-
The Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) on Sunday appointed Benoît Cœuré as Head of the new BIS Innovation Hub, set up to foster international collaboration among central banks on innovative financial technology.tags: Fintech
-
ICE subsidiary Bakkt will provide custody services for institutional clients. Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital and Tagomi have already signed on as initial customers for Bakkt Warehouse.
-
The Monetary Authority of Singapore has partnered with JP Morgan Chase and state-owned investment firm Temasek to build a blockchain-based prototype multi-currency payments network. This a part of the existing Project Ubin and will be developed as its fifth phase allowing other blockchains to connect and integrate seamlessly. The platform will also offer features including delivery-versus-payment settlement with private exchanges, conditional payments and escrow for trade, as well as payment commitments for trade finance.
-
Canadian blockchain research firm Blockchain Venture Capital (https://www.bvcadt.com) launched a U.S. dollar-pegged/backed stablecoin, the CUSD, coming four months after the firm launched the Canadian dollar-pegged CADT.
-
“In previous blog posts, we’ve discussed the potential of a secure, reliable system of digital identification (digital ID), and examined some of the potential roadblocks to the widespread adoption of digital ID, but it’s also worth considering what such a system would look like. What characteristics would define a truly effective system? What role would various stakeholders play? How would it interact with more “traditional” forms of identification?”
-
Wirex is launching their Wirex Visa Travelcard that will enable customers to spend multiple crypto and fiat currencies across APAC.
-
Mastercard launched Fintech Express. Rapyd, a B2B Fintech-as-a-Service provider, is the first partner in the program. The Fintech Express program can quickly onboard partners and provides immediate access to a cross-functional team of experts to support multiple work streams.tags: Fintech
-
Welcome to China. You Probably Can’t Buy Anything, Though. Foreign tourists in China looking to buy a bottle of water or a taxi ride with cash or credit card are finding themselves out of luck.tags: Fintech PaymentSystems
-
The Association for Financial Markets in Europe has released a new paper which highlights the minimal use of the cloud among capital markets firms – with over two-thirds of AFME members questioned estimating that only 1 – 10% of their bank’s current workload was using some level of public cloud.
Month: November 2019
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 11/10/2019
-
This BBVA paper explores the current landscape around the use of DLT in different CBDC options, and extracts conclusions derived from the analysis of the current conditions and environment, including recent BigTech initiatives and regulatory position taking.
-
The Swiss National Bank and University of Basel Center for Innovative Finance are inviting paper submissions for a conference on Cryptoassets and Financial Innovation, to be held in Zurich on May 29, 2020.tags: Fintech CryptoAssets
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 11/09/2019
-
Bakkt Bitcoin Futures Daily Trading Volume Hits New Record — $15M
Bitcoin (BTC) futures daily volumes on digital asset platform Bakkt have hit a new all-time high, with 1,741 futures traded on Nov. 9.
-
Stablecoins: Popularized by Facebook, Pilloried by Regulators
“A basket like Libra’s will not work. It threatens the sovereignty of states and opens up a window for capital flight. That’s why you’ve seen politicians and regulators furiously defend their monopoly to control transactions.”
-
The SEC Has Rejected Every Bitcoin ETF. This Firm Thinks It Has a Solution
Unlike other ETF applications, Wilshire Phoenix’s ETF will invest in both bitcoin and U.S. Treasury securities, commonly referred to as T-bills.
tags: ETFs CryptoAssets Bitcoin Fintech
-
Tencent to Build Virtual Bank After Hong Kong Regulator Approves License
Tencent is set to open a blockchain-based virtual bank after the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission approved a new license.
tags: Blockchain Fintech
-
ECB’s Löber: Facebook’s libra a “black hole” of legal certainty
Löber posed several general questions in relation to the practical operation of digital assets, which require definitive answers: “Can you use these assets as collateral? Can you net a position in a digital asset with positions you have in traditional assets? How do you treat insolvency? How do you deal with liabilities and remedies? And, in conflicts of law, what is the relevant forum for settling disputes?”
tags: Stablecoins CryptoAssets Fintech
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 11/08/2019
-
Blockchain Makes Inroads Into the Stock Market’s $1 Trillion Plumbing System
“The SEC has put significant limits on Paxos’s experiment. Only about 140 of the most actively traded, least volatile stocks, like Exxon Mobil Corp. and Bank of America Corp. , are eligible for the project. The number of trades Paxos can settle will also be capped at 1% of average daily trading volume of those stocks, according to the SEC’s letter.”
