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(Reuters) -Citigroup and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase plan to collaborate on digital asset payment solutions for the U.S. bank's institutional clients, to expand the offering to global clients in the future. The partnership will initially focus on enabling users to deposit and withdraw traditional currencies (commonly referred to as "fiat" in crypto) through Coinbase's services, marking a significant step as it allows smooth transitions between traditional money and digital assets like cryptocurrencies, the two companies said in a joint statement on Monday. Additionally, the collaboration will streamline payment operations, Citi said. "By combining their reach with Coinbase's leadership in digital assets, we're creating solutions that can simplify and expand access to digital asset payments," said Brian Foster, global head of Crypto as a Service at Coinbase. Citi said more details on specific features, including exploring ways to convert traditional currency into stablecoins, will be disclosed in the coming months. Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to keep a constant value. They are often backed by traditional assets such as the U.S. dollar or government debt. They have surged in popularity, and their demand is expected to increase further after the U.S. passed its GENIUS Act in July that sets federal rules for stablecoins. Dealmaking within the digital assets industry has picked up pace this year as a crypto-friendly Trump administration encourages companies to expand their business in the U.S., providing a favorable environment for growth and investment. Coinbase, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, shelled out $375 million to buy investment platform Echo, while earlier this year it had struck a $2.9 billion deal for crypto options provider Deribit. (Reporting by Rajasik Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)

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SYDNEY (Reuters) -Instagram owner Meta and other social media firms said on Tuesday they will comply with a ban on users under the age of 16, adding that they will start deactivating accounts once the law takes effect on December 10. In parliament, Meta, TikTok owner ByteDance and Snapchat owner Snap said they continued to believe the ban would not protect young people, but they would soon reach out to owners of more than a million underage accounts to prepare them for the change. Their comments represented a shift in the social media industry's response to the law, which is being watched by lawmakers around the world as concern grows about youth mental health. Under the Australian law, platforms must take "reasonable steps" to block users aged less than 16 or face a fine of up to A$49.5 million ($32.5 million). The platforms previously argued that the ban would drive young people to more dangerous corners of the internet that are poorly monitored, as well as deprive young people of social contact. They also said that implementation would be unnecessarily complex. Snap and Google-owned YouTube have also argued they aren't social media companies. "We don't agree, but we accept and we will abide by the law," said Jennifer Stout, Snap's senior vice president of global policy and platform operations, via a video link. Ella Woods-Joyce, TikTok's public policy lead for Australia, reiterated the Chinese-owned platform's opposition to the ban but said "TikTok will comply with the law and meet its obligations". "We are on track to meet our compliance," she said. Mia Garlick, Meta's policy director for Australia and New Zealand, said the company would soon approach holders of accounts confirmed to be under 16 – about 450,000 across Instagram and Facebook – to give them a choice between deleting their photos and other data or offering to store it until they turned 16. TikTok, which says it has 200,000 under-16 accounts in Australia, and Snap, which says it has 440,000 under-16 accounts, said they would take similar steps. The companies added that they would use automated behaviour-tracking software to determine if an account holder claiming to be over 16 was underage. "Where we identify someone that is saying they're 25 but the behaviors would indicate that they're below the age of 16, from December 10th we will have those accounts deactivated," Woods-Joyce said. For users incorrectly deemed to be under 16, Meta and TikTok said they would refer them to a third-party age-estimation tool. Snap said it was still working on a solution for users who believed they were incorrectly blocked. (Reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Greg Bensinger SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Amazon is planning to cut as many as 30,000 corporate jobs beginning on Tuesday, as the company pares expenses and compensates for overhiring during the peak demand of the pandemic, according to three people familiar with the matter. The figure represents a small percentage of Amazon's 1.55 million total employees, but nearly 10% of its roughly 350,000 corporate employees. This would mark Amazon's largest job cut since late 2022, when it started to eliminate around 27,000 positions. An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment. Amazon has been trimming smaller numbers of jobs over the past two years across multiple divisions, including devices, communications and podcasting. The cuts beginning this week may affect a variety of divisions, including human resources, known as People Experience and Technology or PXT; operations, devices and services; and Amazon Web Services, the people said. Managers of impacted teams were asked to undergo training on Monday for how to communicate with staff following email notifications that will start going out on Tuesday morning, the people said. