Fintech Daily Digest

The Hong Kong Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data and Singaporean Personal Data Protection Commission has signed a memorandum of understanding that will see the pair cooperate on protecting personal data

The Financial Stability Board published a report on crypto-assets, which considers work underway, regulatory approaches and potential gaps. The report is being delivered to G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors for their meeting in Fukuoka on 8-9 June.

State Farm and USAA are testing a blockchain-based system to automate the time-consuming and paper-heavy processing of automobile claims. It runs on JP Morgan's Quorum enterprise version of ethereum.

This Bank of Canada paper shows that when banks have no market power, issuing a deposit-like CBDC would would shift deposits away from the banking system, reducing bank lending. Otherwise, issuing a deposit-like CBDC with a proper interest rate would encourage banks to pay higher interest or offer better services to keep their customers, attracting more deposits and extending more loans. In fact, the CBDC would serve as an outside option for households, thus limiting banks' market power, and improve the efficiency of bank intermediation.

The crypto custodial service industry is booming. Institutional investors now have a way into the market and can pick from a multitude of solutions that allow them to secure crypto assets in a safe, secure, trusted, regulated way.

European crypto firms are facing a double-pronged banking crisis. The handful of small, "crypto-friendly" banks are seemingly only friendly in name, accepting only a select-few firms, while "blockchain phobia" among mainstream banks continues. Many firms are now resorting to back-room deals or facing long, expensive delays to get banked via alternative institutions

Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is now buying up about 21 percent of newly mined BTC monthly suggesting increasing demand from Wall Street.

On-chain metrics suggest increasing use of the stable coin despite a decreasing circulating supply.

The fake volume problem is getting worse. In the period from November 2018 to January 2019 BNC analysis identified 68% of reported market volume on the 240 exchanges it tracks as being suspect - up from 54% in the previous period.

The Central Bank of The Bahamas will enter into an official agreement with the executives of NZIA Ltd. for the design and implementation of Project Sand Dollar on May 30.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann warned that widespread use of CBDC could have serious consequences. He said easy access to digital money could exacerbate bank runs in times of crises, leading to a faster collapse of lenders, and that even in good times it would fundamentally change the business model of banks.

A trial project using blockchain to transfer and settle securities and cash proved more costly and less speedy than the traditional way, Germany's central bank president said.

American digital asset manager Grayscale announced that out of the firm's $2.1 billion of assets under management, $1.97 billion resides in its bitcoin investment trust.

Several finance-related blockchain projects are progressing nicely, and trading technology firms are releasing products for professional traders aimed at the institutional crypto investment market. But blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies are far from crossing the chasm.

The Financial Stability Board published two reports as part of its work on work to assess and address correspondent banking declines.

This paper systematically explores and analyzes the stablecoin landscape, based on a survey of 24 specific stablecoin projects, extracting general concepts and approaches to build a comprehensive taxonomy of crypto-asset stabilization.

An Aite Group report shows that the OTC market accounted for 60% of all crypto trades in 2018, up from 32% in 2016. Dark pool trading comprised 8% of volumes in 2018.

TRON is a decentralized application platform and a blockchain-based operating system. The initial objective of this platform was to help resolve issues in the global entertainment sector. They later expanded the scope of their vision to tackle the whole DApps market.

After nearly two weeks of continuous voting, MakerDAO token holders have officially activated a decrease to DAI stablecoin fees. DAI is an ethereum-based token which presently maintains a soft peg to the U.S. dollar.

Silicon Valley fintech group Plaid has expanded to the UK as it seeks to capitalise on Britain's push to open up banking. Plaid provides the technology for other financial technology companies to link to customers' bank accounts via apps such as Venmo and Coinbase.