A library of snippets
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In a recent letter to Congress, the U.S. Treasury says that stablecoins such as Tether pose a sanctions risk, and requests legislation to close this loophole. The Treasury notes that while it already has jurisdiction over offshore wires transfers because they “transit intermediary U.S. financial institutions,” or correspondent banks, it does not have the same authority over “equivalent-value stablecoin transactions, because certain stablecoin transactions involve no U.S. touchpoints.”
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A growing number of brazen drug dealers are using QR codes stuck on lampposts to try and sell cannabis near schools, universities and police stations.
Dozens of black and gold stickers advertising ‘get your delivery’ have been put up around various streets in the cathedral city of Worcester.
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The proposed rule would subject larger nonbank digital consumer payment companies to the CFPB’s authority to conduct examinations, helping to ensure consistent application of federal consumer financial laws across the marketplace. Specifically, the proposed rule would help ensure these large nonbank companies:
Adhere to applicable funds transfer, privacy, and other consumer protection laws: The CFPB would be able to supervise larger participants for compliance with applicable federal consumer financial protection laws, which includes applicable protections against unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts and practices, rights of consumers transferring money, and privacy rights.
Play by the same rules as banks and credit unions: The CFPB’s supervision of these large companies can foster a level playing field with depository institutions. Greater supervision of nonbanks in this market would ensure federal consumer financial protection law is enforced consistently between non-depository and depository institutions in order to promote fair competition.
Today’s proposed rule, if finalized, would be one part of the CFPB’s efforts to carefully monitor the entry of large technology firms, including Big Tech giants, into consumer financial markets.
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Dozens of US credit unions have been hit by outages following a ransomware attack on a cloud computing vendor.
From Ransomware attack on vendor causes outages at 60 credit unions.
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CBDCs’ proponents champion them on financial inclusion grounds, as a way of providing digital financial services to the unbanked. Yet countries such as India have shown that there are more practical ways to do this. Provide residents with a unique digital identifier, mandate the banks to provide low-cost, no-frills accounts, and install a system to facilitate interbank transactions through mobile phones. Voilà: problem solved.
Some will object that the payments rails provided by banks are inefficient. Transferring funds between banks can be costly and time consuming, especially where data systems are antiquated and banks have market power. But if this is the problem, then the solution is to open up the market to nonbank payments providers, giving them access to the central bank’s real-time gross-settlement system. Enhanced competition will encourage banks to update their technologies, including by adopting the new standard for messaging on the interbank Swift system known as ISO 20022.
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according to the Banco Central de Argentina head, Miguel Pesce, Argentinians hold almost 200 billion in USD bills, meaning around 10% of the total USD cash in circulation
From: Regulation Ease And USD Access To Accelerate BTC Adoption In Argentina.
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Known as “cryptodolares” stablecoins have a higher rate than USD dollar bills different than 100 bills
From: Regulation Ease And USD Access To Accelerate BTC Adoption In Argentina.
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For years, IBM has been following a quantum-computing road map that roughly doubled the number of qubits every year. The chip unveiled on 4 December, called Condor, has 1,121 superconducting qubits arranged in a honeycomb pattern.
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A new IBM road map on the its quantum research unveiled today sees it reaching useful computations — such as simulating the workings of catalyst molecules — by decade’s end.
As Juan Pablo Vazquez Sampere pointed out in the Harvard Business Review many years ago, there is no technical reason why the banks need to go through card networks to offer credit services to their customers. Apple could have negotiated with retail banks, just as it did with the recording labels, to launch Apple Pay as a substitute for credit cards, and would be truly disruptive. In fact Apple took a more conservative approach and negotiated with the card networks to bring tokenisation to mobile, which is why you need to tell Apple your credit card number rather than your bank account number, to set up Apple Pay. That merely positioned Apple Pay at the end of the exisiting distribution value chain for cards. But maybe, with open banking spreafing around the world and with access to the NFC interface nailed down (for payments) maybe Apple are a few chess moves ahead.
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UpBank-issued charge cards first originated in 1946 when a Brooklyn banker named John Biggins launched the “Charg-It” card. Charg-It card purchases were forwarded to Biggins’ bank, where he reimbursed the merchant and would later obtain payment from the customer in what came to be known as the “closed-loop” system
From: List of Major Credit Card Companies & Networks [2023].
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