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By Gianluca Lo Nostro (Reuters) -British consumer credit firm Lendable launched a monthly 20-pound mobile plan on Wednesday, the latest financial technology firm to expand into telecommunications to unlock new revenue streams. London-based Lendable, founded in 2014, is the first fintech in Britain to launch such a service. It joins a string of firms in other countries tapping into the telecoms market and seeking to build "super-app" ecosystems that combine banking, shopping and communications. Revolut recently announced plans for its own mobile virtual network operator in Europe, while Klarna will launch a $40 per month plan in the United States. Unlike mainstream providers, these operators do not own the wireless infrastructure they depend on, which allows them to avoid heavy fixed costs while competing on the pricing front. Celebrities have also jumped on the trend. Ryan Reynolds-backed budget brand Mint Mobile was sold to T-Mobile US for $1.35 billion in 2023, while U.S. President Donald Trump's family business has licensed its name to launch a mobile service. Lendable's plan will be powered by U.S.-based tech company Gigs, which provides the operating system, and will be available on the Lendable-owned Zable app, which has 2 million customers. The plan includes unlimited 5G data, calls and texts on Vodafone's network, plus 10GB of roaming across 38 nations. "Expanding (not pivoting) into telecoms is a natural next step for us," Lendable co-founder and CEO, Martin Kissinger, told Reuters in an interview. Kissinger said that unlike other fintechs focused on current accounts, international payments and trading, Zable offers cost-saving options with the aim of lowering bills. When asked about fundraising, Kissinger said Lendable was a profitable and well-funded business. "At the moment, we are not thinking about any kind of listing, as there is still a lot of building to do." He declined to comment on a potential initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro in Gdansk; Editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)

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By Miho Uranaka and Sam Nussey TOKYO (Reuters) -Japanese e-commerce and finance heavyweight Rakuten is weighing an initial public offering in the United States of its credit card business, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Rakuten began considering a potential U.S. listing of one of Japan's largest credit card businesses last month, the sources said. The considerations are in the early stages, with other potential options including a stake sale to a strategic buyer, one of the sources said. One trigger for considering a U.S. IPO of Rakuten Card was rival SoftBank's plans to list app pay operator PayPay in the U.S., the source said. The sources declined to be named as the information is not public. The company's considerations of a U.S. IPO had not been reported previously. Rakuten did not respond to requests for comment. The company's shares extended gains after the Reuters report and closed up 4.7%, compared with a 1.6% rise in the Topix index. Mizuho Financial Group acquired a 15% stake in Rakuten Card for 165 billion yen ($1.1 billion) last year, valuing the business at more than 1 trillion yen, or $7 billion, with the two launching joint credit cards. For PayPay, institutional investors see a baseline valuation of 2 trillion yen, but expect the valuation could exceed 3 trillion yen in the IPO that could take place as early as December, Reuters reported this week. CARDS CENTRAL TO RAKUTEN'S BUSINESS Rakuten, which is led by founder and CEO Hiroshi Mikitani, shook up Japan's finance sector by simplifying the process for applying for credit cards and making them available to a wider range of consumers. Credit cards are an important part of a web of Rakuten businesses spanning online shopping, banking, travel and other services, with customers accruing loyalty reward points by making payments. Rakuten listed Rakuten Bank in Tokyo two years ago as the group reeled from heavy losses due to launching a mobile network. Rakuten also announced plans to list Rakuten Securities, but Mizuho injected funding by taking stakes in the brokerage and card businesses. Rakuten Card has issued more than 30 million credit cards in Japan. Non-GAAP operating profit at the business grew 20% to 62 billion yen last year but fell 4.5% in the April-June quarter of this year compared to the same period a year earlier due to higher costs. Rakuten Card aims to expand profit to 100 billion yen over the medium term and is looking to expand its business with corporate customers, its CEO Koichi Nakamura said in March. The IPO considerations come as companies around the world are looking to list in the U.S. as they seek higher valuations. The U.S. IPO market has had its busiest quarter since the fourth quarter of 2021, with companies raising $24 billion through first-time share sales in the third quarter, according to Dealogic. ($1 = 152.0900 yen) (Reporting by Miho Uranaka and Sam Nussey; Editing by Jamie Freed)

