The Austrian telecommunications group A1 has picked Slovenia as a test market for its fully digital mobile services provider. Called re:do, it is the first such provider in the country.
Re:do is part of A1, but has its own team, and A1 Slovenia says it will continue to provide the same services to individuals and companies as so far.
Mobile users will be able to switch to re:do via a mobile app and use either a digital or regular SIM card, which can be ordered by mail or bought at Petrol or OMV filling stations. Users can keep their existing number or pick a new one.
A single mobile package will be available for €15 a month, allowing unlimited calls, messages and data transfer in Slovenia, and unlimited calls and messages and 14 GB of data transfer in the EU.
Slovenia became the first market where re:do was launched on 20 February.
Alexander Kuchar, who is in charge of technology and business development at A1 Group, said the Slovenian market was suitable as a testing ground due to its strong competition and discerning customers.
A1 surveys have also found that Slovenians have very good digital skills. “If we’re successful here, we’ll be successful in other markets.”
The goal is to attract 100,000 users in three years, said re:do CEO Iliyan Dimitrov at the pre-launch press conference.
Re:do targets people who want to run as many errands as possible online and who like to be free; re:do subscription can be cancelled any time.
Alexander Kuchar said re:do wanted to offer more freedom and transparency without hidden costs. The app is to be upgraded regularly to meet users’ needs.
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Hungary’s OTP Bank has completed the acquisition of the entire equity capital of Slovenian lender Nova Kreditna Banka Maribor (NKBM), OTP said.
The purchase of NKBM, which has been completed on February 6, is the most significant acquisition in the history of OTP, the Hungarian group said in a statement on Monday.
With the transaction closing, OTP has around 30% share in the Slovenian banking market on a pro-forma basis, it said.
The European Central Bank (ECB) approved the acquisition of NKBM by OTP Bank on September 6. Slovenia’s competition protection agency gave the green light to the transaction on January 31.
NKBM, with a market share of 20.7% in terms of total assets as of September 2022 and more than 1,500 employees as of the end of 2022, is 80% owned by funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Bank (EBRD) owns the remaining 20% interest.Nova Kreditna Banka Maribor d.d. is among the biggest banks in SEE.
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Data produced by satellites from the world’s largest Earth observation programme will be made accessible to everyone with the help of technology developed by a Slovenian company under a deal signed with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Commission.
The Ljubljana-based company Sinergise and its partners in the T-Systems International consortium signed a six-year €150 million contract to set up a system for storage, processing and distribution of data from Copernicus, the EU’s Earth observation system, on 2 December.
Its share in the deal valued at over €20 million, Sinergise will be responsible for data processing and distribution, which it will provide with the help of its high-tech product Sentinel Hub.
Sinergise developed Sentinel Hub in 2016 to simplify access to the large amounts of data that are available from Copernicus, Sinergise CEO Grega Milčinski told reporters.
A key part of Sentinel Hub is the EO Browser, an open-source web-based tool for browsing, comparison, visualization and analysis of satellite imagery. The browser is freely accessible to everyone regardless of whether they are experts or not.
Sentinel Hub can be used to monitor the situation in Ukraine or reforestation in Brazil, among many other things. Scientists have also used the portal to monitor penguin colonies, pollution in Iraq, and flooding in India, said Milčinski.
The app is currently used by some 400,000 people from around the world each month. With this new project the number will “explode”, Milčinski said. He projects the number of users to increase by a factor of ten.
The contract with the ESA will make it possible for users to access data produced by Copernicus satellites via Sentinel Hub. Copernicus is the world’s largest Earth observation system.
This will increase the company’s revenue and have a positive impact on the whole Earth observation industry in Slovenia, which also includes the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering, the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU), the Space-SI Centre of Excellence and companies such as Skylabs and GeoCodis.
“The EO Browser has revolutionised Earth observation by granting access to large quantities of data,” said Krištof Oštir, professor at the Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering and delegate with the technical committee for Earth observation at the ESA.
Slovenia has been an associate member of the ESA since 2016, which has made it possible for companies such as Sinergise to take part in the agency’s calls. In this way Slovenian companies have signed over 60 deals with the ESA, valued at almost €18 million in total.
“We have a good reason to believe this trend will continue,” said Tanja Permozer, the head of the Slovenian delegation to the ESA. Slovenia has recently increased its financial contribution to the ESA’s programmes for the next three years from €3 million to €5.8 million per year.
Founded in 2008, Sinergise employs some 80 people. Since 2015, its main focus has been developing technology for statistical data processing. It also has a subsidiary in Austria’s Graz.
