U.K. blockchain startup Setl is about to enter an E.U. settlement system after receiving approval from the French securities regulator to run a central securities depository, the Financial Times (FT) writes Tuesday, Oct. 23. Setl, which develops blockchain solutions for the financial sector, received a license from the Autorite des Marches Financiers and can now connect to the Target2-Securities platform — a €1 billion pan-European network for securities settlement run by the European Central bank with the aim to increase the speed of cross-border payments. As per the FT, official approval for Setl to join the depository will be issued …

A senior executive from U.K.-based bank HSBC has said that time-efficient distributed ledger technologies (DLT) and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) represent a “great challenge” to existing real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems, Cointelegraph learned at the Money20/20 conference Oct. 23. HSBC’s Global Innovation Lead for Global Liquidity & Cash Management, Craig Ramsey, made his remarks during a panel during the Money20/20 conference in Las Vegas yesterday, which was devoted to “Digital Opportunities for Cross-Border Inter-Bank Transactions.” When asked by moderator Robert Ruark — principal at financial services at “big four” audit firm KPMG — about which technologies HSBC is currently …

U.K. Member of Parliament (MP) Stephen Hammond has joined the advisory board of a new retail investor-focused crypto exchange to provide guidance on government relations. The news was shared in a press release with Cointelegraph today, Oct. 22. Hammond is also notably a member of the Treasury Select Committee, where he is responsible for government financial oversight and regulation. The exchange, dubbed IronX, is a regulated platform that has been jointly established by digital trading firm IronFX and EmurgoHK, developers of the ninth-largest crypto by market cap, Cardano (ADA). The platform says it “aims to “bring crypto trading to the …

The average earnings of a blockchain engineer have soared to between $150-175,000 per year, CNBC reported Oct. 21, citing Hired’s 2018 State of Salaries Report. Far higher than the $135,000 average software engineer salary, the figure puts blockchain engineers in the same pay bracket as artificial intelligence (AI) specialists, as the pace of blockchain recruitment demand gathers pace. The figure is also notably higher than other specialized tech engineering roles; Hired CEO Mehul Patel told CNBC that: "There's a ton of demand for blockchain. Software engineers are in very short supply, but this is even more acute and that's why …

U.K.-based multinational security services company G4S has developed a new service for protecting cryptocurrency assets, the firm announced in an official press release Thursday, Oct. 18. G4S, formerly Group 4 Securicor, has released an “innovative security solution” for holding crypto assets in a form of high-security offline storage protecting customers from hacks. G4S also runs both prisons and detention centers, as well as stores cash for “large companies,” the Financial Times notes. According to the senior risk analyst at G4S Consulting Dominic Maciver, the new crypto assets security solution is based on a foundation of “vault storage” that is inaccessible …

U.K.-based bank Natwest will integrate a new blockchain platform based on R3 Corda technology for use in the syndicated loans market, financial news platform Mondovisione reports today, October 18. The new platform, dubbed “Fusion LenderComm,” was developed by blockchain consortium R3 and fintech enterprise Finastra, and aims to streamline the global market for syndicated loans — loans whose size or degree of risk means that more than one lender underwrites them, as part of a “syndicate” of two or more financial institutions. Natwest’s move comes roughly a year after a pilot of the platform was undertaken with participation from several …

Rwanda has partnered with a U.K.-based blockchain startup to trace the mining of the conflict metal tantalum in the country, according to the startup’s press release, published Oct. 16. Rwanda is the world’s leading producer of tantalum, the mineral used in consumer electronics such as smartphones and computers. By using blockchain technology in partnership with startup Circulor, the Rwandan Mining, Petroleum and Gas Board plans to make the production of tantalum more transparent. The press release states that blockchain tech implementation will help “companies comply with the internationally mandated efforts to eradicate sources of funding for conflict minerals.” According to …

A U.K.-based industry body for the responsible finance sector revealed plans to introduce a blockchain tool to monitor firms’ sustainable commitments, Reuters reports Wednesday, Oct. 17. The Responsible Finance & Investment (RFI) Foundation is developing a blockchain-powered tool to track companies’ sustainable commitments and to detect those entities who do not comply with their ethical credentials. The new system is expected to enable the industry group to reduce so-called “greenwashing,” a practice that implies firms claiming that they are more ethical or ecologically friendly than they are in fact. The RFI Foundation’s initiative comes as a part of a plan …

Coming every Sunday, the Hodler’s Digest will help you to track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions, and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week CNBC’s Ran Neuner Claims Bitcoin’s Price Is Set To “Explode” Ran Neuner, crypto analyst and host of CNBC’s show Cryptotrader, said this week that the price of Bitcoin is “about to explode.” In a series of tweets, the trader predicted that a notable Bitcoin rally could be tied to the SEC’s upcoming decision …

Jeff Kaufmann, Legal Director at British law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain (RPC), said that the introduction of cryptocurrency market regulations in the U.K. could take two years, according to an RPC press release published Oct. 11. RPC is a London-based corporate and insurance law firm with offices in Bristol, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and staff amounting to 720 people, including over 80 partners and 330 other lawyers. Since 2014 the firm has been named Law Firm of the Year three times. Kaufmann said that the implementation of crypto market regulations in the U.K. would take about two years, given that …

Blockchain has one new supporter: the UK finance minister Philip Hammond. Quizzed at the Conservative Party conference on how the UK government might solve Brexit’s UK-Irish border issue, he suggested that blockchain technology may be a solution. "There is technology becoming available […] I don’t claim to be an expert on it but the most obvious technology is blockchain.” He didn't go into any further detail, but in raising distributed ledger technology (DLT) as one way of facilitating 'frictionless' movement between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, he sparked hope that blockchain could help ensure seamless post-Brexit trade between …

The Thai Ministry of Commerce has begun to conduct feasibility studies on the use of blockchain in copyright, agriculture, and trade finance, English-language Thai newspaper Bangkok Post reports Tuesday, Oct. 9. A Thai official from Thailand’s Trade Policy and Strategy Office (TPSO), Pimchanok Vonkorpon, told the Bangkok Post that the study is being conducted with the help of the British embassy in Bangkok. As per the article, the ministry wants to find out whether decentralized solutions can boost the country’s competitiveness and credibility, especially in relation to small business. Vonkorpon added that blockchain feasibility studies will also refer to processing …