Fintech Daily Digest

Ripple's XRP is having a disastrous start to 2019. In a year when bitcoin is storming back towards bull territory, XRP has crashed 16 percent. The third-largest cryptocurrency is now the worst-performing digital asset in the top ten.

TrustToken will expand into four new fiat-backed stablecoins; TrueAUD, TrueEUR, TrueCAD and TrueHKD (from its TrueUSD and TrueGBP coins).

Bitspark, a blockchain-based bankless money transfer solution, will launch a Philippine Peso pegged cryptocurrency for money transfers dubbed "peg.PHP."

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation will launch its blockchain-based Marco Polo trade finance platform later this year.

Samsung may be developing a public-private blockchain based on Ethereum (ETH) along with a new asset dubbed Samsung Coin.

The agency that regulates and manages China's foreign exchange reserves has developed a blockchain system aimed to address inefficiencies in cross-border trade finance.

Societe Generale issued EUR100 million of covered bonds in the form of a security token on the ethereum blockchain. However the bank issued the securities to itself and no outside buyers were involved.

Nice summary of Fintech activities at the IMF/WB Spring Meetings.

"Flash Boys 2.0: Frontrunning, Transaction Reordering, and Consensus Instability in Decentralized Exchanges" uncovers a number of significant details surrounding the activity of malicious trading bots on decentralized exchanges.

The EU's GDPR requires reporting of data breaches to authorities within 72 hours. The maximum penalty for failing to do so is 4% of a year's revenue. The number of breaches reported across Europe varies widely.

The cross-border payment applications of Ripple, JPM Coin, and World Wire aim mainly at financial and enterprise institutions. None are designed for the other side of the market.

So far, most central banks remain a long way from issuing CBDC of any kind. But given that technology has been progressing fast in the settlement and payment areas, as well as DLT, it is possible central banks may increase their interest in retail and wholesale CBDC proposals based on DLT and consider actual implementation seriously in the near future.

Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by adjusted volume, has launched its decentralized trading platform (DEX). A DEX enables users to trade P2P, using smart contracts to automate deal matching and asset liquidation.

The International Monetary Fund and World Bank have been exploring blockchain together by creating a Learning Coin.

On average, it costs 9.3% to send the equivalent of $200 to the Africa according to a new World Bank report. However, the cost drops by as much as 90% when money is sent through cryptocurrency-based fintech companies like Bitpesa.

Crypto-asset taxation in major bitcoin strongholds is complicated. Contradictory or non-existent laws, excessive red tape, and maddeningly vague guidelines have conspired to make the tax-paying process more arduous than it need be.

The blockchain offers a way to remove intermediaries from the equation and make the tokenization and transfer of assets peer-to-peer and far more liquid and tradable and also help reach different assets not amenable to securitisation.

Bitcoin spenders can now use the lightning network to shop at e-commerce sites like Amazon. Crypto payment processing startup Moon has announced that any lightning-enabled wallet can now also be used through Moon's browser extension.

Unqork is a platform that allows users to drag and drop prebuilt modules into a useful workflow to quickly create financial services applications without the need for developers to create any code, to radically accelerate client acquisition and onboarding.

Japan's equivalent to Amazon, e-commerce giant Rakuten, has started accepting account registrations for its new cryptocurrency exchange, Rakuten Wallet.