Finextra Research: Latest fintech news, analysis, interviews, features and opinion by industry experts

Binance legal action sees thousands of claimants join ‘landmark’ proceedings

Thousands of disgruntled Binance customers have registered claims against the trading platform following the outages it faced in May 2021. Earlier this year, Liti Capital announced it is financing the proceedings to be brought in the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre, with claimants being represented by White & Case LLP.

08 November 2021

News/crypto

Singapore Fintech Festival 2021: ‘We haven’t even fuelled the DeFi rocket’

During Singapore Fintech Festival’s panel session ‘Decentralised Finance: Redefining the Architecture’, ChainLink co-founder Sergey Nazarov and Celo CEO and co-founder Rene Reinsberg examine the forces currently driving the decentralised finance (DeFi) sector and how financial institutions should be approaching their DeFi and cryptocurrency strategy.

08 November 2021

News/crypto

Former AliPay UK CEO Rita Liu on how regulators are boosting crypto literacy

Finextra sat down with Mode’s chief commercial officer Rita Liu – also former CEO of AliPay UK, to discuss Mode’s recent partnership with trade association CryptoUK, and how market players and regulators are boosting adoption and education around crypto.

03 November 2021

News/crypto

Kasikorn Bank tech arm launches DeFi incubator and NFT marketplace

The technology arm of Thailand's Kasikorn Bank. KBTG, has established an incubator and venture builder to create new decentralised finance businesses.

18 October 2021

News/regulation

Bank of England peers into the opaque world of DeFi

The Bank of England has begun to explore how to manage risks generated by the rapid initial growth of decentralised finance, or ‘DeFi’ applications.

14 October 2021

News/Sibos

Sibos 2021: Why ‘desirability’ of CBDC is just as important as ‘feasibility’

Following moderator Dr Leda Glyptis of 10x Future Technologies’ introduction surrounding ‘The Future of Money’ with digital currency and tokenisation at the heart, John Egan, CEO of L’Atelier BNP Paribas, stated that a key problem in the conversation around CBDC is that we’ve discussed it from the perspective of what is feasible, rather than what would be technologically desirable.

13 October 2021

News/Sibos

McKinsey: Firms should prepare for the ‘inevitable changes’ of CBDC

McKinsey’s annual Global Payments Report released on day one of Sibos 2021, outlines a positive, albeit unbalanced, return to growth across the sector after Covid-19, underscoring the action firms should take in anticipation of widespread digital currency adoption.

11 October 2021

News/crypto

China cracks down on crypto transactions

China’s central bank announced a clampdown on cryptocurrency trading on Friday, calling all digital currency activities illegal, and vowed to crack down on the sector.

24 September 2021

News/payments

Money 20/20 EU: Will Europe prevail in the new dawn of payments?

Amsterdam: Finextra is on the ground at Money 20/20 Europe, attending a host of sessions to provide you with key highlights from the most popular sessions throughout the conference.

21 September 2021

News/sustainable

Hedera Hashgraph beats DLT competitors on energy consumption

A research report by University College London (UCL) has examined the varying environmental impacts of six different distributed ledger technologies (DLT), finding that Hedera Hashgraph boasts the lowest overall energy consumption of the group.

08 September 2021

News/crypto

El Salvador becomes first country to accept Bitcoin as legal tender

The central American nation today sets a world-first as it adopts the cryptocurrency for use across all goods and services – even taxes.

07 September 2021

News/payments

LSE joins Hedera Hashgraph Governing Council

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) was today announced as the newest member of Hedera Hashgraph’s Governing Council, joining UCL as the second member from the higher education sector.

19 August 2021

News/crypto

Liti Capital to finance ‘landmark’ case against Binance

Proceedings against Binance will be brought in the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre by a group of disgruntled Binance customers who were unable to trade on the platform during this year’s infamous May 19th crypto crash.

19 August 2021

News/crypto

Hacker behind $610m crypto heist in line for reward for returning assets

After returning nearly all the $610 million in cryptocurrency that they stole earlier this week, a hacker has been offered a $500,000 "bug bounty" by the Poly Network.

13 August 2021

News/crypto

Polynetwork says crooks have returned some of $610m hack haul after Twitter plea

Polynetwork, a platform that helps link blockchains together, says that its Twitter plea to hackers to return the $610 million in recently stolen cryptocurrency has begun to pay off, with several million already handed back.

11 August 2021

News/people

Gemini bolsters DeFi team through Guesser acquire-hire

Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini has boosted its DeFi credentials through the acquisition of Guesser, a real-time predictions market platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.

10 August 2021

News/crypto

Valora digital wallet spins out from Celo with $20m Series A funding

Open-source blockchain payments outfit Celo is spinning out Valora, its native digital wallet, into an independent company that has already closed a $20 million Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz.

27 July 2021