns about Thai durians erupted last year, after Chinese authorities found in them a carcinogenic chemical dye believed to make the durians more yellow.

In Vietnam, many coffee farmers pivoted to durians, driving up global coffee prices that were already affected by severe weather.

And in Raub, a turf war has broken out. Authorities felled thousands of durian trees they said were planted illegally on state land. Farmers say they have been using the land for decades without any issue, and allege they are now being forced to pay a lease to continue farming there, or face eviction.

Continue Reading

January 10, 2026
Nearly 40,000 cases of tater tots recalled, FDA says
(Gray News) – Nearly 40,000 tater tots were recalled in multiple states.

According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), McCain Foods USA Inc. has initiated a voluntary recall of two frozen potato products due to the potential presence of “clear hard plastic fragments.”

A total of about 38,800 cases of tater tots were impacted for two specific frozen potato brands, Ore-Ida Tater Tots shaped potatoes and Sysco Imperial Potato Tater Barrel.

Both products were distributed across multiple states, including the following:

States impacted by the recall:
- Alaska
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Florida
- Hawaii
- Iowa
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Mississippi
- Montana
- Nebraska
- New Mexico
- North Dakota
- Nevada
- Oregon
- Texas
- Utah
- Washington
- Wisconsin
The Ore-Ida Tater Tots, item number OIF00215A, are packaged in 30-pound clear, unlabeled poly bags and have batch codes including 1005479808 and 1005480444.

The Sysco Imperial Potato Tater Barrel, item number 1000006067, is distributed by Sysco Corporation and packaged in 6/5-pound clear, unlabeled poly bags.

Copyright 2026 Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
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January 10, 2026
A computational intelligence approach for classifying dental caries in X-ray images using integrated fuzzy C-means clustering with feature reduction and a weighted matrix scheme
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NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

READ MORE: The economy is giving mixed signals. Here’s what experts say they mean

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump’s second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.

Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.

WATCH: Rising prices push many Americans further into credit card debt

The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.

In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump’s proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives,” the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.

Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers’ hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.

The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.

Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.

“A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels,” said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry’s impact of Trump’s proposal last year.

There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer’s research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long.”

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump’s post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.

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Category: 3. Business

Mobile banking accounts cross 120m

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Town cashing-in on China’s billion-dollar appetite for luxury durian

A very hungry China

Raub’s durian dynasties

A durian coup?

Continue Reading

Town cashing-in on China’s billion-dollar appetite for luxury durian

Continue Reading

Nearly 40,000 cases of tater tots recalled, FDA says

Continue Reading

A computational intelligence approach for classifying dental caries in X-ray images using integrated fuzzy C-means clustering with feature reduction and a weighted matrix scheme

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Special advisory: daytime winter weather parking ban in effect on Sunday, January 11 from 10 am to 7 pm

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Alberta auto insurers lost more than $1B in 2024: report

New insurance model planned

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Banks balk as Trump pushes for 1-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates

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Military Access, Mobility & Safety Improvement Project Week of Jan. 11, 2026 — Colorado Department of Transportation

Traffic Impacts

Project Overview

Safety Benefits

Project Information

About the Military Access, Mobility & Safety Improvement Program Build Grant

Know Before You Go

Remember: Slow For The Cone Zone

Download the COtrip App!

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Trump 2.0 tariff tracker – Trade Compliance Resource Hub

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