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BEIJING (Reuters) -Apple will boost investment in China and further step up cooperation there, Chief Executive Tim Cook told the industry minister during a meeting on Wednesday in the capital, Beijing, the ministry said in a summary of their remarks. The comments come as the iPhone maker looks to sidestep U.S. tariffs on shipments from countries including its production hubs, China and India, by boosting already hefty investment in the United States to $600 billion over the next four years. China hopes Apple will continue to explore the Chinese market, Li Lecheng, who is also in charge of infotech, told Cook, adding that China would continue to foster a good business environment for foreign firms, including Apple. The summary gave no details of the size of the projected investment. Apple did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Cook, who is in China this week, visited Apple's store in Shanghai and met Chinese game developers and the designer of the popular Labubu dolls, he said in posts on China's X-like Weibo. On Monday he said the iPhone Air would be available for pre-order in China after the ministry cleared the way for major telecom operators to support its eSIM functionality. When Cook visited China in March, Apple unveiled plans for a new clean energy fund there worth 720 million yuan ($101 million). ($1=7.1258 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Xiuhao Chen and Ryan Woo; Editing by Tom Hogue and Clarence Fernandez)

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By Miho Uranaka and Sam Nussey TOKYO (Reuters) -Japanese e-commerce and finance heavyweight Rakuten is weighing an initial public offering in the United States of its credit card business, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Rakuten began considering a potential U.S. listing of one of Japan's largest credit card businesses last month, the sources said. The considerations are in the early stages, with other potential options including a stake sale to a strategic buyer, one of the sources said. One trigger for considering a U.S. IPO of Rakuten Card was rival SoftBank's plans to list app pay operator PayPay in the U.S., the source said. The sources declined to be named as the information is not public. The company's considerations of a U.S. IPO had not been reported previously. Rakuten did not respond to requests for comment. Mizuho Financial Group acquired a 15% stake in Rakuten Card for 165 billion yen ($1.1 billion) last year, valuing the business at more than 1 trillion yen, or $7 billion, with the two launching joint credit cards. For PayPay, institutional investors see a baseline valuation of 2 trillion yen, but expect the valuation could exceed 3 trillion yen in the IPO that could take place as early as December, Reuters reported this week. CARDS CENTRAL TO RAKUTEN'S BUSINESS Rakuten, which is led by founder and CEO Hiroshi Mikitani, shook up Japan's finance sector by simplifying the process for applying for credit cards and making them available to a wider range of consumers. Credit cards are an important part of a web of Rakuten businesses spanning online shopping, banking, travel and other services, with customers accruing loyalty reward points by making payments. Rakuten listed Rakuten Bank in Tokyo two years ago as the group reeled from heavy losses due to launching a mobile network. Rakuten also announced plans to list Rakuten Securities, but Mizuho injected funding by taking stakes in the brokerage and card businesses. Rakuten Card has issued more than 30 million credit cards in Japan. Non-GAAP operating profit at the business grew 20% to 62 billion yen last year but fell 4.5% in the April-June quarter of this year compared to the same period a year earlier due to higher costs. Rakuten Card aims to expand profit to 100 billion yen over the medium term and is looking to expand its business with corporate customers, its CEO Koichi Nakamura said in March. The IPO considerations come as companies around the world are looking to list in the U.S. as they seek higher valuations. The U.S. IPO market has had its busiest quarter since the fourth quarter of 2021, with companies raising $24 billion through first-time share sales in the third quarter, according to Dealogic. ($1 = 152.0900 yen) (Reporting by Miho Uranaka and Sam Nussey; Editing by Jamie Freed)

