43 branch organizations and trade companies filed a complaint with the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) against the provisions of Regulation No 18 on registering and accounting by means of fiscal devices the sales, software requirements and their management, arguing that invaluable business information will be accessible to the NRA. In view of the recent developments surrounding the breakthrough in the agency's security systems, the arguments in the appeal are even more burdensome. The Bulgarian Industrial Association reminded about its official statement from August 16, 2018 in which it had warned about a potential problem with data protection and many times later, in the context of the amendments to Ordinance N-18 (on cash registers), and insisted on specific responses to the scale of the hacker attack that recently occurred.

According to BNB statistics, 2.47 million Bulgarians have loans and most of them pay more than one. According to the data by the Central bank, by December 2018, there were 2,475 million borrowers in the Central Credit Register. Of these, 2.26 million are citizens, 99 000 are sole traders and 102 000 are foreign nationals, 8 000 are freelancers. BNB data show that for 2018 79% of the loans are in Bulgarian currency. The boom in lending in 2018, linked to low interest rates, growth in the economy, income and competition among banks, continued this year.

The World Bank has opened a Shared Services Center at Sofia Tech Park. It will employ over 300 high-tech specialists. The implementation of the project will be implemented in stages. The start-up phase starts in July this year, and the full capacity of over 300 occupied places is planned to be reached within five years. In April this year, the Council of Ministers approved the agreement between the Bulgarian government and the World Bank to set up a Sofia-based service center for shared services. After being signed in Washington and ratified by the National Assembly, the Agreement is now in force. The Center in Sofia will provide the opportunity for continuity of the activities in providing IT services, financial management and human resources management. It plans to involve a large number of IT specialists and other highly qualified and motivated experts who will replace and expand the services provided by the World Bank headquarters and will be engaged in the development of products with high added value.

Business software group SoftOne Technologies actove in Southeast Europe expects its turnover to exceed EUR 20 million by the end of 2019, following two strategic acquisitions, its Bulgarian unit said. Greece-based SoftOne, which also operates in Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus, expanded its business through the acquisition of Greek software providers Unisoft and Prosvasis which resulted in expanding the portfolio of the company. The acqusitions increased the group's headcount to more than 300 employees and the number of its partners to over 600. SoftOne Technologies acquired Prosvasis, a company specialized in providing software and training solutions for accounting firms, in May, following the acquisition of software company Unisoft concluded in February 2018. SoftOne Technologies started operations in Bulgaria in 2015. The company, part of international investment group Olympia, has more than 47,000 customers in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus.

Bulgarian furniture retailer Aiko EOOD will invest BGN 15 million in the construction of a warehouse for cargo shipments in Bozhurishte industrial zone near Sofia. The investment project, which will create 5 new jobs, includes the purchase of land and the construction of the warehouse building. Sofia-based Aiko EOOD operates five stores in some of Bulgaria's biggest cities.

Bulgarian diversified group Rodna Zemya Holding has signed a contract with Germany-based HIT Bulgarien GmbH for the acquisition of 100% of its wholly-owned Sofia-headquartered unit HIT Hypermarket EOOD. The deal is subject to approval by Bulgaria's competition authority. The capital of HIT Hypermarket is divided into 221,000 shares of BGN 100 in par value each. HIT entered the Bulgarian market in 2004. HIT Hypermarket operates two stores in Sofia, offering a wide variety of food and non-food products. In June, Bulgaria's Financial Supervision Commission said that it has approved the prospectus of Rodna Zemya Holding for a capital increase via a new share issue. Rodna Zemya Holding will seek to raise up to 36 million levs by offering 20 million shares at a price of BGN 1.8 each.

A total of 900 jobs will be opened in Plovdiv Park after the completion of the second phase of the project in 2020. This was announced by the manager of Galaxy Investment Group, who made the first sod of the second phase of the business building project. Currently, more than 900 people work in the business building whose first-stage was completed at the end of 2016. Office Park Plovdiv is an office building class "A" with a total built-up area of ​​10 336 sq.m. At present, among the tenants of the office building are well-established Bulgarian and foreign companies including SiteGround, Bulpros, Football Radar, Codenest, Delasport, Accenture, VSG, UBB and others.

The EU has fined Qualcomm €242 million (around $272 million) for selling 3G modem chips at predatory prices in an attempt to drive a competing supplier, Icera, out of the market. The European Commission says that the company used its market dominance to sell chips meant for mobile internet dongles at below cost between 2009 and 2011. Today’s announcement marks the end of the EU’s nearly four year long investigation into Qualcomm’s actions. Announcing the fine, the EU’s Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, said that “Qualcomm’s strategic behavior prevented competition and innovation in this market, and limited the choice available to consumers in a sector with a huge demand and potential for innovative technologies.” The EU’s investigation found that Qualcomm sold its 3G chips at below cost prices to Huawei and ZTE just as Icera was emerging as a viable competitor. The Commission called these price concessions “targeted” and said that they “allowed [Qualcomm] to maximise the negative impact on Icera’s business.” Today’s fine is just the latest in a series of antitrust rulings that Qualcomm has been hit with in recent years.

Microsoft Corp and AT&T Inc on Wednesday said they reached a deal under which the telecommunications company will tap Microsoft’s Azure cloud service for its computing needs and use Microsoft 365, which includes Office productivity software, for much of its 268,000-strong workforce. Under the deal, Microsoft and AT&T will also work together on so-called edge computing, which will see Microsoft technology deployed alongside AT&T’s coming 5G network for applications that need extremely small delays in passing data back and forth, such as air traffic control systems for drones. The multi-year deal is worth more than $2 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. The agreement is a major win for Microsoft, which will become AT&T’s “preferred” cloud vendor and is fighting to gain market share from Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services, the biggest provider of public cloud services. Cloud service customers run their software applications in data centers managed by the cloud provider. AT&T will remain responsible for its own core networking operations for cell phones and other devices. But John Donovan, chief executive of AT&T Communications, told Reuters the deal is a fundamental shift for the telecommunications provider to become “public cloud first,” meaning that it will predominately rely on data centers built by others to power the rest of its business.

Toyota Motor Corp. agreed to buy batteries from Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. as part of a broader partnership, the latest in a slew of tie-ups being forged as global carmakers race to secure stable supplies for electric vehicles. The two companies are also discussing various topics ranging from the development of new technology to recycling, Toyota said in a statement Wednesday. The agreement, flagged last month, is a boon for China’s CATL, which competes with Toyota’s partner Panasonic Corp. for the industry lead. Terms of the accord weren’t disclosed. Global automakers are vying for access to vast amounts of batteries to power a growing number of electric vehicles amid capacity constraints and limited access to raw materials. For example, Volkswagen AG has been taking steps to secure enough batteries amid concerns it may not get what it needs from South Korea’s Samsung SDI Co. Daimler AG is betting that half of its global sales will be electric by 2030.