Top five Swiss bank Julius Baer Group, which manages $427 billion in assets, announced on July 20 that its profit increased by $524 million in the last two quarters. The bank most likely benefited from an increase in trading revenues throughout the U.S. and Europe. The profit of Julius Baer reportedly spiked by 34% in the first half of 2020. It coincides with the bank’s introduction of a custodial service for digital assets — like Bitcoin (BTC) — in January. Overall surge in global banking revenues or Bitcoin integration? The trend of major banks in the second quarter of 2020 …

Multinational banking giant Banco Santander and four Spanish banks have successfully finalized a proof-of-concept for payments using smart contracts. The PoC was coordinated with IberPay, the company that oversees the Spanish Payment System. Trial confirms blockchain’s feasibility for payments In a statement on July 15, IberPay said the PoC had “confirmed the feasibility of applying blockchain technology to the field of payments" and its successful connection to the national payment system. Using smart contracts automates the execution and settlement of payments once certain pre-conditions are met. Alongside IberPay and Banco Santander, the four banks involved were Banco Sabadell — Spain’s …

Thailand’s central bank has reportedly entered a new phase in the development of its central bank digital currency, or CBDC. The Bank of Thailand, or BOT, has reportedly deployed its CBDC, and has been using the digital currency for financial transactions with some large businesses, local English-language newspaper The Nation reports July 16. Thailand to roll out CBDC testing with the Hong Kong’s central bank in September The bank has entered the third phase in development of the digital baht and plans to expand to more businesses, BOT assistant governor, Vachira Arromdee, reportedly announced on Wednesday. According to the report, …

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, or MUFGt, the fifth largest bank in the world, is reportedly planning to issue its own digital currency in the second half of 2020. Initiated back in 2015, the digital currency project was originally designed to run on a blockchain network and facilitate instant peer-to-peer transactions. Following multiple delays, the initiative is now scheduled to be rolled out no later than 2020, Cointelegraph Japan reports on July 13. “We think that everyone will be able to use it openly” Hironori Kamezawa, president and CEO at MUFG, announced the new plans on Monday to local news agency, …

Unlike most other cryptocurrencies, governance tokens for decentralized finance, or DeFi, lend themselves to classical fundamental analysis techniques. Since they are in many ways similar to traditional equity, they can benefit from established frameworks for evaluating a company. Cointelegraph spoke with Pankaj Balani, the CEO of derivatives platform Delta Exchange, to learn more about his company’s research exercise in trying to give a fair value to the Compound protocol token. The monetary value of governance The researchers initially focused on assigning a monetary value to the ability of governing the protocol. They took the example of stock markets, where each …

The Bank of England is considering the issuance of a central bank digital currency — or CBDC — according to its governor, Andrew Bailey. Bloomberg reports that during a student webinar, the head of the Bank of England acknowledged that they are looking into the possibility of issuing a digital currency: “We are looking at the question of, should we create a Bank of England digital currency. We’ll go on looking at it, as it does have huge implications on the nature of payments and society. I think in a few years time, we will be heading toward some sort …

There is no doubt that cryptocurrency — specifically Bitcoin (BTC), which is frequently used as a barometer for the health of the entire sector — has made a comeback. As of the writing of this article, Bitcoin stands at a little over $9,000, very close to the $10,000 rebound that investors hoped for sometime this year — and we are barely in the third quarter. Although there are signs that crypto winter is over, many experts are still understandably cautious. Related: What's Next for the Industry as 'Crypto Winter' Thaws? Cryptocurrency has been a notoriously unstable investment, first selling at …

The COVID-19 crisis has brought many new users to the world of cryptocurrencies. One of the main concerns for users, however, is whether their bank cards may be blocked due to the purchase of a cryptocurrency, or when withdrawing funds from a crypto account. Can this risk be prevented? Since the COVID-19 outbreak and people’s subsequent desire to protect their savings, interest in cryptocurrency has continued to grow. A June 2020 survey conducted by The Tokenist found that 45% of respondents from 17 countries now prefer to invest in Bitcoin (BTC) rather than stocks, real estate or gold. For comparison’s …

When the United States government voted in stimulus payments to its citizens in the wake of COVID-19, to say it went well would be… categorically untrue. From delivering checks to the deceased to the simple fact that most people would have to go to a bank to cash a paper check during a viral pandemic, it became clear that our financial systems are not prepared for this. As countless Americans struggle to stay afloat, the effects of COVID-19 have confirmed what many have suspected for years now — this system was not built to keep up with the needs of …

Deutsche Bank was recently ordered to pay a $150 million fine for “significant compliance failures” in its relationship with alleged child sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. The Bitcoin community on Reddit is highlighting this latest case of misconduct from major financial institutions. According to CNBC reporting on Tuesday, New York state financial regulators issued a $150 million penalty to the bank for offering banking services to Epstein despite being aware of his previous indictments. In the consent order under which Deutsche agreed to pay reparations, regulators show that the bank’s executives were aware of a memorandum that detailed Epstein’s long history …

Jack Mallers, the developer of the Zap Lightning Wallet, announced on Thursday his new app for iPhone, Android and Chrome, which allows users to send and receive Bitcoin (BTC) and Lightning Network payments directly from and to a bank account. Strike, which has now entered the public beta phase, enables interaction with the Bitcoin and Lightning protocols with no wallet, seed, channels, liquidity or white papers, while Know Your Customer protocols are kept to a bare minimum. Mallers wants Bitcoin to reach mainstream adoption. To this end, he created Zap in 2018 — one of the first desktop wallets making …

OKEx, a major global cryptocurrency exchange, is embracing the Latin American crypto market by launching a fiat gateway for three local currencies. According to a July 3 announcement, OKEx users can now buy Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) in exchange for the Argentine peso (ARS), the Brazilian real (BRL), and the Mexican peso (MXN) via a direct bank transfer. OKEx implements Settle Network’s Latamex tool OKEx’s partnership with a company called Settle Network allowed them to enable these features. Settle Network is claimed to be the largest digital settlement network in Latin America. The new service is provided through Latamex, …