Russia’s digital ruble is expected to reduce business costs but could also cut profits for commercial banks, according to Elvira Nabiullina, chairwoman of the Bank of Russia. At a Thursday meeting of “Opora Russia,” a nongovernmental organization of small- and medium-sized businesses, Nabiullina said that a digital ruble could undercut commercial bank profits from commissions and transaction fees. Furthermore, she stated that a central bank digital currency is a natural development in making financial services more streamlined: “This is a natural move in the financial system development: Financial intermediaries should become less burdensome for the economy and earn money with …

The U.S. Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is expanding an outreach program designed to provide access to minority depository institutions, or MDIs. Per a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph, the OCC's Project REACh is expanding to include a pledge of large and mid-sized banks partnering with MDIs. The pledge requires the partner bank to expand investment and support for executive development at the MDI that it works with. MDIs are simply banks or credit unions that are majority-owned by ethnic or racial minorities. They are seen as critical to expanding financial inclusion to minority groups left out …

Timothy Lane, deputy governor of the Bank of Canada and head of research at the bank’s fintech and crypto department, claimed that Canada’s central bank digital currency, or CBDC, might see the light of the day “sooner than expected." Lane delivered his remarks in a Tuesday interview on the Bank of Canada’s approach to digital payment systems. According to Lane, the predicted decline in COVID-19-fueled cash transactions has been happening more rapidly than the bank had previously expected. This could trigger the bank to issue a CBDC sooner that it originally planned: “In February, we identified two scenarios that we …

The U.K. Tory Party's nemesis, Nigel Farage, has gone “full crypto.” Last Friday, Farage sat down for a video interview to discuss all things crypto with Sam Volkering, editor of Southbank Investment Research — which is, notably, the publisher of Farage's recently launched investor newsletter "Fortune & Freedom." In the interview, Farage derided the government's “funny money,” which it continues to print throughout the pandemic at warp speed, and concluded that it's therefore “crucially important” to get one's head around crypto. He has elsewhere called Bitcoin “the ultimate anti-lockdown investment” — pointedly on-brand for his newly launched Reform UK party. …

Senior officials at the Bank of Russia have come out against the issuance of private stablecoins pegged to the Russian ruble. Sergei Shvetsov, a first deputy governor of the Russian central bank, said that the bank aims to ban private firms from offering stablecoins backed by the country’s fiat currency. Russian crypto developers will only be able to use the Bank of Russia’s digital ruble, Shvetsov said. According to a Nov. 30 report by local news agency Prime, the he said that this approach follows the “philosophy of the means of payment’s uniqueness.” Shvetsov referred to China’s digital yuan-related regulations …

Alfa-Bank, one of the largest private commercial banks in Russia, is exploring blockchain technology in its services for freelancers. According to a Dec. 1 announcement, Alfa-Bank will use blockchain-based applications to automate services for freelancers and self-employed workers. Based on Waves Enterprise’s blockchain platform, Alfa-Bank’s new service covers the entire process of registration and remuneration for self-employed individuals, including payments settlement, income registration and tax payments. Denis Dodon, director of Alfa-Bank’s research and development center, told Cointelegraph that the new blockchain-based service enables freelancers to get direct remuneration via any bank: “DLT and embedded smart contracts with an end-to-end integration …

With a new law coming into effect in Russian, the country's largest bank is planning a new blockchain platform for trading, as well as a native token. According to a Monday report from Russian business news outlet RBC, Sberbank is planning to jump into crypto come 2021 when a new law "On Digital Financial Assets," or DFA, is set to come into effect. The news came from Herman Gref, the CEO and chairman of Sberbank. With over 96 million clients, the state-owned bank is the largest bank in Russia. There was speculation several months ago that Sberbank was looking into …

As the COVID-19 outbreak wreaks havoc on the United States’ economy and abroad, investors grapple with a second economic downturn in just over a decade. While the 2008 financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic are very different, both events have produced market volatility and allowed for new technologies to emerge. The economic disruption wrought by the pandemic also highlights the importance of serving people who are currently outside the financial system, both in developing and developed economies. Today, there are 1.7 billion unbanked individuals worldwide, according to the World Bank. Related: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the crypto space? …

When banks finally come to improve their technology experience, they go no deeper than changing the front end. They’ll make a button blue instead of green or create rounded edges on buttons instead of square ones. They think in terms of their interfaces, not the back end. If a bank were to truly innovate its technology, it’d dig deeper into the back end and transform its legacy technical infrastructure, which has been the same for decades. Few today even know how to work on those old programming languages of yesteryear, such as COBOL, so they’re stuck with upgrades that turn …

Japanese financial giant SBI Group is introducing a cryptocurrency lending service through its crypto-related subsidiary, SBI VC Trade. According to an official announcement on Nov. 24, the new crypto lending platform will allow users to lend their crypto to SBI and earn interest at a rate of 1% with taxes included. The new service, dubbed VC Trade Lending, will initially support the major cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC), with SBI further planning to add support for Ether (ETH) and XRP. The minimum lending amount is 0.1 BTC, or $1,840 at publishing time, while the maximum amount is capped at 5 BTC, or …

Gazprombank Switzerland, a subsidiary of one of the largest banks in Russia, has piloted its Bitcoin (BTC) transaction service following regulatory approval by Swiss regulators. According to a Nov. 19 announcement, Gazprombank will provide its new cryptocurrency solution in collaboration with its long-running partners like fintech firm Avaloq and crypto custody provider Metaco. Gazprombank Switzerland CEO Roman Abdulin said that the new service intends to make crypto transactions “as easy as transactions with traditional assets,” stating: “Digital assets will become increasingly important for our clients and the global economy. We are pleased to work together with leading Swiss-based entities on …

China Construction Bank’s $3 billion blockchain bond has been reportedly withdrawn following an initial delay. Fusang Exchange, a Malaysian cryptocurrency exchange that was to be responsible for listing the bond, said that it has been withdrawn at the issuer’s request. According to Reuters on Nov. 23, CCB’s branch in Labuan informed Fusang Exchange on Nov. 20 that the bond issuance would not proceed. The blockchain-based bond was to be issued by Longbond Ltd, a special purpose platform designed solely to issue digital bonds and deposit the proceeds with CCB Labuan. On Nov. 13, the day the bond had been due …