National Westminster Bank (NatWest), one of the largest retail and commercial banks in the United Kingdom, has announced that it will lead a consortium that will leverage blockchain technology, to simplify and speed up the process of buying a property in the U.K.According to a recent Forbes report, NatWest will be leading this consortium with real estate blockchain startup Coadjute, along with six other firms including Dezrez Estate Agency Software, Search Acumen Property Data, LMS Panel...
Read More »Robinhood Stock-Trading Startup Officially Abandons Plan to Become a Full Bank
Popular stock-trading startup Robinhood has decided that it is no longer interested in becoming a federally insured bank. Months ago, the company applied for a bank charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), in an effort to become a fully-fledged bank but has now decided to shelve said plans.According to the statement, the company has taken this step to shift its attention away from banking to its own core business directed at improving the efficiency of the financial...
Read More »XRP Price Falls Following Bitcoin Despite Ripple Scores Another Huge Remittance Deal
XRP falls by 5.31% to hit $0.25 indicating weakness and trading apathy, even when Ripple Labs Inc has added another feather to its cap by adding a new remittance service on RippleNet. SBI Ripple Asia and SBI Remit, which is a financial services company in Japan, are set to introduce a new remittance that will enable customers to transfer money between Japan and Vietnam. The new service is set to operate using RippleNet, and the Vietnamese baking giant TP Bank (Tien Phong Commercial Joint...
Read More »The Royal Bank of Canada to Launch Its Cryptocurrency Exchange
Photo: RBCThe biggest Canadian bank, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), might just possibly launch its own cryptocurrency trading platform. Media sources familiar with the situation said that RBC, that has more than $965 billion in total assets, has applied for four patents in Canada and the U.S. Those patents, according to the sources are showing the ways of how it could integrate cryptocurrencies into its operations.As per the patent: “To individual users, managing cryptographic keys and...
Read More »Hong Kong Grants Chinese Tech Giant Tencent a License to Open Virtual Bank
It’s a big win for Chinese tech giant Tencent as Hong Kong’s top-most regulator – Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) – has recently granted them a new license to open a virtual bank.On Friday, November 8, speaking at the World Blockchain Summit in Wuzhen, China, Tencent’s chief of blockchain division – Yige Cai – said that his company has received a go-ahead from the SFC to open blockchain-based virtual banking system in the country.Although not many details of the bank’s launch are...
Read More »Crypto-Focused Silvergate Bank Goes Public on New York Stock Exchange
Silvergate Bank, a crypto-forward bank, has officially gone public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The initial public offering (IPO) has been a long time coming as plans to launch officially began last year.On Nov. 7, the NYSE’s official Twitter account posted a tweet confirming the IPO celebration as well as Silvergate’s ticker – NYSE: $SI.NYSE Opening Bell ?: Silvergate (NYSE: $SI) celebrates their IPO day https://t.co/FX3OQcP0dU— NYSE ? We Are Living Tech (@NYSE) November 7, 2019A...
Read More »Lagarde and Cryptocurrency: Slowly but Surely?
Photo: Wikimedia CommonsI have big hopes for Christine Lagarde following her appointment as the new head of the European Central Bank. And here’s why (Warning: libertarian crypto enthusiasts should look away now).A company I co-founded held Bitcoin in the now-infamous Mt. Gox exchange. You may remember that back in 2013-14 it was the world’s leading Bitcoin exchange handling over 70% of all transactions worldwide. But in February 2014 things went horribly wrong as Mt. Gox suspended trading...
Read More »Ripple Labs Expands RippleNet as the First Vietnamese TPBank Joins It
Ripple Labs Inc. has already started making inroads in the financial space in Asia as sources indicate that TPBank based in Vietnam is the first financial institution in the country to join the blockchain payments network. RippleNet allows international remittances to take place in mere minutes rather than in days unlike traditional networks such as SWIFT and at much less cost as well.This was stated on the bank’s website which indicated the bank’s first foray into blockchain technology and...
Read More »Santander Buys Majority Stake in Startup Ebury for £350M
Spanish bank Banco Santander SA on Monday announced it is acquiring a major stake in the British payments platform Ebury. The price of this acquisition is, according to the announcement, £350 million ($453 million).Proud to announce that @bancosantander has bought a majority stake in Ebury! ? https://t.co/3F8Zisjz1u pic.twitter.com/15GC4O05A8— Ebury (@EburyUK) November 4, 2019Santander is buying 50.1 percent of Ebury’s stake, which makes it a stakeholder having a controlling vote. This...
Read More »XRP is 10X Safer than Fiat for Cross-Border Payments
Ripple‘s XRapid system is 10 times safer and is only one-tenth volatile if compared fiat for making international payments. Fiat cannot compete with XRP’s speed and security.Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system and a form of currency exchange. Banks and financial institutions have the cryptocurrency XRP which is used in a row of Ripple’s solutions, as a settlement infrastructure technology. Payments done using it are irreversible, and there are no chargebacks.In its study Ripple...
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