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is undertaking an initiative to reduce what he has described as an excess of bureaucracy, including by reducing the number of managers. He installed an anonymous complaint line for identifying inefficiencies that has elicited some 1,500 responses and over 450 process changes, he said earlier this year. Jassy said in June that the increased use of artificial intelligence tools would likely lead to further job cuts, particularly through automating repetitive and routine tasks. "This latest move signals that Amazon is likely realizing enough AI-driven productivity gains within corporate teams to support a substantial reduction in force," said Sky Canaves, an eMarketer analyst. "Amazon has also been under pressure in the short-term to offset the long-term investments in building out its AI infrastructure." The full scope of this round of job cuts was not immediately clear. The people familiar with the matter said the number could change over time as Amazon's financial priorities shift. Fortune earlier reported that the human resources division could be targeted with a cut of roughly 15%. A program begun early this year to bring employees back in the office five days per week, among tech's most stringent, has failed to generate sufficient attrition, said two of the people, citing that as another reason for the size of the layoff. Some of the employees who are not swiping in daily because they live far from corporate offices, or for other reasons, are being told they have voluntarily quit Amazon and must leave without severance, a savings for the company. Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking tech job cuts, estimated that about 98,000 jobs have been lost so far this year among 216 companies. For all of 2024, the figure was 153,000. Amazon's largest profit center, cloud computing unit AWS, reported second-quarter sales of $30.9 billion, a 17.5% increase that was well below gains of 39% for Microsoft's Azure and of 32% for Alphabet's Google Cloud.  Estimates indicate that AWS will have boosted third-quarter sales by about 18% to $32 billion, a slight slowdown from last year's 19% increase. AWS is still reeling from a roughly 15-hour internet outage last week that felled many of the most popular online services, like Snapchat and Venmo. Amazon appears to be expecting another big holiday selling season. It plans to offer 250,000 seasonal jobs to help staff warehouses, among other needs, the same as in the prior two years. Amazon on Friday also announced a reorganization of a segment of its PXT unit focused on diversity initiatives, a memo reviewed by Reuters showed. The changes largely involved promoting people to new roles. Amazon shares rose 1.2% to $226.97 on Monday. The company plans to report third-quarter earnings on Thursday.  (Reporting by Greg Bensinger in San Francisco; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Matthew Lewis and Richard Chang)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Greg Bensinger SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Amazon is planning to cut as many as 30,000 corporate jobs beginning on Tuesday, as the company pares expenses and compensates for overhiring during the peak demand of the pandemic, according to three people familiar with the matter. The figure represents a small percentage of Amazon's 1.55 million total employees, but nearly 10% of its roughly 350,000 corporate employees. This would mark Amazon's largest job cut since late 2022, when it started to eliminate around 27,000 positions. An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment. Amazon has been trimming smaller numbers of jobs over the past two years across multiple divisions, including devices, communications and podcasting. The cuts beginning this week may affect a variety of divisions, including human resources, known as People Experience and Technology or PXT; operations, devices and services; and Amazon Web Services, the people said. Managers of impacted teams were asked to undergo training on Monday for how to communicate with staff following email notifications that will start going out on Tuesday morning, the people said. