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securities

Asian Banks Collaborate on Cross-Border CBDC Project

Global regulators continue to work on strategies in a bid to regulate their prospective crypto markets. One topic that continues to pop up even in regions that are averse to cryptos is CBDCs. In Asia, some major banks are planning to join hands to launch a pilot on the blockchain.

Apex Banks Look To Control Crypto Rise

Financial regulators from four Asian economies have announced that they intend to create cross-border central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in the coming years.

The project rightly named the Multiple Central Bank Digital Currency (m-CBDC) is an ongoing partnership between four major Asian countries. The project aims to resolve challenges like the traditional cross-border payments system’s inefficiencies, high transaction cost, and complex regulatory guidelines. The body of regulators hopes to attract more apex banks to join in the study of blockchain technology.

The m-CBDC sees the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Bank of Thailand, the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, and the Digital Currency Initiative of the People’s Republic of China collaborate to develop a prototype leveraging blockchain technology.

The m-CBDC project builds upon the Inthanon-LionRock project set up in 2019 to facilitate cross-border payments. The new efforts will see the Asian nations further explore the potential of DLT by developing a proof-of-concept (PoC) prototype. The bridge project will also look to investigate “business use cases in a cross-border context using both domestic and foreign currencies.”

Pilot Tests Are Underway On CBDC

As Bitcoin prices rose up to $50K, global capital markets are seeing an outflow of funds into the crypto markets. Financial regulators are left in dire straits as digital assets continue to court attention and generate juicy returns for investors despite their associated risks.

In response, many countries have been on the march to create a digital version of their fiat currencies. Pilot programs launched in China and some parts of Europe have seen significant progress in this field. Although CBDCs do not address the inflationary question, world governments see it as a way to put a cap on cryptocurrencies’ rise.

While several developed countries are making progress, the world’s largest economy, the United States of America, has continued to drag its feet on the CBDC question. Although regulatory agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SECC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have been doing their bit marshaling the crypto space, no official announcement has been made concerning a CBDC program.

Asian Banks Collaborate on Cross-Border CBDC Project

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Bancor Lawsuit Tossed: “New York is not a reasonable and convenient place to conduct this litigation”

A New York judge has tossed a lawsuit filed against Bancor, or BProtocol Foundation, that claimed the sale of unregistered securities, according to an Order Granting Motion to Dismiss received by CI. Judge Alvin Hellerstein dismissed the case and the Plaintiff’s offer to re-plead was denied.

BProtocol Foundation (Bancor) is organized under the law of Switzerland, with offices in Zug, Switzerland, and Tel Aviv, Israel. In 2017, Bancor raised about $153 million in a token offering.

According to company representatives, the ruling is decisive as Judge Hellerstein canceled an oral argument that had been scheduled. The ruling may impact other cases that seek to apply US securities law to digital offerings that sold outside the US.

According to the document, the case was filed on behalf of Timothy C. Holsworth. Holsworth, who replaced the initial plaintiff William Zhang, alleged that he purchased 587 BNT digital coins on September 4, 2019, from Wisconsin, on COSS, a digital exchange in Singapore, for an aggregate cost of $212.50.

The lawsuit alleged that Bancor “made numerous false statements and omissions that led reasonable investors to conclude that the BNT tokens were not securities.” The Plaintiff argued that BNT is a security and thus falls under US securities law.

Filed yesterday, the Order said the Plaintiff has not shown that he was directly contacted by Defendants or that he purchased securities as a result of any active solicitations by Defendants. The Order adds:

“Wherever the current business location of Bancor, New York is not a reasonable and convenient place to conduct this litigation.”

Thus the motion to dismiss was granted in favor of the Defendants.

Bancor was represented by Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel, a law firm that specializes in litigation and is active in multiple high-profile crypto and Fintech cases.

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Southeast Asia’s Funding Societies, an Online Capital Formation Platform, Reports S$2 Billion in Business Financing Disbursals

Southeast Asia-based Funding Societies, a digital financing platform, has revealed that it has made S$2 billion (appr. $1.5 billion) in disbursals of business financing to SMEs across the region as the company enters its sixth year of offering loans.

