Fintech Daily Digest

Pakistan's central bank is considering the launch of a digital currency by 2025, in order to promote financial inclusion and reduce inefficiency and corruption. The central bank is also planning to make its services fully digitized and technology equipped by the year 2030.

Restoring Trust in a Digital World introduces MasterCard's vision for digital identity and presents a detailed framework of how it will work.

"An exchange-traded product (ETP) tracking the price of the XRP cryptocurrency has gone live on Switzerland's primary stock exchange SIX."

" There are better options than bans on cashless stores. Rather than imposing banknote acceptance by force, why not work towards improving the product? If cash were better, then store owners and consumers might choose to deal in it of their own accord."

"Like cash, a prepaid debit card is permissionless. Since anyone can buy a card, consumers need not get the approval of a bank to join the payments system. And since non-reloadable prepaid debit cards do not require giving up personal data, neither the bank, government, nor retailers can glean as much user information from a prepaid debit card transaction as they can from a regular one."

"When it comes to financial privacy, good old fashioned banknotes and privacy cryptocurrencies like Zcash & Monero get all the attention. But let's not forget about prepaid debit cards."

"If someone ever tries to tell you that an STO is just a fancy name for an ICO, or that security tokens have anything to do with crypto tokens, or that the real benefit of "cryptoassets" is that they allow you to skirt regulation, or that it's strange to have 133 companies headquartered in a 2-up-2-down in Manchester, you just tell them to stop acting the fool."

"2019 has witnessed an explosion of crypto savings programs that promise annual interest simply for locking up digital assets."

"In the last couple of weeks there has been an explosion of conversation about BlockFi centered around their new Crypto Interest Account product, which differs from their Crypto Backed Loans product."

The first "D-Loan", as BBVA has dubbed the product, has been signed by Singapore-based Olam International, one of the world's leading food traders. The interest rate on the $350m revolving credit facility, provided by a consortium of seven banks led by BBVA, will decline if Olam hits a set of 32 digital targets.

The 1859 "Carrington Event" produced so much geomagnetic activity that sparks flew from telegraph equipment. If it happened today, it could debilitate power in urban centers, cut off GPS, and put satellite communications at risk.

The application of the term "decentralized" to blockchain systems, and making legal judgments based on it, creates a "veil of decentralization" that functions as a liability shield for developers and miners and gives them a core benefit of organizational law without accompanying obligations.

"This paper documents the evolution of fintech in LAC. In particular, the paper focuses on financial development, fintech landscape for domestic and cross border payments and alternative financing, cybersecurity, financial integrity and stability risks, regulatory responses, and considerations for central bank digital currencies."

"The level and trend in cash use in a country will influence the demand for central bank digital currency (CBDC). While access to digital currency will be more convenient than traveling to an ATM, it only makes CBDC like a bank debit card-not better. "

Launching a CBDC entails large risks as potential economic disruption could outweigh the desired, but mostly untested benefits. However, what is right for some developed economies may not be true for developing ones, where risks and benefits are inherently different.

This paper proposes a crypto-asset ecosystem regulatory approach that relies on a decentralized regulatory architecture built upon the existing regulatory infrastructure and makes use of the existing as well as the emerging middlemen in the industry.

Decentralized financial contracts platform UMA has partnered with MakerDAO to release a token tied to the US stock market.

India's Federal Bank, a commercial private bank, has partnered with Ripple to use its network for cross-border remittances.

Mark Zelmer's independent review into the UK's Co-operative Bank provides one of the first clear critiques of new regulations designed to stabilise the banking system, particularly the risk of bank runs and the role of open banking in the allocation of capital.