The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) announced that the test run of its central bank digital currency is currently limited to small retail transactions. According to the Global Times on Aug. 24, the central bank has clarified some details regarding the recent digital yuan — also known as digital currency electronic payment, or DCEP — in order to address rumors regarding the scale and scope of recent pilot projects. Per the report, some Chinese internet users claimed that a person in Shenzhen received a large amount of PBoC’s digital currency after selling local real estate. Wang Peng, an assistant professor …

Rampant inflation is affecting Turkish residents’ confidence in the nation’s lira fiat currency. According to a Reuters report on Aug. 14, locals are dumping lira, converting it to dollars and buying gold. Even with market interventions and reassuring stories about monetary stability coming from the government, the locals’ faith in the lira is on a downward trajectory. Inflation is currently at 11.8% and has overtaken the amount of interest offered for savings at banks. One resident was quoted as saying he had bought gold as a safe-haven asset: “I think it is the best investment right now so I converted …

Standard Chartered PLC, a British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London, England, has successfully leveraged blockchain technology to conduct Bangladesh’s first blockchain trade transaction, according to Newage on August 16. The Standard Chartered bank issued a Letter of Credit (LC) for the trade between garment exporter Viyellatex Ltd and Viyellatex Spinning on the Contour blockchain network. LC is a letter from a bank guaranteeing that a buyer's payment to a seller will be received on time and for the correct amount. The entire transaction was reportedly paperless and completed digitally through Contour’s network. Contour’s blockchain network builds …

Santander, the large scale Spanish bank and one of Ripple’s major partners, is still hesitant to adopt XRP as part of its international payment network, One Pay FX. The company reasoned that the token “was not actively traded in enough markets” to support the company’s banking needs. During an interview with the Financial Times, Cedric Menager, chief executive officer of One Pay FX, explained that Santander wants to provide the “best [user experience] as quickly as possible.” He also said that the bank hopes to “operate in as many currencies and corridors as possible from the beginning.” Ripple clarified that …

Blockchain firm HashCash Consultants claims that banks are "chief arbiters" of people's identities, and need blockchain technology to do it better. According to an Aug. 11 announcement, “accurate identification of an individual is central to banking activities which makes them the chief arbiter of people's identities.” Still, the current system is not without its issues: “The existing manual processes make identification time-consuming and susceptible to errors. HashCash aims to streamline the process by helping the partner bank create digital identities for the customers over a decentralized network, where the customer data will be recorded on an immutable ledger, eliminating any …

United Kingdom cryptocurrency custodian Copper announced support for United States dollar transfers through Signature Bank’s Signet blockchain payment platform. According to an announcement on July 20, the integration of Signature Bank’s Signet will allow Copper’s customers to instantly pay and settle transactions in U.S. dollars and other fiat currencies. The integration will “vastly reduce the time and other issues that asset managers face in transferring traditional currencies” between bank accounts and trading environments. Crypto exchanges Bitstamp, Huobi, Kraken, OKCoin and LMAX are already integrated with both Signet and Copper. The collaboration is part of a broader trend Copper CEO Dmitry …

On July 19, the Philippine Bureau of the Treasury along with the UnionBank and Philippine Digital Asset Exchange launched a blockchain-enabled mobile application for distributing government-issued treasury bonds. According to local news outlet Inquirer.Net, the president and CEO of UnionBank, Edwin R. Bautista, claimed it was Asia’s “first retail treasury bond issuance to leverage on blockchain technology.” Bringing bonds investment to the unbanked According to estimates, almost 77% of adults in the Philippines still do not possess a bank account. The mobile application dubbed Bonds.PH is particularly aimed at providing easy investment options to the unbanked population of the country. …

United Kingdom cryptocurrency banking platform Ziglu launched an insurance program on July 15 for digital assets held with the service. Under the new program, each customer’s cryptocurrency holdings are insured against cybercrime to a value of £50,000 ($63,000). Customer assets are held in segregated accounts, with the vast majority stored in offline cold wallets. These additional measures decrease the risk of theft through hacking or other means. Multi (fiat and crypto) currency accounts As Cointelegraph reported, Ziglu is the brainchild of Mark Hipperson, former Barclays technology head, and co-founder of U.K. challenger bank, Starling. The service launched last month, offering …

Retail and enterprise blockchain adoption trends dominated the discussions on days three and four of the ongoing virtual conference Unitize, organized by BlockShow and San Francisco Blockchain Week and sponsored by crypto derivatives exchange ByBit. The key topic that dominated discussion was blockchain adoption, which continues to spread across the globe, with governments and corporate establishments developing solutions based on distributed ledger technology. Exploring the blockchain development landscape Speaking during one of Wednesday’s panels at the conference. Yi Ming Ng, a member of the Tribe Accelerator project in Singapore, and Marloes Pomp, a blockchain consultant with the Dutch government, shed …

In a recent panel, as part of a digital Unitize blockchain conference, ABI chief innovation officer Silvia Attanasio explained why the banking entity chose to go the decentralized blockchain route for Spunta — its blockchain solution built on enterprise blockchain platform Corda. If ABI had not gone the decentralized route, the entity would have needed to locate a centralized party to gather and manage a large amount of data on various fronts, Attanasio said on the July 8 panel, noting ABI's rationale behind choosing a decentralized approach. "It wasn't so easy to identify a single actor that could have run …

Benjamin Soh, founder of blockchain development firm STACS, said that institutional players, not business-to-consumer companies, will drive the mass adoption of financial infrastructure built on blockchain technology. During the Unitize virtual conference, Soh said that if they could bring bank institutions to use the blockchain, millions of bank customers will automatically be a part of the blockchain finance infrastructure without them even knowing. Providing bank customers with a blockchain-based wallet while still using the traditional payment gateways will be the necessary first step towards bringing the efficiencies of distributed ledger technology to the financial system, Soh added. Asia is leading …

In Busan, a private-public consortium in South Korea announced their intention to build a blockchain-powered medical tourism platform. No deadline for launch is currently set. According to Gyeongnam Ilbo, the initiative will be led by Busan Bank. They are looking to establish the platform within the second largest city of the country in terms of population. The group’s main goal is to strengthen the medical tourism sector. The consortium includes Pusan National University Hospital, Dong-A University Hospital, Gosin University Gospel Hospital, Samyuk Busan Hospital, and payment brokerage company Knet Co. Ltd. Banking services offered through the platform The agreement states …