Fintech Daily Digest

"etwork infrastructure to facilitate the secure availability of funds in real-time*. With Mastercard Send, PayPal users can transfer their account balances to eligible Mastercard cards seamlessly and conveniently, typically within seconds.

The Swiss federal government is passing to parliament a revised plan aimed to remove legal hurdles still holding up innovation based on blockchain and distributed ledger technology.

Bankable, the global provider of "Banking as a Service" solutions, and Visa today announced a strategic collaboration within the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Bankable aims to work with Visa to accelerate the digital capabilities of financial institutions', build and launch digital banks, reduce cash usage and increase Fintech sponsorship in CEMEA.

Ghana could issue a digital form of the nation's currency, the cedi, in the "near future" and is in talks to develop a pilot project in a sandbox environment. https://www.bog.gov.gh/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/23rd-Annual-Banking-Conference_Speech_Governor_final.pdf

To reduce the risk of any single stablecoin becoming systemically dominant (and simply replacing a fiat hegemon with a digital one), there should be an emphasis on interoperability and frictionless exchange across blockchains. Blockchain interoperability can increase economic and transactional scalability, speed and security.

Bitcoin mining consumed enough electricity last year to release carbon emissions on a par with Estonia, according to a study that suggests the climate change impact of the crypto-asset is not as bad as previously thought.

The bank of the future will need to think about people in a completely different way. This will require a customer-first approach that is deeply embedded in the process of how services are designed and delivered. It's an approach that is digitally driven but at its core focused on solving our human problems and needs.

Upbit suspended its deposit and withdrawal service, saying that $48.5 million of Ethereum had been stolen from the Upbeat Ethereum hot wallet to a previously unknown wallet address.

U.K.-based remittance firm TransferGo is planning to move to Ripple's payments solution On-Demand Liquidity that leverages XRP, the world's third-largest cryptocurrency.

A group of researchers have come up with what they claim is a cheaper and more energy efficient way to mine bitcoin, using photonic-chips, optical computers, and a revised encryption protocol, called HeavyHash.

South Korea's National Assembly is progressing a bill that will provide a legal basis for cryptocurrencies in the country. The bill categorizes virtual currencies as digital assets and intends to bring regulatory clarity and transparency to crypto markets in South Korea.

Bakkt has a partnership with Starbucks and it will be launching its mass consumer-facing product next year. Starbucks is one of the merchants that it is working with, to reduce payments and allow consumers to more easily spend digital assets. Bakkt wants to make payments faster, cheaper, and more global.

Bank of New York Mellon has joined the Marco Polo trade finance consortium running on R3's Corda, becoming the 28th bank to do so.

Exchanges remain the most popular choice for cryptoasset storage amongst Binance's institutional and VIP clients at 92.1%. When moving to self-storage, cold wallets are the second most favored choice, given their improved safety and control. Third-party custody services were the least popular option at 2.6%.

The Reserve Bank of India announced fresh steps to push digital payments in India, including removing charges on online fund transfer system National Electronic Funds Transfer, introducing interoperable system such that FASTags can be used to pay parking fees, fuel, among other measures.

"[A central bank digital currency] could take a variety of forms, the benefits and costs of which the ECB and other central banks are currently investigating, being mindful of their broader consequences on financial intermediation."

MoneyGram will use Ripple's On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) solution in Australia, Europe and other important markets.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore is working with financial industry partners to create a framework for financial institutions to promote the responsible adoption of Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics.

A Binance survey has revealed that over 90% of the participants keep their digital assets with 3rd parties like crypto exchanges as opposed to cold wallets. This is despite a high risk associated with the security of digital currency exchange platforms.

The potential role of a DLT-based wholesale CBDC is in worth considering if not desirable according to the Banque de France's Denis Beau, and the central bank is quite open for experiments in that direction, together with the ECB and other central banks of the Eurosystem.