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SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Singapore will introduce a new online safety commission with powers to order social media platforms to block harmful posts, according to a new bill that was tabled in parliament on Wednesday. The new law comes after researchers from the Infocomm Media Development Authority found in February that more than half of legitimate user complaints about harmful posts relating to issues like child abuse and cyber-bullying had not been immediately addressed. The new commission will be empowered under a new law to address local user reports of harms like online harassment, doxxing, online stalking, the abuse of intimate images and child pornography by the end of the first half of 2026.  It will also have powers to direct social media platforms to restrict access to harmful material within Singapore, give victims a right to reply, and ban perpetrators from accessing their platform. The commission will also be able to order internet service providers to block access to specific online locations, such as group pages or even a social media platform's website.  More harms, including the non-consensual disclosure of private information and "the incitement of enmity", will be introduced over stages following the initial launch. The new commission will be set up under a new online safety bill that was introduced to lawmakers on Wednesday. It will be debated at the next available session of parliament.  The setting up of an online safety commission was first mooted during the Ministry of Digital Development and Information's budget debate in March this year. "More often than not, platforms fail to take action to remove genuinely harmful content reported to them by victims,” said Josephine Teo, Minister for Digital Development and Information.  The government recently targeted Meta with the first order issued under the nation's new Online Criminal Harms Act, which came into force in February 2024. In September, the home affairs ministry threatened Meta with a fine of up to S$1 million ($771,664) and fines of up to S$100,000 per day after the end of the month if it failed to introduce measures like facial recognition to curb impersonation scams on its social network Facebook. The home affairs ministry could not immediately be reached to confirm if Meta complied with the order.  ($1 = 1.2959 Singapore dollars) (Reporting by Jun Yuan Yong; Editing by David Stanway)

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(Reuters) -ASML, the world's biggest supplier of computer chip-making equipment, on Wednesday warned that it expected a significant fall in demand from China next year despite its third quarter bookings beating market forecasts. The Dutch group's net bookings, the most closely watched figure in the industry, were 5.40 billion euros ($6.27 billion)in the third quarter of 2025, versus analysts' consensus estimate of 5.36 billion euros according to researcher Visible Alpha. "We do not expect 2026 total net sales to be below 2025… On the other hand, we expect China customer demand, and therefore our China total net sales in 2026 to decline significantly." ASML's CEO Christophe Fouquet said in a statement. ASML said it will communicate its new targets in January. "A slight beat in bookings means there will be no sales decline in 2026, flat to growth", Michael Roeg of Degroof Petercam said. "It could have been a stronger message". ($1 = 0.8607 euros) (Reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam, Nathan Vifflin in Gdansk; Editing by Matt Scuffham)

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(Reuters) -ASML, the world's biggest supplier of computer chip-making equipment, on Wednesday warned that it expected a significant fall in demand from China next year despite its third quarter bookings beating market forecasts. The Dutch group's net bookings, the most closely watched figure in the industry, were 5.40 billion euros ($6.27 billion)in the third quarter of 2025, versus analysts' consensus estimate of 5.36 billion euros according to researcher Visible Alpha. "We do not expect 2026 total net sales to be below 2025… On the other hand, we expect China customer demand, and therefore our China total net sales in 2026 to decline significantly." ASML's CEO Christophe Fouquet said in a statement. ASML said it will communicate its new targets in January. "A slight beat in bookings means there will be no sales decline in 2026, flat to growth", Michael Roeg of Degroof Petercam said. "It could have been a stronger message". ($1 = 0.8607 euros) (Reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam, Nathan Vifflin in Gdansk; Editing by Matt Scuffham)

