A public university in the Romanian city of Sibiu in Transylvania has said it will allow students to pay for their admission fees in crypto. According to an announcement from Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu on Wednesday, the institution plans to implement crypto payment methods for its more than 11,000 students starting in July. Students will reportedly be able to pay for admission fees — tuition is roughly $1,000 per year for undergraduates — using Elrond (EGLD), which the university will then convert to Romanian leu. “Our university has been and will continue to be a supporter of the community …

Banking giant Citigroup has successfully completed a proof-of-concept for blockchain-based cross-border payments in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank, or IADB. According to a Thursday announcement, Citigroup’s Citi Innovation Labs and the IADB enabled several disbursements from the United States to a recipient in the Dominican Republic, using the LACChain blockchain network — a proprietary effort by IADB’s regional program LACChain. As part of the project, the IADB deposited tokenized funds denominated in U.S. dollars in a Citi account and transferred the funds using digital wallets, IADB’s blockchain specialist and LACChain technical leader Marcos Allende explained. “After tokenized, these funds …

After completing the first phase of its digital currency pilot project, Sveriges Riksbank has found some critical issues that must be addressed before Stockholmers can buy coffee and kanelbullar with e-krona. In a recent study, Sweden’s central bank presented the first results of its central bank digital currency pilot on a network based on R3’s Corda blockchain. The Riksbank simulated core aspects of a potential CBDC system, including liquidity supply via the Riksbank’s settlement system, RIX, and network members serving as e-kronor distributors. The central bank also simulated participants, end-users and payment instruments like mobile apps. The Riksbank said that …

Indian multinational technology firm Tech Mahindra is developing a new stablecoin service targeting banks and financial institutions. The tech giant announced Monday that it has entered into an agreement with Dutch blockchain application incubator Quantoz to launch a “stablecoin-as-a-service” tool to reduce transaction costs and processing times. The new collaboration targets potential clients from the banking and financial sector as the United States’ Office of the Comptroller of the Currency officially allowed federally chartered U.S. banks to use public blockchains and stablecoins for settlements in January 2021. Rajesh Dhuddu, blockchain and cybersecurity leader at Tech Mahindra, said: “The recent OCC …

The Japanese central bank has launched a proof of concept for its central bank digital currency, according to an official announcement on Monday. Following initial preparations to test the technical feasibility of core CBDC functions and features in early 2021, the Bank of Japan is beginning CBDC testing in its first phase today. During this phase, the bank plans to develop a test environment for the CBDC system and conduct experiments on basic functions related to payment, issuance, distribution and redemption of a CBDC. According to the announcement, this phase is expected to have been completed by March 2022. The …

Major financial institutions are expanding their cryptocurrency services, with Bakkt launching its digital asset payments application for the general public. Bakkt was launched by Intercontinental Exchange in 2018, with the firm offering Bitcoin futures contracts to accredited investors exclusively. The Bakkt App is the firm’s first retail-facing crypto initiative. Bakkt’s app was trialed by 500,000 users invited to participate in its Early Access Program in late 2020. The firm is also conducting a $1 million giveaway to encourage people to download the platform. Launched on March 30, the payments app allows users to manage Bitcoin and other digital assets, including …

It could be a while before European Union gets a central bank digital currency, if it gets one at all. In a Wednesday interview with Bloomberg Television, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde laid out the complex decision-making process with which the bank will determine the future of a digital euro. The ECB will soon release its analysis of eight thousand responses received from its digital euro consultation process. “That will be communicated to the European Parliament which is one of the key players as well as the Commission and the Council with which we operate,” she stated. Based on …

A Scottish music school will begin accepting cryptocurrency for tuition payments following demand from students, it was announced this week. The Morningside School of Music in Edinburgh said it was responding to suggestions from adult pupils in the school, many of whom now work in the city’s burgeoning fintech sector. Morningside’s director, Linda Boyd, said the school had previously used cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) to make business purchases and could see the utility in accepting it as a form of payment. She said, “We sometimes use things like Bitcoin to pay for goods for the school, so we know how …

Online payments giant PayPal will start to accept cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange at its millions of global merchants, the firm’s president and CEO revealed on Tuesday ahead of a formal announcement. News broke regarding PayPal’s rumored decision to accept cryptocurrencies early on March 30. Later in the day, the firm’s CEO, Dan Schulman, confirmed to Reuters that the rumors were true and that an official statement would be released imminently. The new system is expected to feature a crypto checkout service where users can pay for goods and services at approved vendors using their stored coins. The system …

Ripple continues its push into the Asian market by acquiring a stake in a cross-border payments firm. According to a blog post, Ripple has agreed to acquire a 40% stake in cross-border payments firm Tranglo, with the aim to expand RippleNet’s On-Demand Liquidity, or ODL, service that uses the XRP cryptocurrency. The completion of this transaction is subject to regulatory approval, with investment firm TNG Fintech Group remaining the majority shareholder in Tranglo. The new acquisition is expected to significantly expand Ripple’s ODL corridors with Tranglo’s payments infrastructure. Founded in 2008, Tranglo is a cross-border payment processing hub supporting business …

E-commerce merchants can now transact in nearly 40 cryptocurrencies through global payment platform Nuvei. According to the announcement, merchants partnered with the payment provider can use an array of cryptocurrencies to send and receive payments across 200 countries, including top assets Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), lesser known cryptos such as Reddcoin and Bitcoin Gold, and even hyper-volatile coins like Dogecoin (DOGE). Nuvei’s customers can even use Ripple (XRP), despite the asset’s recent legal woes and subsequent delistings from major exchanges. Commenting on the launch, Nuvei’s CEO and chairman, Philip Fayer, described the firm’s support for crypto assets as “empower[ing] …

Stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) have hit another milestone in terms of accumulation by exchanges. According to market data provider CryptoQuant, stablecoin holdings on global crypto exchanges soared to a new all-time high on March 28, exceeding $10 billion. Cryptocurrency exchanges are now holding nearly 16% of the total market value of all stablecoins, with stablecoin market capitalization amounting to $63 billion at the time of writing, according to data from CoinGecko. The total trading volume of all stablecoins is estimated at about $88 billion. According to CryptoQuant data, volumes of stablecoin holdings on exchanges have been …