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“We do not have sufficient visibility as to the impact of the DCEP on consumers’ payment behavior and the payment industry,” the company said in its IPO prospectus. “It is not clear how the DCEP will fit into or change the current digital payment industry landscape.”

Chinese tech titan Jack Ma: digital currencies may be wave of future:

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Norges Bank conducted a new payments survey three weeks ago. Only 4 percent of payments are now made using cash.

From Ida Wolden Bache: Central bank digital currency and real-time payments:

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Cointelegraph reported on two mysterious transactions that each spent $2.6 million in fees to transfer roughly $130 worth of Ether. Analysts offered various explanations for the transactions, including a potential bug in a money laundering bot, revenge against a former employee, or simple human error.

From ‘I destroyed my life’: Uniswap trader spends $9,500 in fees on $120 transaction:

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I was flattered to be invited to join Money20/20’s MoneyFest this year on a panel with my old friend Anna Irrera (Reuter’s Chief Correspondent for Fintech) and a new friend Marius Jurgilas
(member of the board of the Bank of Lithuania) to discuss what it will take for the Libra network to get going in Europe.

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“The government’s goal is to remind the company who is in charge of the financial system, not to put it out of business,” said Andrew Batson, director of China research in Gavekal Research.

From China Takes Step Against Securitization, Consumer Borrowing With Suspension of Ant IPO | naked capitalism:

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And the Chinese may even have recognized that overly financialized economies have lower rates of growth than ones at a more modest level of financial “deepening”. The IMF found that Poland was at the optimum level, but argued that more finance might not create a drag if the sector was well-regulated.

From China Takes Step Against Securitization, Consumer Borrowing With Suspension of Ant IPO | naked capitalism:

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Now to the substance of the dispute, which led to the halt of the IPO and will require Ant to substantially restructure its business. Ant originates personal and small business loans to parties with little in the way of assets. These loans command higher interest rates than more conventional loans and from what we infer, “higher’ can mean “pretty high”.

From China Takes Step Against Securitization, Consumer Borrowing With Suspension of Ant IPO | naked capitalism:

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Brazilian Economy Minister Paulo Guedes has said that Brazil will issue its own central bank digital currency, or CBDC. The Banco Central do Brasil announced earlier in August that it had set up a study group for the possible issuance of a digital real. Although the central bank has not yet disclosed how the real’s digital version will actually work, the Governor (Roberto Campos Neto) has already declared that it will go into circulation as early as 2022.

From Economy minister says Brazil will have its own CBDC:

It seems like that this will run in parallel with the real-time payment system, PIX.

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The central bank of Brazil is planning the launch of a real-time payments system based on QR codes later this year.

Banco Central de Brasil finished an investigation into instant payments in December 2018
The new system, called PIX, will allow users to send and receive payments via mobile wallets. The central bank has announced that participation will be mandatory for all regulated banks and financial institutions with more than 500,000 customers.

From Central bank of Brazil plans launch of QR-based instant payments system PIX – FinTech Futures:

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Visa is a monopolist in online debit transactions, extracting billions of dollars in fees annually from merchants and consumers. Plaid, a financial technology firm with access to important financial data from over 11,000 US banks, is a threat to this monopoly: it has been developing an innovative new solution that would be a substitute for Visa’s online debit services.

From DoJ sues to block Visa’s Plaid acquisition:

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HKMA is exploring a new data strategy and considering building a new financial infrastructure called Commercial Data Interchange (CDI) to enable more efficient financial intermediation in the banking system, and to enhance financial inclusion in Hong Kong.
The CDI is a consent-based financial infrastructure that would enable more secure and efficient data flow between banks and sources of commercial data. It has the potential of solving long-standing pain points in SME financing by allowing SMEs to use their own data to enhance their access to financial services.

From Hong Kong Monetary Authority – Hong Kong FinTech Week 2020:

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