PBoC seeks to revise banking law to legalize digital yuan and ban yuan-pegged tokens
The Peoples’ Bank of China has included the digital yuan in the latest version of a proposed banking law, giving more legal clarity to the regulation of its national digital currency. The proposed law recognizes the renminbi in both physical and digital form. The new version will essentially also clear the way for the digital yuan to be the one and only official yuan-pegged token in mainland China by prohibiting circulation of any other yuan-pegged digital assets. Violators of the regulation would have to forfeit any proceeds from issuing and selling of such yuan-backed digital tokens and face fines of up to five times the involved proceeds.
Towards a solid, innovative and accessible Payment System in Uruguay
The Banco Central del Uruguay committed to continuing its analysis and study of central bank digital currency issuance (CBDC) in its 2020-2022 national payment systems roadmap.
PayPal in Talks to Buy Crypto Firms Including BitGo
PayPal is reportedly exploring acquisitions of crypto-asset companies including custodian BitGo, which offers digital wallets that require multiple signatures for transactions, as well as offline vaults for storing crypto-assets. PayPal has announced that it has partnered with BitGo competitor Paxos Trust to allow its customers can buy, sell and hold crypto-assets, as using the virtual money to shop at the 26 million merchants on its network.
Bitcoin Is Helping Undocumented Immigrants Send Money Home
An Arcane Research report explains how Bitcoin (BTC) peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges like Paxful and Localbitcoins are helping undocumented U.S. immigrants transfer money abroad using gift cards gift cards, since they circumvent banking limitations and KYC requirements. A P2P exchange is essentially a platform that allows users to exchange crypto-to-fiat directly and on their own terms. In the cross border use case, gift cards are purchased by the immigrant at a local store. This gift card is then photographed, and the photo sent to a recipient abroad, who later sell those gift cards for BTC on a P2P exchange like Paxful or Localbitcoins. Then, they convert the BTC to local currency by selling the BTC to a buyer in the local market via one of the P2P-platforms there.
Central Bank of Bahrain launches ‘FinHub‘
The Central Bank of Bahrain, in cooperation with the Bahrain Economic Development Board, Bank ABC, ila Bank, BENEFIT, National Bank of Bahrain and Bahrain Islamic Bank launched FinHub 973, the first comprehensive digital fintech lab in the region. FinHub 973 will enable financial institutions to organize virtual hackathons and challenges to accelerate innovation and business growth. The platform will also provide content on the fintech sector financial and the relevant laws and regulations in the Kingdom of Bahrain, through an interactive chatbot.