RaspberryPi the wonder box

The rise of digital communication in the late 20th century has made it possible for media organizations (or individuals) to deliver text, audio, and video material over the same wired, wireless, or fiber-optic connections. Technological convergence is changing the way we create, consume, learn and interact with each other. Many expert view this as a tip of the iceberg. Some experts believe we will eventually access all Media content, communication and computing through one device or “black box” i.e. “The Wonder Box Raspberry Pi”.

The role of Internet and mobile technologies has changed from its original use as a communication tool to provide easy and fast access to information through broadband, voice and data connection. The television, radio and newspapers were the world's mediums for accessing news and entertainment; now, all three mediums have converged into one, and people all over the world can read and hear news and other information on the Internet.  

Raspberry Pi as a wonder box can play many roles (TV, Radio, Mobile Phone, Car Stereo, Video Conference etc).

Raspberry Pi is a single-board computer roughly the size of a deck of cards. It’s equipped with an ARM processor that runs Linux. USB ports let you attach a keyboard and mouse. Video is supported via HDMI and RCA. Storage is handled by SD cards. There’s an Ethernet port.

I can imaging all desktop will be just docking station with monitor and keyboard. Connect the Raspberry Pi  to the monitor and keyboard and use it as a desktop at work. When on the road connect it to the car stereo and use it to stream internet radio or a music player. 

Raspberry as a Internet radio : http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&p=186029#p186029

Raspberry with GSM module makes it a mobile

http://www.cooking-hacks.com/index.php/documentation/tutorials/raspberry-pi-3g-gprs-gsm-gps

IPTV on Raspberry PI

At home connect it to the TV and stream IPTV . Using Raspberry Pi with XBMC we can stream IPTV content to the TV which will be used just as a monitor. With camera and TV we can use it at home for video conferencing using Skype etc .  Get the one-stop guide to setting up a Raspberry Pi media center and other goodies from our Accessories page!

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XBRL RBI Statutory Return Reporting for Reserve Bank of India

Everything in the world is turning to XML. Federal Bank’s reporting across the global is also accepting the XML based XBRL reporting.  XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is a freely available and global standard for exchanging business information. XBRL allows the expression of semantic meaning commonly required in business reporting. The XBRL Specification is developed and published by XBRL International, Inc. (XII). XLBR is a standard way of communicating and exchanging financial statement to the Federal Banks

These communications are defined by metadata set out in taxonomies which capture the definition of individual reporting concepts as well as the relationship between concepts and other semantic meaning. As a part of the regulatory and supervisory functions of the RBI, RBI collects various fixed formatted data (called ‘Returns’) from Commercial Banks, financial institutes, authorized dealers and non-banking financial institutions. Many of these returns are statutory requirement of RBI act 1934, Banking Regulation Act 1949 etc.  These returns are filed using  conventional forms   like hard copies send through postal services, faxes, PDF file send via email etc.  RBI has provided  with Online Return Filing System. This is a single window for return submission using the power of Internet. It is secured since RBI has incorporated digital signatures and exclusive network security has been implemented. All fortnightly reporting Friday returns are file in the site http://orfs.rbi.org.in/orfs_orfs.aspx. Currently there are around 58 reports namely and their taxonomies are also available for download at the RBI site. Even returns for Capital Adequacy  is file in the same site.

Name of the return

Form 'A'

IX

VIII

BAL

GPB

FTD

FIIS

LRS

MV

FVCI

IOFHNI

FCTRS

CPR

STL

IRS

MAP

SIR

RIS

XBRL Integration with Current Data 

     

How Does XBRL Work?

About Tags

XBRL is a data-rich dialect of XML (Extensible Markup Language), the universally preferred language for transmitting information via the Internet. It was developed specifically to communicate information between businesses and other users of financial information, such as analysts, investors and regulators. XBRL provides a common, electronic format for business reporting. It does not change what is being reported. It only changes how it is reported.