Funding Societies’ management noted that the amount is partly crowdfunded by more than 200,000 retail investors on its platform and has been disbursed through 3.7 million+ different loans.

Funding Societies reported S$ 850 million (appr. $640 million) in disbursals last year, meanwhile, its platform default rate managed to stay below 2% during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an effort to reduce its portfolio risk during 2020, Funding Societies had tightened up its credit underwriting criteria so that only quality notes would get crowdfunded. The platform also focused on companies that were likely to do well during the pandemic.

These high-performing industries include healthcare, medical supplies, transportation, among several others. Funding Societies reported an 18% growth in platform investors since January 2020.

Big Four auditing firm Ernst & Young’s 2020 ASEAN SME Transformation Survey has revealed that 68% of the surveyed 1,200 SMEs across the six major ASEAN nations (Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam) are open to doing business with non-traditional lending platforms.

Non-traditional lenders may be appealing because of their greater speed and convenience. Small and medium-sized enterprises may prefer the faster and more flexible loan approval process and the digital know-your-customer (KYC) processes, which usually don’t require asset security or visiting physical bank locations.

At present, there’s an annual trade financing gap of approximately $150 billion in Asia, according to estimates provided by the Asian Development Bank. Around 60% of firms have had their applications rejected when applying for trade financing, the bank noted, while pointing out that these businesses did not proceed with the trade due to the lack of funding.

Kelvin Teo, Co-founder and Group CEO of Funding Societies, stated:

“We’re thrilled to reach this major milestone before we even realised it. It is a momentous occasion and encouragement for us. There is much more to do, as we continue to serve the needs of SMEs and Investors in the region. We’re grateful to raise Series C funding last year, enabling us to further help SMEs even amidst uncertain times.”

As reported earlier this month, Singapore based Funding Societies had announced the expansion of operations into Thailand. The online capital formation platform will operate under a crowdfunding license authorized by the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission.

According to a note from Funding Societies, the company worked for more than a year with regulators to set up operations in the country.

Funding Societies currently operates in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Thailand will be the fourth country where the marketplace will operate in its six years of activity. Funding Societies notes that it is the only SME digital financing platform in Southeast Asia to be licensed in four countries.

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Treasury Secretary Once Again Calls Out Cryptos Role in Illicit Transactions 

Janet Yellen, the new Treasury Secretary, has been put in a central role and is expected to push crypto regulations sometime in the next four years. While she has shared mixed feelings towards digital assets, she maintains that her primary objective is investor protection.

Investor Protection Takes Priority

This week, Yellen appeared in a CNBC interview where she touched several topics, including the prospect of crypto regulations. The Treasury Secretary explained that cryptocurrencies would need a special regulatory environment, as the government hopes to protect investors from their speculative nature and propensity to be used in criminal activities.

The Treasury Secretary recently held a meeting with several other policymakers, including the Federal Reserve Bank, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and New York Federal Reserve – over the GameStop saga of last month and its fallout.

At the meeting, the policymakers agreed that market practices worked reasonably well. However, Yellen remains committed to investor protection as far as cryptocurrencies are concerned.

All Eyes on Janet

This isn’t the first time Yellen will raise the issue of criminal activity in particular. As part of her Senate confirmation in January, she pointed out that digital assets remain a particular anti-money laundering (AML) concern that she hopes to mitigate in her tenure as Treasury Secretary.

“We need to make sure that our methods for dealing with these matters — with terrorist financing — change along with changing technology. Cryptocurrencies are a particular concern. I think many are used at least in a transaction sense mainly for illicit financing and I think we really need to examine ways in which we can curtail their use and make sure that anti-money laundering doesn’t occur through those channels,” Yellen said.

Despite this, the policymaker has also pointed out that cryptocurrencies can improve the American financial system. In a written statement to the Senate Finance Committee, Yellen explained that she would look to harness cryptocurrencies’ potential to improve the financial system’s efficiency.