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(Reuters) -ASML, the world's biggest supplier of computer chip-making equipment, on Wednesday warned that it expected a significant fall in demand from China next year despite its third quarter bookings beating market forecasts. The Dutch group's net bookings, the most closely watched figure in the industry, were 5.40 billion euros ($6.27 billion)in the third quarter of 2025, versus analysts' consensus estimate of 5.36 billion euros according to researcher Visible Alpha. "We do not expect 2026 total net sales to be below 2025… On the other hand, we expect China customer demand, and therefore our China total net sales in 2026 to decline significantly." ASML's CEO Christophe Fouquet said in a statement. ASML said it will communicate its new targets in January. "A slight beat in bookings means there will be no sales decline in 2026, flat to growth", Michael Roeg of Degroof Petercam said. "It could have been a stronger message". ($1 = 0.8607 euros) (Reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam, Nathan Vifflin in Gdansk; Editing by Matt Scuffham)

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By Leika Kihara and Howard Schneider TOKYO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. government shutdown that has turned off the official flow of data could begin clouding the view for policymakers in Japan and other countries where insight into the fortunes of the world's biggest economy informs the outlook for their own currencies, trade performance and inflation.  What happens in America, in other words, doesn't stay in America, and global officials say being left data-blind by the shutdown over time could complicate their own policymaking and boost the risk of a mistake at a moment when countries are already adjusting to the Trump administration's efforts to remake global trade. "It's a serious problem. We hope this gets fixed soon," Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda told a news briefing on October 3, as he discussed the hurdles the BOJ faces in deciding when to resume interest rate hikes. One Japanese policymaker went further.  "It's a joke. (Federal Reserve Chair Jerome) Powell keeps on saying the Fed's policy is data-dependent but there's no data to depend upon," said the official, who declined to be named as he was not authorized to speak publicly.  Bank of England policy member Catherine Mann said the questions surrounding U.S. data, the controversy over the Fed's independence, and other issues don’t figure as directly into BOE policy debate as the shifts in trade policy, for example, which directly affect things like prices and the export outlook. But she noted how over time the British pound lost its central status in the world, a process that took decades and was driven by multiple forces she referred to as “termites” that weakened the pound’s role over time. Policy changes that could degrade the dollar's standing or erode the Fed's independence, “are things that we have in our mind but they’re not front and center,” Mann said. But “they are the termites, as opposed to something that is imminent.” Finance and economic leaders from around the world are gathered in Washington this week for meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and – in a world beset by an ongoing European land war, tensions and violence in the Middle East, and long-term issues like climate change – much of the meeting's oxygen is likely to be consumed by discussion of U.S. President Donald Trump's plans for the world, his performance in office so far, and, now, the sudden stop of official information about a $30 trillion economy that accounts for roughly one-fourth of world output.  The shutdown could end at any time and the flow of data resume. But the episode is nonetheless symptomatic of a deeper set of issues around U.S. governance and data reliability, including Trump's efforts to gain new influence over the Federal Reserve and his firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he was angry over a jobs report that the IMF cited among the "downside risks" facing the world right now. "Intensification of political pressure on policy institutions…could erode hard-won public confidence in their ability to fulfill their mandates," the World Economic Outlook published Tuesday by the IMF stated. "Pressures on technocratic institutions mandated with data collection and dissemination could also erode the public’s and markets’ trust in statistics from official sources, significantly complicating the tasks of central banks and policymakers in making policy decisions…It also raises the likelihood of policy mistakes if political interference leads to compromise in data quality, reliability, and timeliness." 'THE RISK OF ERROR RISES' It is not as if all data has disappeared. The U.S. Federal Reserve, self-funded and not affected by the shutdown, continues to survey its extensive network of contacts about the economy, and private data services provide alternatives that policymakers have learned to knit into serviceable, if imperfect, substitutes at least for short-term analysis. “The month-to-month data flow in the U.S. gets talked about but never is a decisive factor," for other central banks, said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former Bank of England policymaker.  