Controversial German payments processor Wirecard — the issuer of several crypto debit cards — has been implicated in a new report on alleged criminal activities by a Mastercard executive operating at the troubled FBME bank in Cyprus. In 2014, the United States’ Financial Crime Enforcement Network had banned U.S. financial institutions from dealing with FBME after the bank was accused of being used to “facilitate money laundering, terrorist financing, transnational organized crime, fraud, sanctions evasion and other illicit activity.” The allegations included facilitiating the processing of money tied to the Syrian chemical weapons’ program and internet child sex abuse, according …

China leads the development of central bank digital currency (CBDC ) in the world. Digital yuan has been already tested in some areas in China while Western nations have just started talking about CBDCs. Six central banks such as ECB, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, are collaborating on the research of CBDC and reportedly held the first meeting just in April. Bank of Japan announced at the beginning of this month that they would start testing a digital yen although they didn’t specify when. The United States hasn’t even started officially talking about it. Last month, Chairman of the …

Chainlink (LINK) is integrating with CenterPrime to bring a foreign exchange, or FX, rate data feed from the Korean banks to the DeFi space. “A breakthrough for Korean fintech industry” CenterPrime, a Hyperledger based project, has access to the Korean open banking API that streams FX rate data from several local banks. According to CenterPrime’s press release, this is a major milestone for the Korean fintech space. They noted: “This integration with Chainlink marks a major breakthrough for the Korean fintech industry. For the first time in history, applications will be able to access decentralized foreign exchange rates compiled by …

Recent regulatory transparency provided by U.S. banking regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, may give interested institutions the confidence to enter the crypto industry. “For those of us who have been building up this ecosystem for years, it’s hugely validating of those efforts,” Diogo Monica, president of crypto custody service Anchorage, told Cointelegraph on July 23, referring to the OCC’s actions. He added: “But the real significance here is for the kinds of institutional players who may have been sitting on the sidelines in the absence of clear regulatory guidance. The OCC coming out and …

Garrick Hileman, the head of research at Blockchain.com, shared in an interview today that Indian banks are showing interest in cryptocurrencies but are also skeptical of heading further into this space due to the regulatory uncertainty. While speaking to Data Quest, Hileman also hinted that Blockchain.com still does not have a payment gateway in India for the same reason. But it is a goal for the firm, he added. Earlier last week, during a webinar on Indian regulations, the CEO of WazirX exchange Nischal Shetty also highlighted that Indian banks were interested in getting involved in the blockchain and cryptocurrency …

Avanti Bank & Trust, Wyoming-based pioneering financial institution planning to offer services to the crypto industry, has announced plans for a ‘stablecoin disruptor’ that’s designed to modernize U.S. dollar payments. In a July 23 announcement, Avanti said that the payment instrument, dubbed ‘Avit,’ is not a security and predicted it “will likely be treated as a cash equivalent” by regulators. Avit will be programmable via Avanti’s API. The firm believes Avit will see adoption among “institutional traders and corporate treasurers,” and described the monetary commodity as “a real-time payment settlement solution in US dollars that does not suffer from the …

Recent regulatory approval for banking crypto custody comes after a Coinbase alum took a prominent seat as the Acting Comptroller of the Currency for the the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC — a U.S. banking regulator. “There’s one major change that occured over the last 60 days,” Morgan Creek Digital co-founder Anthony Pompliano said in a July 23 episode of his YouTube show, Lunch Money. Pomp added: “Brian Brooks, who used to be the chief legal officer of Coinbase, is now the Acting Comptroller of the Currency. He’s in charge, so there’s a Bitcoiner in the …

Per a July 22 announcement shared with Cointelegraph, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, is granting permission to federally chartered banks to provide custody services for cryptocurrency. The future of banking with crypto on board This issue has seen much skepticism, given that crypto wallets do not resemble the custody requirements of other sorts of assets. Nonetheless, in its interpretive letter on the subject, the OCC wrote: “The OCC recognizes that, as the financial markets become increasingly technological, there will likely be increasing need for banks and other service providers to leverage new technology and innovative …

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, is considering purchasing or setting up its own bank. The company’s CEO Changpeng Zhao, or CZ, revealed the news during an AMA session hosted by Binance-owned CoinMarketCap on July 22. Could it happen? During the AMA, CZ highlighted that the idea of purchasing or building their own bank has been circulating around Binance for a while. When asked about Binance’s plans to “ever launch a bank with all the world products,” CZ answered that “the idea of buying a bank came up like a thousand times.” CZ elaborated that bank acquisition ideas have been …

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 …

The U.S. economy is experiencing a shortage of coins. With this in mind, the Community State Bank, or CSB, of Milwaukee is offering a five percent premium to customers who turn in coins to one of its locations. Meanwhile Bitcoin (BTC) is not expected to run out of Satoshis anytime soon. CSB announcing “Crazy time”. Source: CSB Site. COVID-19 is to blame This issue apparently stems from further complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Reasons given include that the U.S. Mint reduced coinage to protect its employees, and that U.S. consumers have been trying to avoid cash transactions as much …

Major international banks like Credit Suisse and HSBC are reportedly scrutinizing their Hong Kong clients amid the ongoing protests over China-backed national security law. According to a July 19 report by Reuters, global banks including Credit Suisse, HSBC, Julius Baer, and UBS are now screening their clients in Hong Kong on potential ties to the city’s pro-democracy movement. Social media spies Citing a group of anonymous people familiar with the matter, the report says that the banks are scanning clients’ records for political and government ties in order to impose additional diligence requirements. The records include comments made by clients …