Contactless payments hit record high; US cash drives M&A frenzy; and time to rethink the commute

Business Today: the best news, analysis and comment from The Irish Times business desk

The BPFI figures suggest a total of 73 million contactless payment made over the course of June, worth over €1.2 billion. Photograph: iStock

More than 2.4 million contactless payments were made per day in June, according to the BPFI, this was the highest daily level recorded since the series began in 2016. Eoin Burke-Kennedy reports.

A number of well-known Irish business executives have lined up to back Aikido Finance, a Dublin-based start-up that claims to be on a mission to democratise quantitative investing. Charlie Taylor has the details on the fintech which has just raised €900,000 in seed financing.

Mark Paul reports that private equity groups from the US and elsewhere with access to "unprecedented amounts of capital" drove a surge in dealmaking in the Irish market in the first six months of the year, according to a review by corporate law firm William Fry.

It's time to talk about public transport and the commute, says Chris Horn. Post-Covid the whole thing needs a healthy dose of fresh thinking, he writes.

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Today's Cantillons look at how working from home could come at a cost as some Google employees may soon discover; while rising rentsare being blamed on exodus of private landlords from the sector.

In her column this week, Karlin Lillington reminisces on her days using shorthand and writes about how technology has finally mastered one of work's most trying chores – transcribing.

In Innovation, getting machines to think like humans may be some way off yet but developing a more human-like response is an increasing feature of AI with technologists now talking to sociologists and psychologists.

Have you heard about text memes – the the latest trend taking over Instagram? These text-heavy humorous posts have become a new form of expression for Gen Z, writes Taylor Loenz, in this week's Technology feature.

In her tech reviews this week, Ciara O'Brien tries out: the Kuma F1 folding e-bike, which she says is small but powerful; Sony's new Bravia 65-inch TV which takes AI a step further; and Google's Nest doorbell, which can tell if there's an actual person at the door, not a cat or a dog.

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Nora-Ide McAuliffe

Nora-Ide McAuliffe

Nora-Ide McAuliffe is an Audience Editor with The Irish Times