Group items tagged

I'm still investigating the accuracy of this story, but according to an article in the Spanish press, the Spanish Socialist Party (PSE), the governing political body in Spain, has proposed creating a national digital currency. According to the PSOE, a national digital currency would allow for more active Spain-specific monetary policy, such as providing a more direct mechanism to injecting liquidity directly into the system. However, it is my understanding that the European Central Bank has exclusive rights to issue general purpose currency in the Eurozone, so I'm not sure if this is even legally possible.

Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (BME), through Iberclear, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), have completed the first bond issuance in Spain listed in a regulated market and registered using blockchain technology developed by ioBuilders. The blockchain platform allows the registration, trading in the secondary market and life cycle management of a bond issued in a regulated market. Smart contracts have been used for the execution of the distribution, purchase and sale, settlement and corporate events processes, using electronic money tokenized by BBVA for the management of cash throughout the term of the issuance.

"In our overview of open banking in Europe, we look at what open banking really means in Europe relative to the rest of the world and caveat that its evolution into open finance is more than just about expanded scope. We then justify our choice to focus on the Netherlands, France, Spain and Switzerland instead of on Europe's top-four open banking performers of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the UK."

The Banco de España published the results of a survey that revealed the low preference that a potential digital euro would have compared to other payment alternatives. 65% of the Spanish population using cash daily. Credit and debit cards follow while payment apps and electronic payments are marginally used but growing in use. Only 20% of those surveyed had heard about a possible digital euro, and 65% said they would not use the digital euro as they feel comfortable with today's available payment methods.

Banco de España (BDE) has chosen two Spanish banks (Cecabank and Abanca) to participate in distributed ledger technology (DLT) based wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) tests. The proofs of concept will feature the testing of the processing and settlement of domestic and cross-border interbank payments, and simulating tokenized bond settlements. The BDE has previously noted that this DLT-based wholesale CBDC work is independent of the digital euro project that would cover the eurozone if implemented. Adhara Blockchain will be providing technical services. https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2024/01/03/pdfs/BOE-A-2024-205.pdf https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2024/01/03/pdfs/BOE-A-2024-206.pdf

The Bank of Spain published a paper that analyzes the impact of introducing a central bank-issued digital currency (CBDC) on the operational framework of monetary policy and the macroeconomy as a whole. It is based on a theoretical model that is calibrated to replicate the main monetary and financial aggregates in the euro area. It predicts that CBDC adoption implies a roughly equivalent reduction in banks' deposit funding, but this has a rather small effect on bank lending to the real economy. This result reflects the parallel impact of a CBDC on a central bank's operational framework. For relatively moderate CBDC adoption levels, the reduction in deposits is absorbed by an almost one-to-one fall in reserves at the central bank, implying a transition from a 'floor' system - with ample reserves - to a 'corridor' system. For larger CBDC adoption, the loss of bank deposits is compensated by increased recourse to central bank credit, as the corridor system gives way to a 'ceiling' system with scarce reserves.

European Libra users will have to treat their Libra holdings as an asset for capital gains tax purposes - and for the UK, HMRC confirms that, as a basket of currencies, Libra doesn't qualify as a currency itself. "The problem would potentially be even more serious with no annual capital gains exemption in France, Italy or Spain and a much smaller €600 limit in Germany."

The Coinbase Card will be available in Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Ireland and the Netherlands. The card allows users with Coinbase accounts to spend cryptocurrencies in stores and online at any merchant that accepts Visa.

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"

TransferWise will launch the Visa Direct-powered service in Spain, with plans to follow up in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania and then scale it throughout Europe and worldwide in 2020.

MoneyGram is expanding its debit card deposit service internationally via the Visa Direct real-time push payments platform. MoneyGram becomes the first company in the industry to enable cross-border transfers from the United States using Visa Direct. This service is now available to Spain and the Philippines, and soon to additional countries.

