Fintech Daily Digest

South Korea's financial industry will step forward to introduce a general-use digital financial transaction protocol this year so that fintech (financial technology) companies can share financial data and build innovative business models.

The Regulators have noted that there are no Platforms recognized as exchanges (and therefore regulated as such) in Canada. The consultation with stakeholders aims to benefit the trading public (by way of regulation and improved security over their crypto-assets), and the Platforms themselves, which have indicated such regulation would assist with consumer confidence as the Platforms seek to expand their operations.

Spring Meetings session on the IMF/WB Learning Coin project.

Spring Meetings Session on the "Whys" of central bank digital currency.

IMF/WB Spring Meetings Fintech Workshop on central bank digital currency design considerations.

A host of new crypto financial products are launching, just in time to potentially benefit from the renewed interest in bitcoin and other cryptographic assets.

Alternative data could be a rich source of alpha, but most asset managers are handling it more like high grade explosives due to the risk of privacy violations.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration demanded a suspected drug dealer's passwords from LastPass (an encrypted vault for storing passwords). LastPass told them to take a hike although it did hand over IP addresses used by the suspect and information about the account's creation and usage.

The National Bank of Cambodia's Project Bakong is a Hyperledger Iroha-based payment system renewal project. A pilot with dozens of banks will soon be launched. The ultimate target is to provide instant payments via a mobile app.

The Learning Coin project is a distributed ledger technology teaching tool for IMF and World Bank staff. LCs are quasi-crypto-assets issued on a private blockchain accessible only to IMF and WB staff. LCs are earned by completing learning assignments.

Central banks around the world are now giving serious consideration to the pros and cons of making central bank digital currencies available to the general public, says a new study from the C.D. Howe Institute.

The Swiss Federal Council has initiated a public consultation on the adaptation of specific federal law provisions to developments in DLT and blockchain, after publishing a very comprehensive report on DLT and blockchain in last December. http://www.mll-legal.com/news-events/news/details/crypto-nation-switzerland-moves-forward-fast-swiss-government-proposes-dlt-uncertificated-rights-wi/

Chainalysis says It's unrealistic and bad to expect crypto exchanges to send KYC information to recipient platforms with every transaction, in response to a draft FATF recommendation.

A "privacy "poisoning" the cyber attack involves loading private data, such as names, addresses and credit card numbers, or illegal material, such as child pornography, into a blockchain, therefore putting the network in conflict with local laws, making the affected chain and its data useless.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has launched a Visa debit card allowing customers in the U.K. and EU to spend their cryptocurrencies directly from their Coinbase accounts.

The Philippines is catching up to Japan with a growing number of approved cryptocurrency exchanges. The central bank has green-lighted 10 crypto exchanges so far.

"The Mauritius Financial Services Commission (FSC) has clarified the rules applying to projects launching security token offerings (STOs). In guidance published Monday, the FSC said that security tokens are classed as securities as defined in the country's Securities Act 2005, but in digital form."

In an increasingly information-driven world, legal frameworks governing the sharing and use of data in payment services - and awareness of their unintended consequences - are of critical importance. This article explores the dynamics between modernized privacy laws in the European Union (namely, GDPR) and open banking initiatives (namely, PSD2).

Digital Asset is collaborating with ISDA to develop a new tool that can support the use of smart contracts for derivatives trading. The collaboration focuses on creating interoperable technical solutions that advance standardization to allow for greater automation of derivatives trade management.

Two-thirds of banks are thought to be deploying machine learning in their AML efforts, or are close to doing so. US regulators have given tacit approval to the use of technological innovation to combat AML, giving banks more freedom to experiment