-
Paxos Gets SEC Nod to Use Blockchain to Settle Stock Trades
Paxos Trust, a blockchain company that caters to financial institutions, has been given the green light to settle stock trades in near real-time in a direct threat to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.’s half-century equity market dominance.
-
MoneyGram processes 10% of US-Mexico transactions via Ripple solution that uses XRP
MoneyGram processes 10% of its transactions between the U.S. and Mexican corridor via Ripple’s payments solution On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) that leverages XRP cryptocurrency.
-
Digitalisation makes payments easier, but also creates risks that need to be managed. The Riksbank therefore needs to keep up with developments and modernise both the central bank money and the Riksbank’s systems.
tags: Fintech PaymentSystems
-
Another crypto derivatives exchange wins CFTC nod to offer physically-settled bitcoin swaps
“The U.S. CFTC gave the green light to another Swap Execution Facility operated by crypto-asset startup Tassat, following SeedCX’s and LedgerX’s SEF registrations.
-
RippleNet Growth: Announcing More Than 300 Customers
Ripple has surpassed 300 customers and announced On-Demand Liquidity (ODL, formerly known as xRapid), leveraging XRP to eliminate pre-funding in cross-border payments.
tags: Fintech CryptoAssets Blockchain Ripple
-
Russian developers will ensure the turnover of electronic currency of Tunisia
The Tunisia CBDC will be issued using a platform created by Russian developers – Universa Blockchain – who will receive a percentage from each electronic transaction.
tags: Fintech CryptoAssets CBDC Stablecoins
-
Bitfinex – Tether Response to Flawed Paper by Griffin and Shams
To obtain publication, Griffin and Shams have released a weakened yet equally flawed version of their prior article. The revised paper is a watered-down and embarrassing walk-back of its predecessor that still suffers from the same methodological defects, coupled with the clumsy assertion that one lone whale may be responsible for the rise of bitcoin in 2017.
-
Tunisia issues electronic central bank currency E-Dinar
Beware, lots of inaccuracies here!
tags: Fintech CBDC CryptoAssets
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 11/07/2019
-
Digital dinar: Tunisia issues electronic currency
From November 7, 2 thousand kiosks will appear in Tunisia, where citizens can replenish their digital wallet. At the initial stage, they will pay via the browser on the smartphone, and later a mobile application will appear. You can send digital money or make a purchase by scanning a QR code.
tags: CBDC Fintech CryptoAssets
-
Blockchain solves trade authentication, financing issues: Shanghai regulators
In a joint statement with Shanghai’s commerce commission, the city’s branch of the People’s Bank of China said blockchain can solve asymmetries in trade finance and provide authenticity for trades. Blockchain also lowers cost thresholds for trading institutions, particularly in the export/import markets, the regulators said.
tags: Blockchain Fintech TradeFinance
-
Bank of Canada 2018 Bitcoin Omnibus Survey: Awareness and Usage
The survey shows that from 2016 to 2018, both the share of Canadians who are aware of Bitcoin and who own bitcoin increased. But the share of past owners also increased, suggesting an influx of Bitcoin owners who sold their holdings after 2017. The main reason for owning Bitcoin continued to be for store of value or investment purposes, though this decreased slightly from 2017. Finally, Bitcoin owners differed from the overall population in two ways: they were less financially literate and more likely to say they plan to stop using cash.
tags: Bitcoin Fintech CryptoAssets
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 11/06/2019
-
China’s digital currency will kick off ‘horse race’: central bank official
The PBOC’s Mu Changchun said that China’s upcoming digital yuan is designed to substitute existing physical money. Its holders will not receive interest payments so that the digital currency will have no implications for inflation or monetary policy.
tags: CryptoAssets Fintech CBDC
-
China decides to not eliminate crypto mining industry in a new final plan
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) published a final “Industrial Structure Adjustment Guidance Catalog” – a list of those industries the agency advises the country to encourage, restrict or eliminate – and the list does not mention crypto mining in the eliminate category anymore.
tags: Regulation Bitcoin Fintech CryptoAssets
-
The Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) has released a new paper which highlights the minimal use of the cloud among capital markets firms – with over two-thirds of AFME members questioned estimating that only 1 – 10% of their bank’s current workload was using some level of public cloud.