Coinbase has launched its Visa debit card in six European countries. Cardholders in Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Ireland and the Netherlands will be able to use the cards, which sync directly to their Coinbase accounts.

According to the World Bank, Latin America's formal remittance market is around $96 billion. But traditional services like Moneygram or Western Union can come with high commissions, unfavorable exchange rates, limited office hours, long transmission times and daily exchange limits. Crypto remittances are a different story. For example, money can be sent from Venezuela to family members in Colombia and Spain using the peer-to-peer platform LocalBitcoins. These transactions are often faster and cheaper than their traditional finance counterparts, with fewer steps to send money. Crypto remittances organized on messaging platforms like Whatsapp, Telegram and WeChat can be even more competitive.

A Bank of Spain report has scrutinized and reflected on the entrance of El Salvador into the Bitcoin world. Although El Salvador was not the first country to consider adopting Bitcoin as legal tender, it has pioneered its implementation, serving, in the eyes of many, as a testing ground for jurisdictions with weak currencies or fully dollarised economies that hope to end their reliance on the US dollar. The report concludes that a significant challenge will be overcoming the technical barriers associated with bitcoin usage, with little over 50% of the population having internet access and smartphone penetration barely reaching 40%. Also, it is unclear whether the $150 million stabilization fund at the state development bank, will be able to absorb such fluctuations, nor the outcome once the fund is depleted.

Credit losses at Klarna, the Swedish "buy now, pay later" company, more than doubled in Q2 2021. Klarna said that credit losses tended to increase when it entered new markets such as recent launches in New Zealand, France, and Spain. It added Poland last week. Klarna has faced controversy in some countries as critics have argued it encourages younger people to spend money that they do not necessarily have and then pay back in instalments. Klarna positions itself as an alternative to credit cards and their high rates that drive economic inequalities, with those who can afford to pay off their balances each month reap rewards through loyalty schemes while those who can't afford to simply get into more debt.

"CELO, the token of Celo, a proof-of-stake layer 1 blockchain, jumped in cryptocurrency markets on Monday as officials announced a new $20 million incentive campaign at the start of the Celo Connect conference this week in Barcelona, Spain."

Binance said it will leave the Netherlands after the company's application to register under the Dutch crypto authorization regime was rejected. Under the current regulatory regime, Binance can only get approval to operate in an European Union (EU) country by registering under its money laundering prevention rules. The firm has so far received such approvals in France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden and Lithuania. This may change once the EU's Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation comes into force at the end of June 2023.

Ripple is partnering with Colombia's central bank to explore blockchain technology use cases. Banco de la República, in conjunction with The Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC) will pilot use cases that will enhance Colombia's high-value payment system using the Ripple CBDC Platform, powered by the XRP Ledger (XRPL). The pilot will be run with Spain-based blockchain technology firm Peersyst Technology.

The Banco de España (BDE) published a paper that proposes the use of different Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to better understand central banks' stance towards central bank digital currency (CBDC), analyzing a set of central bank discourses from 2016 to 2022. It uses dictionary-based methods, and two large language models (LLMs) (Bert and ChatGPT), concluding that LLMs better reflect the stance identified by human experts. ChatGPT appears to exhibit a higher degree of alignment because it can capture subtler information than BERT. The study suggests that LLMs are an effective tool to improve sentiment measurements for policy-specific texts, though they are not infallible and may be subject to new risks.

The Banco de España is starting a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) project, and asking financial institutions and tech providers to submit proposals for the initiative by January 31. The project will focus on (i) simulating wholesale CBDC funds transfers; (ii) testing the integration of a wholesale CBDC in the settlement of financial assets; and, arising from the above, (iii) analyzing possible pros and cons of a wholesale CBDC versus traditional processes, procedures and infrastructures. https://www.bde.es/f/webbde/INF/MenuHorizontal/Servicios/tokens_digitales_mayoristas/Programa_de_experimentacion.pdf