Zomato will extend all paid Gold memberships across India, UAE, Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, Lebanon, Turkey, New Zealand, Portugal and Qatar by two months at no extra cost, founder Deepinder Goyal announced. The company will also start a fund to cover up the lost earnings of its delivery partners, and is "hoping" for government’s support towards this. We have reached out to Zomato for more details. This comes after confusion around operations of e-commerce delivery services arose in the wake of a 3-week long lockdown in India to combat the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. As per Home Ministry guidelines, e-commerce delivery of food, medicines and medical equipment is exempt from the lockdown. Loans for Gold partner restaurants, delivery restaurant partners: Goyal also announced loans for dining out restaurants who offer Zomato’s Gold services and its food delivery restaurant partners. He tweeted that Zomato could only provide loans to Gold partner restaurants because “the transactions flow through us, and it is easier and cheaper for our fintech partners to underwrite it”. However, the loans for dining out Gold partner restaurants will also have certain terms and conditions, which Goyal did not specify. He said that the company was “trying to figure out” how it can help restaurants that currently don’t qualify of availing a loan from Zomato. https://twitter.com/deepigoyal/status/1242752298775744512 COVID-19 adversely affects the gig economy: The COVID-19 pandemic has forced India to shut itself down for 21 days to curtail the movement of people out on the streets. Schools, colleges, shopping malls remain…