But Posen said that the shutdown itself and the tumult around BLS "contributes to the general skepticism about the governance of the U.S. and the reliability of the U.S….And that is important. It eventually feeds into reserve management and currency decisions and feeds into volatility outlooks for the U.S. that were not there before." If the spring IMF and World Bank meetings were all about the uncertainty posed by Trump's plans for higher tariffs and rising protectionism, attention is now fixed on how companies, countries and consumers are coping with the new landscape. Short answer: Not as bad as expected when Trump first took office, at least through September, but still adjusting, according to the IMF's WEO update that found "a significant, though not massive, impact of shifting policies on the economic outlook." After trimming its global growth outlook by a half percentage point in April to 2.8%,  the IMF in its latest projection published on Tuesday clawed most of that back, with global growth now seen at 3.2% for the year. But now, with a major hole in the flow of data covering around a quarter of global economic output, the view will get foggier the longer the shutdown lasts. "Certainly, there is still a great deal of information out there, and policymakers are dedicating substantial effort to gather micro data and anecdotal evidence," about the U.S. said Robert Kahn, director of global macro at Eurasia Group. "But how best to put it together, and importantly how markets will react to such news, are critical unknowns. As time goes on, the risk of error rises as uncertainties compound.” (Reporting by Leika Kihara in Tokyo and Howard Schneider in Washington; Editing by Dan Burns and Andrea Ricci)

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By Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra BENGALURU (Reuters) -At a startup office in this Indian city, developers are fine-tuning artificial-intelligence chatbots that talk and message like humans.  The company, LimeChat, has an audacious goal: to make customer-service jobs almost obsolete. It says its generative AI agents enable clients to slash by 80% the number of workers needed to handle 10,000 monthly queries.  "Once you hire a LimeChat agent, you never have to hire again," Nikhil Gupta, its 28-year-old co-founder, told Reuters. Cheap labor and English proficiency helped make India the world's back office — sometimes at the expense of workers elsewhere. Now, AI-powered systems are subsuming jobs done by headset-wearing graduates in technical support, customer care and data management, sparking a scramble to adapt, a Reuters examination found.  That's driving business for AI startups that help companies slash staffing costs and scale operations — even though many consumers still prefer to deal with a person. This account of the disruptive changes transforming India's $283 billion IT sector is based on interviews with 30 people, including industry executives, recruiters, workers and current and former government officials. Reuters also visited two AI startups and tested voice and text chatbots that handle increasingly sophisticated customer interactions in human-like ways. Rather than pump the brakes as the technology threatens jobs built on routine tasks, the country is accelerating, wagering that a let-it-rip approach will create enough new opportunities to absorb those displaced, Reuters found. The outcome of India's gamble carries weight far beyond its borders — a test case for whether embracing AI-driven disruption can elevate a developing economy or render it a cautionary tale. The global conversational AI market is growing 24% a year and should reach $41 billion by 2030, consultancy Grand View Research estimates. India — which relies on IT for 7.5% of its GDP — is leaning in. In a February speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said "work does not disappear due to technology. Its nature changes and new types of jobs are created." Not everyone shares Modi's confidence in India's preparedness. Santosh Mehrotra, a former Indian official and visiting professor at the University of Bath's Centre for Development Studies, criticized the government for a lack of urgency in assessing AI's effects on India's young workforce. "There's no gameplan," he said. Business process management employs 1.65 million workers in call centers, payroll, and data handling in India. Hiring has plummeted due to increased automation and digitalization, despite rising demand for AI coordinators and process analysts, said Neeti Sharma, CEO of staffing firm TeamLease Digital. Net headcount in the segment, which represents one-fifth of IT output, grew by fewer than 17,000 workers in each of the past two years, down from 130,000 in 2022-2023 and 177,000 in 2021-2022, TeamLease Digital figures show. Reuters spoke to three current and five former customer-service workers, who described increasing job insecurity and integration of AI, including tools that suggest responses and bots that handle nearly all routine queries autonomously. Megha S., 32, was earning $10,000 a year at a Bengaluru-based software solutions provider. She said she was laid off last month, just before India's festive season, as the company moved to implement AI tools to review the quality of sales calls. "I was told I am the first one who has been replaced by AI," said Megha, who spoke on the condition that her full name and former employer not be identified. "I've not told my parents."  