Digital payment arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, Alipay, takes an anti-cryptocurrency stance and bans all Bitcoin and cryptocurrency transactions on its platform.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to testify before the Financial Services Committee of the United States Congress later this month.
Announced at Ethereum Foundation’s Devcon 5 conference, OpenLibra is described as an “open platform for financial inclusion,” with a telling tagline: “Not run by Facebook.”
After trying at a similar endeavor and failing in December last year, Robinhood has announced a feature that promises users returns on their uninvested funds. The new feature is now also fully insured with over $1 million.
The need for fintech solutions is very present in Southeast Asia as many are still without access to financial services. However, at the current rate of growth, there’s a good chance the region will outshine others, in the sector.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said that Libra would not get off the ground for at least three years. He thinks regulatory scrutiny over Facebook’s crypto project is due to the social media giant’s privacy debacle last year.
PayPal was the only company noticeably absent at the recently held Libra Association meeting. The payment giant is reportedly planning to quit Facebook’s project to keep its hands clean of regulatory dirt.
Apple’s Tim Cook has snubbed-off any plans to launch any cryptocurrency. He said that currency matters best belong to government and regulators and private organizations should stay away from it.
The Libra Association mentions four key milestone to be achieved before the mainnet launch. The focus is to get at least 100 partners working as operating nodes on the Libra network.
Broadridge Financial Solutions plans to offer post-trade services for cryptocurrency after acquiring fintech company Shadow Financial Systems. The company invested in blockchain projects, but the Shadow deal will be its foray into cryptocurrency.
Facebook’s Libra is facing many regulatory challenges that have made institutional backers like MasterCard, Stripe, PayPal, and Visa lead several other potential partners in casting their doubts about the project.
The bankers have explicitly stated that Facebook’s Libra will pose huge threat to the consumer demand for deposit accounts, payment volumes, and business models built on privacy.
Mark Zuckerberg said that if the Democratic Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren was to come to power, and pursue her agenda of breaking the Big Tech companies, Facebook won’t step back from fighting the U.S. government in the court.
A Fintech as a service Rapyd network, that allows consumers and businesses to transact however they opt for cross-border and local eCommerce transactions, raised a whopping $100M financing round spearheaded by Oak HC/FT together with Stripe.
PayPal is buying a 70% equity state in Chinese GoPay. According to PayPal, the transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2019 and is subject to customary closing conditions.