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The Council and the Commission state that no global “stablecoin” arrangement should begin operation in the European Union until the legal, regulatory and oversight challenges and risks have been adequately identified and addressed. However, the notice doesn’t define exactly what a *global* stablecoin is, which is rather important, because almost all stablecoin issues aspire to be global!
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U.S. Fed’s Lael Brainard: “In one industry report, researchers found that roughly two-thirds of the 120 most popular cryptocurrency exchanges have weak AML, CTF, and KYC practices. Only a third of the most popular exchanges require ID verification and proof of address to make a deposit or withdrawal. This is troubling, since a number of studies conclude that cryptocurrencies support a significant amount of illicit activity. One study estimated that more than a quarter of bitcoin users and roughly half of bitcoin transactions, for example, are associated with illegal activity.”
But the paper she cites is based on very old data, bitcoin transactions between January 3, 2009 and the end of April 2017.
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Contrary to media reports, the Government of the Virgin Islands is not in the process of developing or launching its own national cryptocurrency, neither by itself nor in partnership with any other entity, to replace the US dollar with a digital currency. The British Virgin Islands adopted the US dollar as its currency in 1959 and have made no commitments to replace it as the official currency in any form.
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Vodafone plans to transform its M-Pesa African mobile payments service into a financial platform spanning the continent as it seeks to unlock the value of one of the world’s largest fintech networks.
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South Korea’s Financial Services Commission reportedly launched an open banking service to enable bank customers to access nearly all banking services through a single smartphone application, including withdrawals and transfers.
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The Federal Reserve Board announced a series of “fintech innovation office hours” across the country to meet with banks and companies engaged in emerging financial technologies.
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With its rule change, the FDIC has significantly broadened the ability of fintechs and nonprofits to partner with banks without having being characterized as a “deposit broker” – so long as the third party’s primary business is not accepting deposits. More importantly, the FDIC has initiated an application process where any third party can apply to the FDIC and receive an exemption if it meets the requirements of the new rule. Once the exemption is granted, banks can receive deposits from the fintech’s customers without the deposits being characterized as “brokered deposits” by regulators.
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Payments startup Circle is pivoting its business to solely offering stablecoin services with the sale of its OTC trading desk. As part of the move, the firm confirmed the departure of additional executives, just weeks after co-CEO Sean Neville announced he would be stepping down.
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Since the Ethereum blockchain has run into scalability issues on the technical side, that has prevented it from growing too much further. They are working hard to sort that out but until they do, we can only speculate as to the future value. And unlike Bitcoin — which has a set number of coins that can be mined — Ether has an unlimited amount, which puts further pressure on the coin.
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In a recent CNN International interview, the CEO of MoneyGram Alex Holmes explained that Ripple and the services provided were very important for the company considering they were performing a deep digital transformation. At the same time, he talked about how XRP is helping the company to reduce costs.
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A Kraken employee is suing the exchange alleging fake company officer addresses, disappearing customer funds, stock option shenanigans, and sanctions violations.
