The continuing transition to digital finance is likely to affect sectors across the board. Artisans, or skilled craftsmen and women, are no exception. According to Kristalina Georgieva, managing director for the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, digital money for these skilled workers hinges on a tetrad of factors. “The artisan’s digital future will rest on four cornerstones: private sector innovation, public sector involvement, regulatory and legal frameworks, and international cooperation,” Georgieva said on Friday during a BlockShow conference segment. How do online payments and finance affect skilled workers though? Digital transactions and capabilities hold the potential to speed up the …

Speaking at Singapore Fintech Festival, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said that "third-generation blockchain technology" would see digital currency "in the hands of hundreds of millions, if not billions of users." Allaire featured on a panel alongside the CEO of Facebook’s 'Diem' Association (formerly Libra Association) Stuart Levey, Coinbase CPO Surojit Chatterjee, and Soramitsu CEO Makoto Takemiya, to discuss the question: Can Digital Currencies Birth the Next Generation of World-Class Payment Systems?. Allaire argued that digital currencies are still very early in their development but are about to take a leap analogous to that from dial-up internet to broadband. “We’re right …

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 …

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 …

The Iota Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind Iota, Iota Tangle and Miota, announced it will be joining Austria’s newest Christian Doppler Laboratory, or CDL, as an industrial partner. The first of its kind, the laboratory is housed at the Vienna University of Technology and named the CDL Blockchain Technologies for the Internet of Things, or CDL-BOT. The laboratory was officially opened in a digital ceremony on Nov. 26 by Austrian Federal Minister for Digital and Economic Affairs Margarethe Schramböck. It will focus on research and development in public and private partnerships between institutions and businesses seeking to expand the implementation …

Singapore is exploring wholesale central bank digital currency, or CBDC, said Sopnendu Mohanty, chief fintech officer at Singapore’s central bank and financial regulator, the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Speaking on the subject during an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Mohanty pointed out that in Singapore, there is not much demand for a retail CBDC given that payment system infrastructure in the country already allows fast and cheap payments among individuals. Instead, Singapore's central bank is focused on the development of a wholesale CBDC, which would be used to facilitate settlements of securities and payments among financial institutions. “I don’t think we …

The World Economic Forum, or WEF, believes that blockchain represents a core element of sustainable digital finance — a new paradigm that combines emerging technology with environmentally conscious business models. In a new report published Wednesday, UBS executive Karin Oertli lists blockchain technology along with artificial intelligence, mobile platforms and the Internet of Things as being the cornerstones of digital finance. These technologies, when combined with environmental, social and governance frameworks, could help governments and corporations reach their lofty sustainable development goals. Oertli writes: “We believe that sustainable digital finance will play an essential role in efficiently channeling this capital …

West Africa is home to an estimated 381 million people and counting. Unfortunately, the region was also found to be a hotspot for climate change, which will likely impact crop yields and food production while causing damage to its unique wildlife. At the same time, West Africa is well on its way to becoming the next blockchain hotspot as well, with the region continuing to show interest in cryptocurrency and digital solutions. In 2019, Nigeria ranked as the number one country for Bitcoin searches on Google, which may be linked to the prominence of fintech adoption across the continent. For …

In an announcement on Wednesday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) granted SoFi a conditional license to operate as a national bank in the United States. The OCC is the office of the U.S. Treasury that regulates federal banks throughout the country. SoFi, which stands for Social Finance, is a fintech startup that has historically provided loans and refinancing services. In 2019, the firm launched crypto trading, and last December, the New York Department of Financial Services granted SoFi a coveted BitLicense. This new license will enable the firm to offer a wider range of services. Just …

The U.S. Department of Justice, or DoJ, recently publicized an investigation into Visa's ongoing acquisition of fintech company Plaid. "Today, the Department of Justice filed a petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to enforce Bain & Company’s compliance with the department’s Civil Investigative Demand (CID)," the DoJ said in a public statement on Tuesday. Essentially, U.S. authorities have taken legal action to obtain information from Boston-based consulting giant Bain & Company on Visa's acquisition of Plaid. "On June 11, 2020, the division issued Bain a CID requiring the company to answer interrogatories and produce documentary …

A fintech company says it is determined to offer decentralized finance services that are “regulated, responsible, trustworthy and innovative.” Nexxo’s focus is to offer commercial banking services and to support under-serviced small businesses that are not big enough to secure finance from traditional banks. Research cited by the company also suggests that more than 260 million small businesses are struggling to access commercial banking services and financial support that can help their ventures flourish and grow. According to the network, 44% of small businesses are denied credit because they don’t have any collateral assets. A further 19% are turned down …