-
Facebook Libra is Architecturally Unsound
What is laid bare for the world to see is an architecturally schizophrenic code artifact claiming to be a new reliable platform for global payment infrastructure. Yet the actual implementation diverges from this goal in bizarre ways when one actually dives into the codebase. I’m sure there is an interesting story about the internal corporate politics of this project and as such I thought it apt to do some diligence on what I see as a truly strange set of architectural choices that break the entire system and put consumers at risk.
-
The impact of Tether grants on Bitcoin
“Our findings show that tether grants were potentially timed to follow bitcoin downturns and subsequent bitcoin/tether trading volumes increased … However, the impact of tether grants on bitcoin returns were not statistically significant, and therefore tether issuances cannot be an effective tool for moving bitcoin prices.”
-
Did the Bitcoin Bubble Come from One Bitfinex Tether Trader?
Perhaps the takeaway is that when banks refuse to do business with crypto traders, or when a government bans trading altogether, it doesn’t stop traders from trading. It just forces them to find creative solutions. If it were easy for crypto exchanges to use the traditional banking system, there would be no need for Tether at all.
-
Alarmed by Libra, EU to look into issuing public digital currency: draft
The European Central Bank should consider issuing a public digital currency, an EU draft document said, after plans by Facebook to introduce a private one met with a hostile response from global regulators.
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 11/05/2019
-
The European Central Bank should consider issuing a public digital currency, an EU draft document said, after plans by Facebook to introduce a private one met with a hostile response from global regulators.
-
On Nov. 3, the U.S central bank posted a new job opening to its website, looking for a new manager who is expected to contribute to the research of digital currencies, stablecoins and distributed ledger technologies.
-
The Digital Currency Research Institute of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), the country’s central bank, has signed an agreement with telecommunications giant Huawei.
-
Short version: Tether is the internal accounting system for the largest fraud since Madoff. Read on for the long version.
-
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has updated its guidelines on the taxation of transactions involving crypto assets.
-
The Stellar Development Foundation has burned 55 billion of its XLM tokens, over half the cryptocurrency’s supply.
-
Canadian cryptocurrency exchange Einstein has closed its doors with more than 16 million Canadian dollars (~US$12.4 million) owing to customers.
-
Foreign visitors in China finally will be able to use Alipay to pay for goods and services, marking the first time Alibaba is opening up access to its e-wallet outside its user population. Previously available only to consumers with a Chinese bank account and local mobile number, an international version of Alipay can be downloaded and used in mainland China over a 90-day period.tags: PaymentSystems Fintech
-
In a survey of 3,000 banking customers around the world, Kantar found that 93% of consumers in China have used neobank services, 50% of Indians, and 32% of Brazilians. However, across Western Europe only a small minority of consumers has opened a neobank account, with the Netherlands and Germany leading with 4% usage, and only 2% of U.S. consumers.ds and Germany lead with 4% usage; France and Spain are lagging with 2% usage In the USA, only 2% of consumers have utilised the services of a neobank”tags: Fintech NeoBanking
-
The Asia Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association published “Tokenised Securities – A Roadmap for Market Participants and Regulators” that analyzes how tokenisation will impact market participants, including incumbent financial institutions and issuers, and looks at issues they need to consider in the various stages of the securities lifecycle.
-
Mastercard launched Mastercard Accelerate, a global initiative that simplifies the way that Mastercard works with fintechs, giving them access to everything they need to grow quickly.tags: Fintech
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 11/04/2019
-
Shaping the future of payments
The payments landscape continues to morph. Driven by innovation and shifts in consumer preferences, new systems, new methods and new players are shaping the future of payments. The BIS Red Book statistics offer a look into that future.
-
UAE central bank launches fintech office
The Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates is to establish a new fintech office to implement its fintech strategy and roadmap.
tags: Fintech
-
Microsoft To Help Enterprises Mint Their Own Ethereum Tokens
Microsoft is taking its secret platform for creating tokens similar to bitcoin out for a test drive. The software giant, which was among the first to accept bitcoin for payment, has created a mint for issuing a wide range of crypto assets.
tags: Fintech CryptoAssets
-
Statement on IOSCO study of emerging global stablecoin proposals
Existing securities rules could apply to stablecoin digital currency initiatives such as Facebook’s Libra project to help realize its benefits.
