Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest (05/05/2020)

China’s digital yuan gets ready for prime time
Sonja Davidovic (@sonjadav) and I discussed with Chris Brummer (@ChrisBrummerDr) the latest Chinese central bank digital currency (CBDC) developments, and how the heavily rumored upcoming pilot compares to what we know about other CBDC pilots around the world.

A regulatory and financial stability perspective on global stablecoins
This ECB article focuses on the global stablecoin asset management functions, assessing their regulatory and financial stability implications. It argues that regulatory gaps may exist with certain design features, and concludes that the malfunctioning of that function could pose risks to financial stability given its potential size and interlinkages with the financial system. Also, a robust regulatory framework needs to be put in place in order to address these risks before such arrangements are allowed to operate.

Launch of the OMFIF Digital Monetary Institute
The Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) has launched the Digital Monetary Institute, a high-level group of policy-makers, technologists, financiers and regulators to explore the challenges and opportunities of digital finance. The principal focus will be on payments instruments in wholesale and retail markets, with central bank digital currency being of particular interest.

Telegram Decides to Immediately Buyout US-Based Gram Investors
Telegram is now forcing the U.S.-based Gram token investors to take the 72% refund and exit the TON blockchain project. The encrypted messaging platform has also retracted last week’s offer to pay investors in Gram tokens at all. These moves were based on the scheme’s uncertain reception from the U.S. regulators.

Ripple hit with yet another XRP class-action lawsuit
A new class-action lawsuit has been filed against crypto giant Ripple and its CEO Brad Garlinghouse alleging securities laws violations regarding the sale and marketing of XRP. The lawsuit alleges that Ripple created the XRP cryptocurrency for the sole purpose of making its founders and a few other people rich.

Ripple paid $16.6 million in XRP incentives to MoneyGram in Q1 2020
Ripple has paid MoneyGram $16.6 million of incentives in Q1 2020 for using its RippleNet solution. MoneyGram categorizes these payouts as a “contra expense rather than revenue” and as a “market development fee based on the volume of foreign exchange that we transact on Ripple’s platform.”

OCC Deal To Move $72 Billion In Equities To Axcore Blockchain
The Options Clearing Corporation that helps BATS, Cboe, Nasdaq NDAQ and the NYSE clear equity derivatives is now in the process of moving its currently $72 billion stock lending infrastructure to to Axoni’s Axcore blockchain. Each participant in a deal will run their own nodes, giving them real-time direct access to the same pool of data, instead of relying on a series of time-consuming messages.

When the banks closed in Wuhan, nobody cared
When asked last month about the impact of the closure of banks, many Wuhan residents said that they had not noticed or that they had little interaction with their banks to begin with.

Posted from Diigo: https://www.diigo.com/user/kiffmeister/Fintech