Sumita Dawra, a former labor ministry secretary who oversaw an Indian government taskforce on AI's impact on the workforce before retiring in March, said while the technology offered productivity gains that would lead to new jobs, India could consider stronger social security measures, such as unemployment benefits, to help those displaced during the transition.  However, a senior Indian official told Reuters the government believed AI would ultimately have little impact on overall employment. India's IT and labor ministries, and Modi's office, didn't respond to requests for comment. AUTOMATION GOLD RUSH Besides AI, factors clouding the outlook for India's IT sector include U.S. tariffs; a proposal by a U.S. lawmaker for a 25% tax on firms using foreign outsourcing services; and President Trump's $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas, which are widely used by tech firms to sponsor Indian workers. Investment bank Jefferies predicted in September that India's call centers would face a revenue hit of 50% — and around 35% for other back-office functions — from AI adoption over the next five years.  That would spell near-term job losses in India, which accounts for 52% of the global outsourcing market. "The biggest impact is going to be on young students coming out of college," said Pramod Bhasin, who in the 1990s established India's first call center with 18 employees for GE Capital, where workstations were partitioned by saris strung from the ceiling. In the longer run, India could transition from "back office" to the world's "AI factory" by capitalizing on demand for AI engineers and automation deployment, said Bhasin, who went on to found IT services firm Genpact. One beneficiary of that demand is LimeChat, which Reuters visited in August. Gupta, the co-founder, said his developers and engineers have helped automate 5,000 jobs across India. The company's bots handle 70% of customer complaints for its clients, and it plans to achieve 90-95% within a year, he said. "If you're giving us 100,000 rupees per month, you are automating the job of at least 15 agents," said Gupta. At that price — about $1,130 — the service costs roughly the same as three customer-care staff, he said. LimeChat's sales soared to $1.5 million in 2024 from $79,000 two years earlier, regulatory disclosures show. Last year, the firm began integrating Microsoft's Azure language models and algorithms in a partnership to launch a new e-commerce chatbot. Among Gupta's clients is Indian ayurvedic products firm Kapiva, which has deployed a LimeChat bot for customer interactions over WhatsApp.  Keying in a prompt — "What kind of diet should I have to reduce weight?" — yielded an AI meal-plan creator. A follow-up query in English and Hindi about how a slimming juice differs from another item was also answered, with the chatbot eventually sharing links to Kapiva products with a smiling emoji. Kapiva didn't respond to Reuters questions. LimeChat's rivals include Reliance, the conglomerate chaired by Mukesh Ambani, which acquired Indian startup Haptik in 2019.  Haptik says it offers "AI agents that deliver human-like customer experiences" that cost $120 and can cut support costs by 30%. Revenue skyrocketed to almost $18 million last year from less than $1 million in 2020, disclosures show.  Haptik promoted a webinar in September by posing the question: "What if you had a full-time employee who never sleeps and costs just 10,000 rupees?"  "We are seeing a huge shift," Haptik product manager Suji Ravi said in the webinar, which Reuters reporters attended. "Brands are not investing in human agents and they want to deploy AI agents." For LimeChat client Mamaearth, an Indian personal-care brand, the main attraction of AI chatbots is scalability, said Vipul Maheshwari, head of product and analytics at parent firm Honasa Consumer. "Providing good customer support is make or break for us," he said. "But can we infinitely scale my customer support team? Absolutely not." The chatbot used by Mamaearth could go beyond simple assistance like order tracking, and help users with queries such as recommending the right products during pregnancy or, in some cases, handle an agitated customer, Maheshwari said.  COFFEE WITH NEHA The promise and perils of AI are evid…

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