A library of snippets
xxx
China’s digital yuan wallet has been downloaded by 261 million people – about a fifth of the country’s population – and been used for transactions worth 87.5 billion yuan ($13.8 billion).
From China’s digital yuan wallet downloaded by 261m individuals:
xxx
xxx
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) company Klarna will debut its loyalty card feature, a company press release said Tuesday (June 21), letting users store and access physical cards in digital versions.
The feature will be backed by mobile wallet provider Stocard, which Klarna acquired in 2021. The digital loyalty cards integrate with the Klarna app for in-store and online shopping.
xxx
xxx
In recent years, payment apps like Zelle, Venmo and Cash App have become the preferred way for millions of customers to transfer money from one person to another. Last year, people sent $490 billion on Zelle, the country’s most popular payments app, and $230 billion through Venmo, its closest rival.
But the same reasons that have drawn customers to these apps — they are free, fast and convenient — have made them easy targets for scammers and thieves.
From When Customers Say Their Money Was Stolen on Zelle, Banks Often Refuse to Pay – The New York Times:
xxx
xxx
One of the key goals of the trust framework is to facilitate interoperability. In the previous version of the trust framework, we published a draft of technical guidance covering OpenID Connect and W3C’s Verifiable Credentials data models, and invited industry to collaborate on its development. This collaboration made it clear that the best way to support industry in achieving technical interoperability would be to offer an overarching data schema designed to be consistent with different approaches to data exchange.
From UK digital identity and attributes trust framework – beta version – GOV.UK:
xxx
xxx
The dollar’s international role holds multiple benefits. For the United States, it lowers transaction fees and borrowing costs for U.S. households, businesses, and the government. Its ubiquity helps contain uncertainty and, relatedly, the cost of hedging for domestic households and businesses. For foreign economies, the wide use of the dollar allows borrowers to have access to a broad pool of lenders and investors, which reduces their funding and transaction costs.
xxx
xxx
56% of American adults, roughly 145 million people, say they own or have previously owned cryptocurrency. Seventy-four percent of that group, roughly 107 million Americans, invested in crypto for the first time in the last two years.
From Study: Over 50 Million Americans Likely to Buy Crypto in the Next Year | The Ascent.
xxx
xxx
On the 22nd of June, it will be exactly two years since Wirecard said that €1.9bn of cash that it had previously booked into its accounts was missing and presumed to never to have existed at all.
The collapse of Wirecard, and the arrest of its CEO Markus Braun (pictured), followed shortly after. Only now are those involved beginning to face lawsuits and in some cases criminal charges. Braun was indicted in March of 2022 and faces up to 15 years in prison, where he currently resides, if found guilty.
xxx
Wirecard, like many other challenger banks, did not have a banking licence but instead operated under the terms of a European e-money licence (ELMI. E-money licences for Payment Services and Electronic Money companies are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) but represent a more straightforward – and significantly cheaper – form of licensing than a full banking licence.
E-money licences are more restricted than full banking licences – the chief limitation being that challenger banks with only an e-money licence may not hold customer deposits on their own balance sheets but must do so in a separate trust account, typically maintained by a fully authorised and licensed bank.
xxx
The current flushing-out of the crypto world strikes some investors as similar to the late-1990s and internet companies. On the one hand, investors were correct during that bubble: The internet was the future. But that didn’t stop many of them from losing boatloads of money as hundreds of internet companies failed.
xxx
xxx
Just a few short months ago, Matt Damon exhorted us to fearlessly buy into cryptocurrencies — in a slick CGI ad for Crypto.com hyping the tagline, “Fortune Favors the Brave.”
Now, with cryptocurrencies in freefall and cratering to new lows, the Oscar-winning star of “Good Will Hunting” and “The Martian” is getting mercilessly dragged again for his gig as the face of Crypto.com in a new round of online jeering.
Users across social media are pointing out that if you had taken Damon’s advice to buy into cryptocurrencies last fall, the value of your holdings would have dropped roughly two-thirds today.
From Matt Damon Mocked for Crypto Ad as Virtual Currency Values Crash – Variety.
xxx
xxx
Crypto.com declined to tell the Financial Times how much Damon had been paid for his appearance but the company reportedly spent more than $100m on the “Fortune favours the brave” campaign — the entire budget for Damon’s last feature film, box office flop The Last Duel.
From Matt Damon’s crypto ad is more than just cringeworthy | Financial Times.
xxx
xxx
A more interesting question is what will happen when governments finally get serious about regulating bitcoin BTCUSD, -6.70% and its brethren. Of the major economies, only China has so far begun to do so. Most policy makers have instead tried to change the topic by talking about central bank-issued digital currencies (CBDCs).
But this is something of a non sequitur.
xxx
Snippings