A typical business report on an Internet page is a closed and self-contained document. Although it can be viewed and transmitted using the Internet, its format and content is fixed; neither the format nor the content can be changed unless you change the Internet page.  As a result, to extract the information from such a report for computerized analysis requires exporting or re-keying the data into a format that can be handled by computer software.

A business report that has been prepared using XBRL is known as an instance document, and it is different to a standard business report. The information contained in the instance document is not closed and does not have a predefined, fixed format. The data can be used interactively because it can be accessed, extracted and processed automatically by computers. This instructiveness is made possible by the use of tags.

In  XBRL information is broken down into unique data items. These data items are then assigned tags eg <CurrentAssets > </CurrentAssets >. Computers can treat information that has been tagged using XBRL ‘intelligently’,  they can recognize, process, store, exchange and analyze it automatically using software. Since XBRL tags are read and processed by computers, rendering software are used to convert the XBRL tags in an instance document to present the information in a human-readable format, such as a statement of financial position, return report or a cash flow statement. Since XBRL tags are formed in a universally-accepted way by Federal Banks as standard formats, they can be generated, read and processed by any Core Banking Application that has XRBL parsing capabilities.

An example of a statement line item and the corresponding XBRL tag has been using IFRS

On the left-hand side excerpt, the company’s current assets are listed as six line items of text as they would appear in a statement, starting with Assets, Current assets, Cash, etc, and ending with Total current assets.

The right-hand side excerpt displays the same information from the same statement. However, the formatting has been removed to reveal the computer-readable XBRL tags concealed beneath the human-readable report.

<ifrs:CurrentAssets contextRef="AsOf2009" unitRef="EUR">671629000</ifrs:CurrentAssets><ifrs:Cash contextRef="AsOf2009" unitRef="EUR">28700000</ifrs:Cash><ifrs:TradeAndOtherCurrentReceivables contextRef="AsOf2009"unitRef="EUR">585548000</ifrs:TradeAndOtherCurrentReceivables><ifrs:Inventories contextRef="AsOf2009" unitRef="EUR">57381000</ifrs:Inventories>

 This can be parsed as

Assets Current Assets  Statement As of 2009 In EUR Currency  Cash 28,700, Trade and other current receivables 585,548 Inventories   57,381. Total current assets 671,629

About Taxonomies 

XBRL are defined and organized using categorization schema’s called taxonomies.

Taxonomies are the computer-readable ‘dictionaries’ or schema of XBRL. Taxonomies provide definitions for XBRL tags, they provide information about the tags, and they organizse the tags so that they have a meaningful structure.

As a result, taxonomies enable computers with XBRL software to:

• understand what the tag is (eg whether it is a monetary item, a percentage or text);

• what characteristics the tag has (eg if it has a negative value);

• its relationship to other items (eg if it is part of a calculation).

This additional information is called meta-data. When information that has been tagged with XBRL is transmitted, the meta-data contained within the tags is also transmitted.  Taxonomies differ according to reporting purposes, the type of information being reported and reporting presentation requirements. Consequently, a company may use one taxonomy when reporting to a stock exchange, but use a different taxonomy when reporting to a securities regulator. Taxonomies are available for most of the major national accounting standards around the world.

For a Bank to report Returns in RBI format, RBi has published tags for all RBI Friday reports. These tag are contained within  the taxonomy available to download from the Reserve Bank of India ORFS site

Returns of Capital Adequacy : http://orfs.rbi.org.in/orfs_rca2.aspx#

Form A : http://orfs.rbi.org.in/orfs_FormA.aspx

Gap Position and Balances  (GPB): http://orfs.rbi.org.in/orfs_GPB.aspx

Form X Returns : http://orfs.rbi.org.in/orfs_FormX.aspx

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Mobile Wallet Payment

Currency is an important means of Payment of India, with 19% of the total payment is with currency as against 6 to 7% in advance counties.  Various other instruments like cheques, Bank drafts, Pay order , Payable AT Par cheques etc are used for payments in commercial transactions. The statutory basis for these instruments was provided in the Negotiable Instrument Act, 1881 (NI Act)

