{"id":6988,"date":"2026-06-12T16:42:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T16:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/?p=6988"},"modified":"2026-06-12T16:42:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T16:42:26","slug":"simons-weekly-wrap-from-ai-at-the-world-cup-to-pressure-on-consumers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/?p=6988","title":{"rendered":"Simon\u2019s weekly wrap: From AI at the World Cup to pressure on consumers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Fifa World Cup has kicked off, and I chated with Haim Israel, head global thematic investing research at Bank of America, on the role AI will play in the tournament. With 6 billion people expected to watch at least one game, this will be first time AI is deployed at a major global sporting event. I also asked if AI had predictions as to who would come out as the winner in five weeks\u2019 time and he has two names they think can win.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/iframe.iono.fm\/e\/1685465?layout=modern\" width=\"100%\" height=\"170\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n<p>Omnia published a strong set of results, and I spoke with CEO Seelan Gobalsamy about the recovery of agri products in the rest of Africa, and chemicals also making a profit, albeit a very modest one. We also spoke about fertiliser prices as the war in Iran had initially sent urea prices rocketing higher, but they have largely returned to pre-war levels.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/iframe.iono.fm\/e\/1684086?layout=modern\" width=\"100%\" height=\"170\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n<p>I chatted with Dr Greg Cline, head of portfolio management at Investec, about the supply shock we\u2019re seeing in energy costs and the impact it is having on the local economy. He comments that there is certainly evidence of a slowing economy already and if energy stays elevated it will get worse.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/iframe.iono.fm\/e\/1683585?layout=modern\" width=\"100%\" height=\"170\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n<p>I chatted with Shergeran Naidoo, head of stakeholder engagement at PayInc, on their latest economic index. The PayInc Economic Index has fallen and is now back at November levels but still up on a year ago, indicating consumers are under pressure but better off than last year. We also spoke about cash usage; it is slightly lower but remains an important part of the payment process, even as digital continues to grow.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/iframe.iono.fm\/e\/1684999?layout=modern\" width=\"100%\" height=\"170\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>#Simons #weekly #wrap #World #Cup #pressure #consumers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Fifa World Cup has kicked off, and I chated with Haim Israel, head global thematic investing research at Bank of America, on the role AI will play in the&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1796,3826,676,3890,2940,51,3891],"class_list":["post-6988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","tag-consumers","tag-cup","tag-pressure","tag-simons","tag-weekly","tag-world","tag-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}