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is undertaking an initiative to reduce what he has described as an excess of bureaucracy, including by reducing the number of managers. He installed an anonymous complaint line for identifying inefficiencies that has elicited some 1,500 responses and over 450 process changes, he said earlier this year. Jassy said in June that the increased use of artificial intelligence tools would likely lead to further job cuts, particularly through automating repetitive and routine tasks. "This latest move signals that Amazon is likely realizing enough AI-driven productivity gains within corporate teams to support a substantial reduction in force," said Sky Canaves, an eMarketer analyst. "Amazon has also been under pressure in the short-term to offset the long-term investments in building out its AI infrastructure." The full scope of this round of job cuts was not immediately clear. The people familiar with the matter said the number could change over time as Amazon's financial priorities shift. Fortune earlier reported that the human resources division could be targeted with a cut of roughly 15%. A program begun early this year to bring employees back in the office five days per week, among tech's most stringent, has failed to generate sufficient attrition, said two of the people, citing that as another reason for the size of the layoff. Some of the employees who are not swiping in daily because they live far from corporate offices, or for other reasons, are being told they have voluntarily quit Amazon and must leave without severance, a savings for the company. Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking tech job cuts, estimated that about 98,000 jobs have been lost so far this year among 216 companies. For all of 2024, the figure was 153,000. Amazon's largest profit center, cloud computing unit AWS, reported second-quarter sales of $30.9 billion, a 17.5% increase that was well below gains of 39% for Microsoft's Azure and of 32% for Alphabet's Google Cloud.  Estimates indicate that AWS will have boosted third-quarter sales by about 18% to $32 billion, a slight slowdown from last year's 19% increase. AWS is still reeling from a roughly 15-hour internet outage last week that felled many of the most popular online services, like Snapchat and Venmo. Amazon appears to be expecting another big holiday selling season. It plans to offer 250,000 seasonal jobs to help staff warehouses, among other needs, the same as in the prior two years. Amazon on Friday also announced a reorganization of a segment of its PXT unit focused on diversity initiatives, a memo reviewed by Reuters showed. The changes largely involved promoting people to new roles. Amazon shares rose 1.2% to $226.97 on Monday. The company plans to report third-quarter earnings on Thursday.  (Reporting by Greg Bensinger in San Francisco; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Matthew Lewis and Richard Chang)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Instagram owner Meta and other social media firms said on Tuesday they will comply with a ban on users under the age of 16, adding that they will start deactivating accounts once the law takes effect on December 10. In parliament, Meta, TikTok owner ByteDance and Snapchat owner Snap said they continued to believe the ban would not protect young people, but they would soon reach out to owners of more than a million underage accounts to prepare them for the change. Their comments represented a shift in the social media industry's response to the law, which is being watched by lawmakers around the world as concern grows about youth mental health. Under the Australian law, platforms must take "reasonable steps" to block users aged less than 16 or face a fine of up to A$49.5 million ($32.5 million). The platforms previously argued that the ban would drive young people to more dangerous corners of the internet that are poorly monitored, as well as deprive young people of social contact. They also said that implementation would be unnecessarily complex. Snap and Google-owned YouTube have also argued they aren't social media companies. "We don't agree, but we accept and we will abide by the law," said Jennifer Stout, Snap's senior vice president of global policy and platform operations, via a video link. Ella Woods-Joyce, TikTok's public policy lead for Australia, reiterated the Chinese-owned platform's opposition to the ban but said "TikTok will comply with the law and meet its obligations". "We are on track to meet our compliance," she said. Mia Garlick, Meta's policy director for Australia and New Zealand, said the company would soon approach holders of accounts confirmed to be under 16 – about 450,000 across Instagram and Facebook – to give them a choice between deleting their photos and other data or offering to store it until they turned 16. TikTok, which says it has 200,000 under-16 accounts in Australia, and Snap, which says it has 440,000 under-16 accounts, said they would take similar steps. The companies added that they would use automated behaviour-tracking software to determine if an account holder claiming to be over 16 was underage. "Where we identify someone that is saying they're 25 but the behaviors would indicate that they're below the age of 16, from December 10th we will have those accounts deactivated," Woods-Joyce said. For users incorrectly deemed to be under 16, Meta and TikTok said they would refer them to a third-party age-estimation tool. Snap said it was still working on a solution for users who believed they were incorrectly blocked. (Reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Greg Bensinger SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Amazon is planning to cut as many as 30,000 corporate jobs beginning Tuesday, as the company works to pare expenses and compensate for overhiring during the peak demand of the pandemic, according to three people familiar with the matter. The figure represents a small percentage of Amazon’s 1.55 million total employees, but nearly 10% of the company’s roughly 350,000 corporate employees. This would represent the largest job cut at Amazon since around 27,000 jobs were eliminated starting in late 2022.  