Multinational investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co is reportedly trialing the use of its own private blockchain for collateral settlements. According to Bloomberg, JPMorgan conducted a pilot transaction on May 20, which saw two of its entities transfer a tokenized representation of Black Rock Inc. money market fund shares. A money market fund is a type of mutual fund that is considered to be a low-risk investment, as it offers exposure to liquid and short-term assets such as cash, cash equivalents and debt securities with high credit ratings. In terms of JPMorgan’s broader vision for its private blockchain, the bank …

Financial inclusion, accessible services and the unbanked are standard talking points in many conversations about crypto. But, the details may remain somewhat fuzzy — the people who talk about crypto are generally those already inside the financial system. There are people who are actively working to increase financial inclusion and access to services for the vast number of people who are unbanked or underserved. CBDC for the people Central bank digital currencies (CBDC) will serve different purposes in different places. In economies where individuals have moved away from high levels of cash usage, like those of the United States and …

This week, 44 central bankers from developing countries around the world are attending a conference in El Salvador to discuss financial inclusion, financing for small and medium-sized businesses and Bitcoin (BTC). Central bank delegates from Ghana to Burundi, Jordan to the Maldives and Pakistan to Costa Rica arrived in San Salvador for the conference upon El SalvadorPresident Nayib Bukele’s invitation. Organized by the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, a global policy leadership alliance, and in partnership with El Salvador’s central bank, the conference will run for three days. In a tweet, the head of El Salvador central bank, Douglas Rodríguez, shared: …

The Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA) has put the kibosh on financial institutions offering crypto trading only days after two of the country’s largest banks signaled they were opening up to digital assets. On Thursday, the BCRA said the move was to mitigate the risks crypto poses to users and “to the financial system as a whole,” citing crypto’s high volatility, use in money laundering and absence of regulatory safeguards. The news came hot on the heels of an announcement on Monday from two of the country’s largest banks, Banco Galicia and Brubank, that they would allow their customers to …

Looking beyond the new breed of cryptocurrency millionaires, there is an asset class that can unlock the ticket to economic freedom by solving many of the current shortcomings of the traditional financial system. At a basic level, economic freedom starts with the right for people to control their own property both in the country they reside in and across the globe. The world has recently become aware of the lack of freedom in this matter, with examples including the well-known trading app Robinhood ceasing the trading of GameStop stocks temporarily, effectively locking investors out of this market and highlighting a …

One of the largest banking institutions in Germany has confirmed that it applied for a local crypto license earlier this year, marking the first time a major bank has made a move toward cryptocurrencies in the country. A spokesperson from Commerzbank confirmed to local media outlet Börsen-Zeitung on April 14 that it “applied for the crypto custody license in the first quarter of 2022.” If approved, it would be authorized to offer exchange services along with custody and protection of crypto-assets. Commerzbank serves over 18 million customers and over 70,000 institutional clients, and the cryptocurrency offering will reportedly target its …

Using cryptocurrencies for employee compensation Several companies have already started paying employees in crypto. There are several advantages to using cryptocurrencies for employee compensation, especially for companies with a global workforce. First, cryptocurrencies are borderless, which means that crypto can be used to pay employees anywhere in the world. Second, they are secure and irreversible, reducing the risk of fraud. Finally, cryptocurrency can be easily converted into local currencies, making them convenient for employees wanting to use them for everyday transactions. As more companies adopt this payment method, the use of cryptocurrencies as employee compensation will likely increase. Access banking …

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the United States government corporation that insures depositors at U.S. commercial and savings banks, issued a financial institution letter Thursday. The letter requests the institutions supervised by the agency to notify the appropriate regional director of their activities with crypto-related assets or their intentions to engage in crypto-related activities. According to the letter, “It is difficult for institutions, as well as the FDIC, to adequately assess the safety and soundness, financial stability, and consumer protection implications without considering each crypto-related activity on an individual basis.” Consequently, the FDIC wants to receive all information necessary for …

Many of the blockchains in use today are public, offering complete transparency and requiring smart contracts, each of which operates in a centralized manner. Unfortunately, these same chains are often subject to outages, hard forks and delayed processing, not to mention a lack of security and role definition necessary in conducting business transactions. For this reason, the permissioned blockchain has risen as a solution to control the activities on a given network. With a permissioned blockchain, not everyone is permitted to join the blockchain. Instead, participants must be granted special permission from the network’s owner. The result is a blockchain …

The Bank of England Financial Policy Committee and other U.K. regulators are assessing crypto regulation after publishing reports on financial stability relating to cryptoassets and decentralized finance. The BoE report was released on Thursday, and the Financial Conduct Authority, or FCA, along with the Bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority, or PRA, also released documents simultaneously that all reference one another. The Bank’s committee, or FPC, stated in its 40-page report that cryptoassets and DeFi pose a “limited” risk to the stability of the UK financial system, but it saw that risk growing “as these assets become more interconnected with the wider …

Big 4 bank ANZ has become the first Australian bank to mint an Australia dollar (AUD) pegged stablecoin named “A$DC.” But rival bank NAB also has its own stablecoin project which is expected to launch by the end of the year. ANZ is working with local regulators such as AUSTRAC and APRA to get the project signed off in a compliant manner, and has already run a test transaction on the Ethereum blockchain with its institutional partner Victor Smorgon Group, the family office tied to the billionaire Smorgon family. According to a March 24 report from the Australian Financial Review …

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) recommended that the nation’s commercial banks ramp up monitoring users’ transactions that could be aimed at circumventing CBR’s “special economic measures to counter the outflow of foreign currency abroad,” local media reported on March 17. The recommendation includes closer oversight over crypto trading, which is named among the vehicles for withdrawing capital from Russia. The letter, sent to the banking organizations by CBR’s vice chairman Yuri Isaev on March 16, directs them to pay closer attention to the instances of their clients’ “unusual behavior.” This includes “abnormal” transactional activity and uncommon expenditures patterns. Any …