News & Reviews on Payments Technology, Crypto & More
Top financial services experts continue to join the Libra project. The Libra Association has appointed HSBC veteran James Emmett as managing director of its subsidiary firm, Libra Networks LLC. James Emmet spent 25 years at HSBC and is a former colleague of the Libra Association’s new CEO, former HSBC chief legal officer Stuart Levey. Levey […]
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The FATF doesn’t seem to like frequent jurisdiction hoppers, notably Binance. A new report by the Financial Action Task Force, or FATF, details a series of red flags that can help identify illicit activity involving cryptocurrencies. Among them are a general set of guidelines involving exchanges in jurisdictions with weaker regulations, where Binance is seemingly […]
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With government agencies getting more savvy at tracing blockchain transactions, laws like the EU’s GDPR may play a role. Anti-establishment and counter-government sentiments fuelled the early days of crypto. More than a decade later, crypto is slowly moving away from its wild-west early days and into a more organized system that traditional financial institutions are […]
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A look at the legal status of crypto in Asia, where new crypto hubs are emerging and thriving despite uneven regulation. When most people hear about buying Bitcoin (BTC) or other cryptocurrencies, they immediately think of the largest exchanges, most of which are located in Asia. Today, countries such as China and South Korea have […]
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Clearing regulatory hurdles is important for forward-leaning jurisdictions that aim to attract the most innovative firms. This July, Luxembourg — the world’s second-largest domicile for investment funds behind the United States — submitted a draft law updating a law from March 1, 2019 that allowed for the registration and transfer of securities by custodians. With […]
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A U.S. circuit court has concluded its review of a terrorism financing case that begin in 2010, saying that the NSA’s phone tapping was illegal but that it was a minor part of the evidence. In the final decision on a criminal case that began a decade ago, an appellate court has said that the […]
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The way law enforcement agencies deal with seized crypto could indicate their de-facto acceptance of the asset class. It is customary for government officials around the world to profess their disdain for crypto on the grounds that it is widely used to facilitate crime and finance terrorism. Although (government-backed) cash still remains criminals’ preferred financial […]
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The traditional banking sector is lagging behind in the race with crypto. Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit recently published the results of its second National Risk Assessment. The report highlighted that the risk of money laundering in the banking sector far surpasses the issues encountered by fintech companies. According to El Economista, the so-called “G7 banking” […]
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In addition to the Indian P2P market surging in recent months, the country’s DeFi sector has been gaining momentum. Even as fears of another blanket ban on India’s digital asset market linger on, peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading within the Asian powerhouse is still surging, hitting all-time highs over the first week of August. This immense growth […]
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The COVID-19 pandemic might help to further Qatar’s national strategy in the fintech and blockchain spaces to reduce the crisis’s impact. The nation of Qatar is a World Bank “high-income economy,” backed by the world’s third-largest natural gas and oil reserves. It has the third-highest GDP per capita in the world (by purchasing power parity), […]
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