An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment. Amazon has been trimming smaller numbers of jobs over the past two years across multiple divisions, including devices, communications, podcasting and others. The cuts beginning this week may impact a variety of divisions within Amazon, including human resources, known as People Experience and Technology, devices and services and operations, among others, the people said. Managers of impacted teams were asked to undergo training on Monday for how to communicate with staff following notifications that will start going out via email tomorrow morning, the people said. Amazon shares were up 1.5% to $227.53. The company plans to report third quarter earnings on Thursday.  (Reporting by Greg Bensinger; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama )

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

(Reuters) -Canary Capital told Reuters that it plans to launch the first exchange-traded products in the United States tied to the litecoin and hedera cryptocurrencies on Tuesday morning. The cryptocurrency asset management firm is forging ahead with the launch in spite of the shutdown of the U.S. government that has stalled or delayed most review functions of the Securities & Exchange Commission. "We've had several interactions with the SEC" on both filings over the last year, Steven McClurg, Canary's founder and CEO, told Reuters. "We were very much ready to go" before the shutdown. (Reporting by Suzanne McGee)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

(Reuters) -Canary Capital told Reuters that it plans to launch the first exchange-traded products in the United States tied to the litecoin and hedera cryptocurrencies on Tuesday morning. The cryptocurrency asset management firm is forging ahead with the launch in spite of the shutdown of the U.S. government that has stalled or delayed most review functions of the Securities & Exchange Commission. "We've had several interactions with the SEC" on both filings over the last year, Steven McClurg, Canary's founder and CEO, told Reuters. "We were very much ready to go" before the shutdown. (Reporting by Suzanne McGee)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

(Reuters) -Cybersecurity firm F5 forecast annual revenue below Wall Street estimates on Monday, warning that a recent systems breach that triggered alarm over potential risks to U.S. and UK government systems would hurt demand for its services. Shares of the company were down 10% in after-hours trading, on track to erase most of the stock's gains so far this year. F5 disclosed earlier this month that hackers had "long-term, persistent access" to certain company systems, including the source code for one of its key cybersecurity services. Reuters later reported that two people briefed on the investigation attributed the breach to state-backed hackers from China. The company's website says it serves more than four in five Fortune 500 companies in some capacity, and U.S. officials have said that federal networks were among those targeted in the hack's aftermath and have urged immediate action. "F5 anticipates some near-term disruption to sales cycles as customers focus on assessing and remediating their environments following the recent security incident," the company said on Monday. It forecast full-year revenue growth of 0% to 4%, with any demand impacts expected to be more pronounced in the first half, before normalizing in the second half of fiscal year 2026. That was below the average analyst estimate of 4.8%, according to LSEG-compiled data. Its first-quarter revenue forecast of $730 million to $780 million was also came in below estimates of $791 million. (Reporting by Nithyashree R B in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Maju Samuel)

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(Reuters) -A federal judge on Monday decertified a class action by tens of millions of Apple customers who accused the company of monopolizing the market for iPhone apps by banning purchases outside its App Store, leading to higher prices. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, reversed her February 2024 decision allowing Apple account holders who spent $10 or more on app or in-app content to sue as a group. Rogers said the plaintiffs "failed to provide a model capable of reliably showing classwide injury and damages in one stroke." (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Nia Williams)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)