-
Understanding What’s Behind China’s Booming Insurtech Scene
China’s insurance market has grown rapidly over the past few years. In 2017, total primary premiums in China hit RMB 3.1 trillion, making the nation the second largest insurance market in the world. Online insurance has achieved even faster growth, with online insurance premiums increasing by nearly twentyfold over the last five years from RMB 11.07 billion in 2013 to RMB 183.53 billion in 2017.
-
Bahrain to Provide Fast-Track Setup Program for Fintech Startups
The Bahrain Economic Development Board has introduced a fast-track setup program for startups looking to do business there. The new initiative will provide an expedited entry process covering visa requirements, residency and business registration processes. It also offers guidance from the country’s incubators and accelerators, as well as access to grants and financial supports.
tags: Fintech Regulation Sandboxes
-
German banks say: The economy needs a programmable digital euro!
The German private banks rate programmable digital money as an innovation with great potential that can be a key component in the next stage of the evolution of digitalisation.
tags: CBDC Fintech CryptoAssets
-
Singapore Based Fintech to Launch Blockchain Based Bond Exchange
Singapore-based BondEvalue today announced that it has been approved to enter the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Sandbox Express to launch a blockchain-based bond exchange. The platform will offer a unique proposition to reduce the minimum investment amount of bonds to US$1,000 via BondbloX.
tags: Fintech Blockchain Liquidity
-
FATF Releases Guidance on Global Digital IDs as Use Cases Grow
FATF published its draft guidance on digital identity Thursday, for governments, regulated entities and other stakeholders to enforce anti-money laundering (AML) and counter financing terrorism (CFT) regulations.
tags: AMLCFT Fintech Regulation
-
Lone Bitcoin Whale Likely Fueled 2017 Price Surge, Study Says
One entity on the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex appears capable of sending the price of Bitcoin higher when it falls below certain thresholds, according to University of Texas Professor John Griffin and Ohio State University’s Amin Shams. Griffin and Shams, who have updated a paper they first published in 2018, say the transactions rely on Tether, a widely used digital token that is meant to hold its value at $1.
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 11/02/2019
-
Telegram, the messaging app company turned blockchain startup, has released an early desktop wallet for its “gram” token. Now users can download the test app for MacOS, Windows and Linux 64 bit on Telegram’s official website and get their keys on the TON testnet.
-
CBDCs should be available offline and function wherever cash is currently used, with 73% of respondents requiring CBDCs to be available under all circumstances. More than 20% prefer decentralised systems to improve resilience.
-
“While it is clear that crypto-assets undergoing technical and economic trials bring about opportunities to improve our payment systems, they can also bring material risks to our payment systems which, if unaddressed, might introduce new sources of fragmentation, instability and fraud. In that context, beyond contributing to the adaptation of the regulatory framework to address those risks, central banks may contribute further in revisiting and possibly improving the conditions under which they make available central bank money for settlement purposes. “
-
MoneyGram is planning to expand its partnership with Ripple, for which it utilizes its product On-Demand Liquidity (ODL), formerly known as xRapid that leverages digital assets XRP for transactions.
-
Tawanda Kembo, the founder and chief executive officer of the once flourishing Golix crypto-exchange is said to be claiming to have lost the password for a cold wallet back in May 2018 which had 33 Bitcoin. This translates to just over US$250 000.
-
The Malta Financial Services Authority has received Letters of Intent from 34 prospective VFA Service Providers, 21 of which pertain to crypto-asset exchanges.
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 11/01/2019
-
BitMEX Investigating ‘Extent of Impact’ After Mass Email Leak
Crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX has accidentally leaked user emails by forgetting to use blind copy (bcc) on a mass email.
-
The rise and popularity of stablecoins is subjecting the crypto world to mass cognitive dissonance.
tags: Stablecoins Fintech CryptoAssets
-
Legacy wires (Swift) still dominate the cross-border landscape because it has the greatest reach. 68% of organizations’ cross-border payments are done via Swift wire transfers. 80% of survey respondents report that some percentage of their organizations’ B2B transactions made by cross-border payments are done via Swift.
tags: Fintech Blockchain CrossBorder SWIFT Ripple