When the European Union’s Sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive comes fully into force on June 3, every company that provides financial services to cryptocurrency customers and businesses will have to comply with much tougher regulations about when and how they identify customers. Strictly speaking, the 6AMLD has been in force since December 2020, but crypto service providers outside the EU have another two months to come into full compliance. This means all e-wallet providers and digital asset exchanges — among others — that have any European customers will need to be registered with EU authorities and perform stricter Know Your Transaction, …

A trading platform has vowed to make crypto fun again by enabling users to unlock achievements linked to buying, selling and holding assets. EXMO says its new feature is designed to reward the exchange’s most active customers, increase loyalty, and find a new generation of brand ambassadors. Gamification has become an increasingly important development in the worlds of business and marketing — and research suggests that they can have a considerable effect on things like employee morale and customer sign up rates. How it works EXMO is launching a total of 50 achievements that are going to be up for …

Deutsche Telekom, one of the largest telecom providers in Europe, has invested in blockchain payments platform Celo to support the development of decentralized finance. The telecom giant has made a “significant purchase” of Celo’s native token, Celo, through its strategic investment fund, the Telekom Innovation Pool, Celo announced Tuesday. The firms did not specify the size of the investment. In conjunction with the investment, Deutsche Telekom has joined the global Celo Alliance for Prosperity — Celo’s ecosystem and a network of over 130 members, including nonprofits, merchants, payment processors and blockchain firms. According to the announcement, Deutsche Telekom is the …

The European Central Bank will put itself in jeopardy if it waits around o a digital euro for too long, according to an executive at major cryptocurrency firm ConsenSys. ConsenSys South Africa lead Monica Singer joined the European Blockchain Convention to discuss the role of the private sector in shaping global central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs. She spoke of CBDC-powered benefits and opportunities in a Monday panel with BNP Paribas CIB digital transformation leader Dean Demellweek and Philipp Sandner, a professor at the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center. Singer — who served more than 18 years as CEO of South …

The European Central Bank has published the results of a public consultation on a potential digital euro as the institution inches closer to deciding whether to formally study such an initiative. According to a Wednesday announcement, the ECB received more than 8,200 responses to its public digital euro consultation — a personal record for the bank regarding participation in a public consultation. Of the total responses, 47% came from Germany, with a significant amount also coming from Italy and France, accounting for 15% and 11% of total responses, respectively. The majority of respondents said that privacy was the most desired …

The European Investment Bank, an international financial institution owned by European Union member states, is reportedly exploring blockchain technology for issuing digital bonds. According to a Tuesday Bloomberg report, the EIB has hired major global banks such as Goldman Sachs, Banco Santander and Société Générale to look at a potential deal involving a euro-denominated bond issued on a blockchain. Citing a person familiar with the matter, Bloomberg states that the EIB is planning to deploy blockchain technology for the registration and settlement of digital bonds. Investor meetings for the inaugural sale will reportedly start on Thursday and continue for several …

The China–Europe rail trade route has been subject to a major speed upgrade thanks to the application of blockchain technology, reports China’s People’s Daily Online. The Chengdu International Railway Port in Sichuan province was installed with the blockchain-powered Sino-Europe Trade Link 2.0 platform by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. As well as cutting down on time-consuming logistical document checks, the new system will reportedly allow foreign trade companies to raise money directly from the bank to speed up cash flows. Trades where cargo was delivered from China by rail used to take over a month to reach their …

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 …

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 …

The European Central Bank, or ECB, has been investigating the possibility of launching a digital euro project within five years to complement existing central bank money. But whereas high-profile leaders such as ECB president Christine Lagarde have been largely positive about the prospect, officials from Germany's Bundesbank have remained unconvinced. In a new op-ed for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, ECB board member Fabio Panetta and fellow official Ulrich Bindseil attempted to tackle some of the Germans' misgivings head on: “The ECB is by no means planning to use a digital euro to enforce interest rates that are significantly more negative. …

Germany’s federal bank, the Deutsche Bundesbank, has run successful tests on a project which bridges the traditional finance infrastructure with blockchain technology. Despite the current global rush by central banks to familiarise themselves with central bank digital currency technology, the testing carried out by the Bundesbank, in conjunction with the Deutsche Börse Group and the German Finance Agency, required the issuance of no CB, or any tokenized money at all. The system reportedly relies on two software modules which form a connection between the Bundesbank’s internal system and distributed ledger technology. Instead of creating a token-based system, the bank simply …

Irish lawmakers will impose an anti money laundering regime on crypto for the first time in April The Central Bank of Ireland has extended the nation’s anti-money laundering, or AML, and countering the financing of terrorism, or CTF, guidelines to apply to Bitcoin and crypto assets from April. Starting next month, Ireland’s crypto asset service providers must comply with AML rules and other regulations for the first time. The new rules are a result of the inclusion of the latest European Union AML Directive into Irish law. Companies that operate with crypto assets, and any firms providing services to them, …