The central bank of France plans to pilot a central bank digital currency (CBDC) for financial institutions in 2020. François Villeroy de Galhau, the governor of the Bank of France, announced that the bank will start testing the digital euro project by the end of the first quarter 2020, French financial publication Les Echos reports Dec. 4. The Bank of France confirmed the news on Twitter, noting that the announcement was made at a conference co-hosted by two major French financial regulators, the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority and the Autorité des marchés financiers. Digital euro pilot won’t involve …

Gemini, the top global cryptocurrency exchange per CryptoCompare’s latest Exchange Benchmark, hired a former senior executive from United Kingdom-based Starling Bank. Julian Sawyer, a former CEO and co-founder at Starling, will now lead Gemini Europe — the European affiliate of Gemini Trust Company — as the managing director of the U.K. and Europe, the firm announced Dec. 4. Over 20 years in high-growth financial services organizations According to an announcement by Gemini president Cameron Winklevoss, Sawyer joins the major United States-based crypto exchange with a total of 20 years experience at growing financial services organizations. Prior to Starling, Sawyer founded …

A Danish court has ruled that Scandinavian financial services giant Nordea can bar its employees from owning Bitcoin (BTC) and other digital currencies. As BNN Bloomberg reported on Dec. 3, the court justified the restriction by citing the purported risks associated with cryptocurrencies. However, the ruling did not apply to financial instruments associated with digital currencies Nordea had sold to customers, as well as to any cryptocurrency that employees might have invested in before the restriction. Denmark’s union for financial industry employees had filed suit against Nordea, claiming that the ban interfered with employees’ personal lives. Kent Petersen, the union’s …

The Federal Council of Switzerland — the country’s executive governing body — has called for a better regulatory framework for blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) in the country. According to an official announcement released on Nov. 27, the Federal Council adopted a dispatch explaining its priorities for improving blockchain and DLT legislation. The proposal targets legal certainty in the sector, as well as eliminating barriers for blockchain-based applications and reducing the risk of abuse. The Council thus revised a report initially released in December 2018 and submitted a range of proposed amendments to a series of federal acts covering …

Matrixport, a Singapore-based crypto startup launched by former Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu, will expand its services from Asia to Europe through its new Zurich office. Registered under the name of Chaintech in Switzerland, Matrixport will begin offering its trading, lending and custody services in the country, Swiss-centred publication swissinfo.ch reports on Nov. 26. The European expansion news comes less than five months after Wu launched Matrixport in July to offer over-the-counter trading, lending and custody services for crypto. The firm hired dozens of former Bitmain staff that were laid off from Bitmain as a result of the bear market of …

European Central Bank (ECB) board member Benoit Coeure has warned that global stablecoins remain untested and raise potential risks across multiple policy domains. Coeure, a member of the ECB’s Executive Board, made his remarks at the Joint Conference of the ECB and National Bank of Belgium on Nov. 26, in a speech entitled "Crossing the chasm to the retail payments of tomorrow." Global stablecoins pose broad policy risks Coeure’s speech was focused on the failure to establish a pan-European, market-led solution for digital retail payments. Notwithstanding progress with back-end initiatives like SEPA and the TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) system, …

The first deputy governor of the French central bank has called for distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based settlements and payment systems in Europe. Speaking at the AFME Annual Capital Markets Technology and Innovation Conference on Nov. 21, Denis Beau, the first deputy governor of Banque de France, delved into the issue of policy frameworks that could potentially help to bring innovation and growth into Europe’s capital markets. An important impact on the financial industry Beau suggested that the implementation of blockchain-based solutions could have an impact on the financial industry, stating: “The tokenisation of financial assets combined with the recourse to …

The past week has seen a range of crypto- and blockchain-related developments in the German-speaking world. The German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection is planning to sponsor a research project of the University of Marburg on legal issues surrounding blockchain technology, the Swiss online bank Swissquote began offering its customers the trading of a real estate portfolio-covering security token, and an Austrian research project provided proof of profitability for blockchain technology-based decentralized marketplaces. Below is the past week of crypto and blockchain news in review, as originally reported by Cointelegraph auf Deutsch. The German Ministry of Justice donates …

The Finnish Population Register Centre is coordinating a simulated ransomware cyberattack on more than 200 Finnish cities and public organizations. On Nov. 22, Finnish news outlet Yle reported that participating cities and organizations are rehearsing how to respond when a group of hackers demands the participants pay ransomware during a series of simulated cyberattacks. As part of the operation, 235 public organizations were faced with an activist hacker group that threatened to carry out cyberattacks unless it was paid a ransom fee in Bitcoin (BTC) by a certain date. According to the organizers, the aim of the exercise is to …

A Spanish financial watchdog has issued a warning against Ethereum (ETH)-based token dubbed AlyCoin. As Financial Magnates reported on Nov. 18, the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores warned the public against AlyCoin as it the coin is registered neither in Spain nor in the corresponding registry and thus promotes unregulated initial coin offerings (ICOs). Specifically, AlyCoin purportedly provides its customers with financial services in violation of the second paragraph of Article 17 of the Securities Markets Law. 82 million of independent tokens AlyCoin describes itself as an independent token based on Ethereum. The company’s ICO phase is scheduled to …

German airline Hahn Air claims to be the first airline company to issue tickets on a blockchain, the firm announced in a press release on Nov. 18. The ticket sale using blockchain technology was made possible through Hahn Air’s collaboration with a decentralized platform for the travel industry, Winding Tree. Frederick Nowotny, head of sales engineering at Hahn Air, Maksim Izmaylov, the founder of Winding Tree, and Davide Montali, CIO at Winding Tree, became the first passengers to use blockchain-booked tickets. Commenting on the product, Nowotny said the goal of the company is to “investigate and monitor the opportunities this …

Retail giants Carrefour and Nestlé are now using IBM’s Food Trust blockchain platform to track the supply chain of milk-based formula for infants, according to a Nov. 14 announcement. By using the platform, the firms aim to advance consumer confidence in the products’ quality by ensuring more transparency of the entire supply chain of formulas produced by Laboratoires Guigoz. The system aims to improve supply chain transparency and conduct checks of infant nutrition products’ origins. Implementation of blockchain-based tracking systems by retail giants Both Carrefour and Nestlé are not new to the application of blockchain in their internal processes. The …