Recently, Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), with the participation of enterprise software company R3, successfully tested a blockchain project that will speed up real estate transactions. Such a solution can provide transparent and fast operations for the end user, R3 officials say. However, is it already possible to talk about a breakthrough in the market? How will the traditional process of real estate transactions and mortgage issuance change? Why did banks, skeptical before, change their attitude toward blockchain? And what are the risks for private blockchain platforms? Experts answer. Barclays and RBS’s solution as a response to …

European crypto exchange Bitstamp has appointed a former Coinbase executive as head of United States operations, Finance Magnates reports on May 8. Bitstamp, an entrant of the top 50 crypto trading platforms by daily trading volume, has hired Hunter Merghart in a move to expand its operations in the U.S., following the recent acquisition of a virtual currency license from New York state’s financial regulator. Merghart will be based in New York and will focus on working with Bitstamps’ new and existing clients — particularly targeting institutional clients — the report notes. Bitstamp’s new head of U.S. operations has most …

Two major United Kingdom banks — Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) — have joined a trial using blockchain to streamline real estate purchasing after rethinking the technology’s potential, Bloomberg reported on April 4. The trial, which involved a total of 40 participants, used a tool from Instant Property Network (IPN), a startup using enterprise blockchain group R3’s Corda platform. Introducing blockchain into the real estate exchange arena worldwide could result in savings of $160 billion, IPN told Bloomberg, with the previously skeptical banks appearing to warm to this specific use case for blockchain. “We are near the end …

Facebook’s own cryptocurrency, if launched, could potentially generate $19 billion in additional revenue by 2021, CNBC reports on March 11. Barclays internet analyst Ross Sandler wrote in a client note that a cryptocurrency could establish a new revenue stream for Facebook, aiding its share price that tanked amid a series of high-profile scandals last year. In his forecast, Sandler pointed out that the crypto-based revenue option is something “sorely needed at this stage of the company’s narrative,” stressing that any advertising-free revenue streams are likely to be well-perceived by Facebook’s shareholders. Sandler said that his more conservative revenue estimate for …

Remittance company SendFriend has received investments from Ripple (XRP), the Mastercard Foundation, MIT Media Lab and Barclays in a funding round, according to a press release published on Feb. 11. In the round, the firm raised $1.7 million from investors — also including Techstars, Mahindra Finance, 2020 Ventures and 8 Decimal Capital — to develop its remittance service, which lets users send money to the Philippines using blockchain. SendFriend uses Ripple’s xRapid product for cross-border payments, converting between USD, XRP and Philippine pesos and circumventing the longer process of traditional banking systems. The press release claims that SendFriend will feature …

Crypto exchange ErisX has appointed three veterans from Barclays, Youtube and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) to fill executive roles at the company. The development was announced in a press release published Feb. 7. As reported, ErisX is a reboot of traditional futures market Eris Exchange, and is expected to begin support for spot trading in major cryptos. The exchange will support spot trading in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC), as well as futures contracts starting in the second half of 2019, pending United States regulators’ approval. The new appointments will see Robert Thrash serving as chief …

Wall Street giants are postponing their plans to more actively enter the crypto industry as the value of cryptocurrencies has fallen, Bloomberg reports Sunday, Dec. 23. The article begins: "Limbo — that’s where to find Wall Street when it comes to cryptocurrencies," and then focuses on the efforts in the crypto sphere this year made by banking giant Goldman Sachs, multinational financial services company Morgan Stanley, major banking conglomerate Citigroup Inc. and United Kingdom financial services provider Barclays PLC. According to people familiar with Goldman Sachs’ crypto business, the firm’s progress has been too slow to be noticeable. Moreover, the …

A Intrapreneur from financial services giant Barclays has expressed the idea that blockchains should be built with regulatory compliance in mind, tech news website The Next Web (TNW) reported Dec. 14. Speaking at a Hard Fork Decentralized event, Barclays’ Julian Wilson stated that when building blockchains, developers need to “reconfigure our approach and way of thinking.” Wilson argued that not all business models require blockchains and that the tech should not be used, as TNW paraphrased his words, “as bolt-ons or additions to current business models.” TNW also reports that Wilson presented an integrated concept of regulation and development, arguing …

Forex exchange (FX) settlement giant CLS will launch its IBM blockchain-powered netting service within “a matter of days,” according to Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) Alan Manquard. The CSO made the announcement at the IBM Think Tank conference in London Nov. 14, as reported by tech news source Computer Business Review (CBR). CLS Group, which reportedly settles on average $5 trillion in payment instructions daily, is a U.S. FX settlement service supplier with high-profile members that include Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Barclays, and Citigroup. A netting service entails offsetting and determining the value of multiple positions or payments that are due to …

British investment bank Barclays is sponsoring a hackathon to find the best blockchain solution to increase the efficiency of derivatives contracts processing, according to an announcement published August 9. Barclays is partnering with other market majors like Deloitte, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and Thomson Reuters for the event. At the two-day DerivHack hackathon, participants will be given an opportunity to implement their ideas and apply the ISDA Common Domain Model (CDM) to distributed ledger technology. The final goal of the event is to find solutions to use cases in post-trade processing of derivatives contracts. The ISDA CDM …

Bitcoin (BTC) has seen solid growth to break back above the $7,000 mark today, August 7. The overall crypto market is seeing a healthy flush of green, rallying forth after the weekend’s losses, as data from Coin360 shows. Market visualization from Coin360 Bitcoin (BTC) is trading around $7,118 at press time, up around 2.5 percent on the day. After several faltering attempts to break past the $7,000 threshold yesterday, the leading cryptocurrency has today seen a sustained uptick as of very early trading hours. Today’s growth has not yet pushed the coin’s weekly price change back into the green, however, …

UK-based bank Barclays has denied it is working on opening a crypto trading desk. The statement was made after two employees removed LinkedIn evidence they were working on a digital assets project at the bank, Business Insider reports August 6. According to Business Insider, Matthieu Jobbe Duval and Chris Tyrer, whom Barclays confirmed worked for the bank, had listed cryptocurrency-related duties on their LinkedIn profiles. Duval had written he was involved in a “digital asset project” and was “hired to produce a business plan for integrating a digital assets trading desk into Barclays' markets business: revenue opportunity, competitive landscape, budgeting …