A library of snippets
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A sea change in the US’s approach to digital assets under the upcoming Trump presidency may see major lenders move towards crypto custody services as a precursor to deeper engagement in the space
From: Providing custody services offers crypto ‘entry point’ for US banks – The Banker.
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The Government has today introduced the Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill into Parliament. The Bill enacts the recommendations of the Law Commission of England and Wales. Its effect is to confirm the existence of a third category of personal property, into which crypto-tokens and other assets could fall.
The Bill is available here and has been introduced into the House of Lords under the special parliamentary procedure for Law Commission bills.
The Law Commission’s digital assets report in June 2023 concluded that certain digital assets, including crypto-tokens and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), are capable of attracting personal property rights. However, because they are fundamentally different both from physical assets, and from rights-based assets like debts and financial securities, they do not fit easily within traditional categories of personal property. The Commission recommended that legislation should confirm the existence of a “third” category of personal property. The Commission published a draft bill to implement this recommendation in July 2024.
From: Property (Digital Assets etc) bill introduced into Parliament – Law Commission.
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In 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender.
This week, the cryptocurrency briefly hit a fresh record high of more than $108,000.
“The potential risks of the Bitcoin project will be diminished significantly in line with Fund policies,” the IMF announcement said.
“Legal reforms will make acceptance of Bitcoin by the private sector voluntary. For the public sector, engagement in Bitcoin-related economic activities and transactions in and purchases of Bitcoin will be confined.”From: El Salvador strikes $1.4bn IMF deal after scaling back Bitcoin policies – BBC News.
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The Swedish case is even more special due to the pervasive role of banks in the payment and identification infrastructure. Banks created the widely used payment app Swish, and also issue the electronic ID needed to access public services like the tax authority and benefits for illness, disability and unemployment.
Consequently, if you are not a bank customer, you can’t access these public services.
From: Sweden is a nearly cashless society – here’s how it affects people who are left out.
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If cash is the only money you have or the only money you can manage without help, you are confined to “cash bubbles”. Cash works like a local currency, isolated from the rest of the economy.
In the cash bubble, you can buy necessities and go to no-frills cafes, but you can’t pay for parking and you can’t pay bills without help. Volunteers at local community groups told us that they spend most of their time doing people’s banking for them.
A Ukrainian refugee, who can’t get a bank account because of their migration status, worried about a bill from the local health clinic that they had no technical means of paying.
Homeless people who sleep in cars can’t use the cashless parking meters, so an illicit market has emerged where people with smartphones and bank accounts pay for their parking at a substantial extra cost. It’s expensive to be digitally poor.
From: Sweden is a nearly cashless society – here’s how it affects people who are left out.
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The California DMV’s commitment to transparency and open standards was evident throughout these hackathons, and the OpenID Foundation’s involvement was instrumental in this regard.
By incorporating the ISO 18013-5, W3C Verifiable Credentials, and the OpenID for Verifiable Credentials (OIDC4VC) specifications, the DMV demonstrated its commitment to aligning its mDL infrastructure with global standards
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In addition to being fine-tuned, AI models are given some quiet instructions—a “system prompt” distinct from the user’s prompt—as they’re deployed and before you interact with them. The system prompt tries to keep the models on a reasonable path, as defined by the model maker or downstream integrator.
From: The Words That Stop ChatGPT in Its Tracks – The Atlantic.
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A commercial model that works for all parties – retailers and billers are accustomed to paying fees for card payments (although they find them complex and excessive). Thus reasonably, open banking service providers can charge them similar fees, but fees need to be far below those for cards, rather than equivalent, to be compelling. Additionally, banks are mandated to provide APIs at, in effect zero cost, so they have no incentive to provide anything other than the bare minimum, which is a problem for open banking service providers dependent on bank APIs, controls and processes.
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The regulator alleges that there was a significant escalation in reports of unauthorised transactions by HSBC Australia customers from mid-2023 which often occurred after scammers had obtained access to their accounts by impersonating HSBC Australia staff.
From: Australian regulator sues HSBC for failing to protect customers from scams.
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Open finance creates a novel situation for banks, enabling them to become consumers of datasets to which they have never had access before. This presents opportunities to launch new product offerings and engage with customers in new ways, as long as they are able to access, utilise and exploit the new data fully.
Many of these opportunities revolve around new ways to gain a better understanding of existing customers by using new data sources to build more complete views of their overall financial pictures.
An enhanced data picture can also make it possible to offer a wider range of products to existing customers. For example, an estimated five million people in the UK are currently considered “thin-file”, meaning they have little or no credit history.4 For people in this group, accessing loans can be prohibitively expensive or even impossible, even if they earn a good wage and are financially responsible.
Open finance allows banks to view a wider array of data sources to assess creditworthiness—for example, transaction data to understand spending patterns and budgeting. This has the potential to open up access to credit to a much broader population.
From: A Sophisticated Approach to Data Will Be Key to Open Finance’s Success.
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