The NI act defines the instrument as a promissory note, bill of exchange or cheque. Use of currency has many disadvantages.  The most common elements of cash-management costs is bank fees, losses resulting from theft and cash logistics and roughly the same percentage doesn't include the time associated with handling cash as an element of their cash costs.  Today's tough economy is pressing retailers to take immediate action to lower their total cost of cash ownership, either through process improvement, automation technology, cash logistics services or a combination of all three. Cash can also be counterfeited. Today in India the nation’s vulnerability to fraud, terrorism and crime is to be blamed on its operation of a cash-based economy. And that because of the cash-based economy, it was very difficult to track money as people carried huge sums of money in cash and did whatever business they liked without being tracked. The number of counterfeit note found in India is 3 to 6 million which is much lower that what is circulating. Printing note, distributing notes, destructing old note and replacing with new one is a huge cost on the economy. Tendering exact change is also a challenge to the customer. The only way to tackle this is to introduce new payment methods and reduce the dependence of using paper money . Usage of plastic card also has many disadvantages. It requires merchant and acquirer to invest in equipment like POS machine, pin pad, network equipment etc. Within electronic payments, credit and debit cards form  57% of transactions by number, they transact only 13% by value. The largest electronic payments by value are through electronic funds transfers (NEFT or RTGS) which are predominantly peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions. These would not be used for retail payments, and the same can be said for Electronic Clearing System (ECS) payments. Hence, the usage of electronic payments in retail transactions (payments to retail outlets) is even lower, presenting a huge opportunity for players providing non-cash payment alternatives for retail payments.

Major disadvantages can be classified

Disadvantage	Merchant	Customer
Hidden costs	Processing fee per transaction charged by credit card companies, hence  eroding merchant’s profit margin • Some credit card processing firms also charge application fee, startup fee, activation fee, statement fee, monthly minimum fee, payment gateway fee, charge back fee and termination fee from the merchant	Late fee payment charges and high interest rates levied by credit card companies
Limited usage Unreasonable	Unreasonable pricing of cards acts as disincentive for small and medium merchants with lesser pricing power due to low volumes, to transition to card based payment	Usage limited primarily to large vendors / merchants that have PoS terminals installed and accept debit and credit cards
Privacy and Security concerns		Need to reveal personal information at multiple sites while using debit or credit cards for online transactions • Loss of cards that are not encrypted with a pin, leads to insecurity about card usage, bringing down the adoption rate of credit and debit cards by conservative users Card related fraud increasing every year  with availability of each card scamming devices

Mobile penetration in India is nearly 100% and large spiraling customer base make mobile wallet an ideal payment instrument to enable non cash retail transactions in India. This payment method is also ideal for small trader and shop that have transaction volumes low to support credit card and other similar non cash payments. Efforts required and cost to set up is also lower than the setting up of plastic card based payments.  Payment through mobile wallet can be convenient, easy and fast compared to cash and other non cash payment mechanism. Using the existing ecosystem of mobile wallet provided by the current telecom companies the system can be easily implemented.    

Recent amendments to RBI guidelines have allowed non-banks to issue mobile based semi-closed instruments, while also extending their usage to bill payments and ticketing.  The interbank mobile payment system (IMPS) has been developed by NPCI to expand the scope of Mobile Payment to all sector of the population. The Mobile operator needs to integrate with banks to enable customers to top-up their wallets . This can also be done using ATM or other channels (Voucher topup etc).  In today's world of razor-thin margins, tight credit and increased criminal activity, understanding and exploring ways to reduce the total cost of cash ownership can help retailers thrive in any economic climate.

Already mobile payments enable its customers to avail a host of services viz. shopping payments, telecom/DTH recharge, utility payments, rail/air/bus tickets and of course cinema tickets etc. and more and more services would be made available from time to time.

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