For now, Yellen has yet to adopt any particular policies that could harm the crypto industry. Of course, the Biden administration appears to be focusing on mitigating the coronavirus, and the Treasury Secretary has her hands full with managing its financial implications. However, all eyes will be on her in the coming months as she begins rolling out specific policy proposals.

Treasury Secretary Once Again Calls Out Cryptos Role in Illicit Transactions 

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Congress is blaming Robinhood, not Reddit

Vlad Tenev, Robinhood’s CEO, very much occupied the hot seat in today’s hearing before the House Financial Services Committee over January’s market volatility. 

None of the representatives seemed particularly interested in putting the screws to Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, and many seemed to give Keith Gill the same props the rest of us did.

These aren’t the market manipulators you are looking for

Gill, in all fairness, was the most likeable character involved, introducing his remarks by saying “A few things I am not: I am not a cat and I am not an accredited investor.” Gill, who really started this chain of events by posting about his investment into GameStop in June 2019, even doubled down on his opinion that GME remains a good buy today, at current prices. This is despite the fact that wild GME trading has attracted criminal investigation.

That lack of scrutiny towards Gill and Huffman does much to quell widespread fear that the events surrounding explosive trading in GameStop (GME) shares at the end of January would kick off probes into social media platforms’ role in potential market manipulation.

This is even as the House Antitrust Subcommittee announced today more hearings to scrutinize the biggest players in social media. Reddit, for now, seems to have flown under the radar.

Congressman Warren Davidson, who sits on the committee, noted this rare area of consensus, telling Cointelegraph: “I was hopeful right out of the gate because early on in the news cycle AOC was sticking up for the Reddit users, saying these people should have a right to trade. And then Ted Cruz, on the other end of the political spectrum said, ‘well, we agree.’”

Tenev’s business model

Though broadly, Republicans were more lenient than Democrats in addressing Robinhood’s activity, and especially the firm’s controversial shut-off of buying but not selling of GME and other high-volatility stocks, everybody wanted answers from Tenev.

The nature of Robinhood’s revenue model, which is based on the sale of order flow, while advertising itself as commission-free, fell under mass scrutiny, as did it’s dependence on a $3 billion injection of capital to meet collateral requirements.

“I believe a vulnerability was clearly exposed in your business model,” said Congressman Anthony Gonzales while questioning Tenev. “We just can’t live in a world where my constituents can have their shares liquidated if you can’t make a capital call.”

Many called out Robinhood’s claims to be busy democratizing finance. Tenev consistently pushed the figure of $35 billion as Robinhood users’ total gains, which Rep. Jim Himes said “you and anybody else schooled in finance know is meaningless without a rate-of-return.”

But while today’s hearing revealed a lot of hostility towards Tenev, it wasn’t all that educational.

Despite Chairwoman Maxine Waters’ admonition that “This is not political theater at all,” there didn’t seem to be any concerted sense of solutions to the epic trading that fueled GameStop’s (GME) meteoric rise at the end of January.

Real-time solution?

Some proposals, including from Tenev himself, as well as Davidson, were that the situation would not have developed at all if the U.S. had trading that settled the day of, rather than two days later — termed T-0 rather than T-2. Tenev noted “The existing 2-day period to settle trades exposes investors and the system to risk.”

Kenneth Griffin, CEO of Citadel, which he described as “the largest market maker in the world,” disputed the likelihood of a real-time system for securities trading in the next several years, saying: “The issue is everything has to work perfectly.” Real-time trading, he said, “requires that every bit of the workflow is perfectly synchronized across the parties.” Davidson disagreed, saying “Clearly in your business the technology exists for trading firms that are engaged in high-frequency trading.”

Davidson noted the potential role of blockchain. The potential of security tokens to solve issues with intermediaries and brokers has been one of the long-promised benefits of blockchain, though that is changing.

Today’s hearing was just the beginning, Chairwoman Waters affirmed. She said the committee aimed to hold two more with different witnesses.

Congress is blaming Robinhood, not Reddit

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