The #tale of the shoe salesmen in Africa Thomas Bata, the founder of Bata Shoe, was fond of telling the story of how he sent two salesmen to explore market potential in Africa. One cabled back to the home office: “No one here wears shoes. No potential.” The second salesman cabled: &8220;Everyone here is barefoot.…Read more The #Blackrock tale #told in the UK: #ETFs & #Robo-advisors
Bank Innovation
TechCrunch understands from a source close to the transaction that #FinLeap’s latest round gives the #company a post-money #valuation of €121 million (based on a €100 million pre-money valuation). Read More
#Blockchain had been widely associated with #banks but less frequently associated with governments. This article would open your horizons on the importance of blockchain to the UK #Government based on their recently published whitepaper.
We will extract key points from this 88-page long whitepaper for your easy, bite-sized consumption on the go. First of all, it should be noted that the UK government is serious about blockchain. They even went as far as to equate the weight of blockchain with the Magna Carta, which established the rule of law and forms part of the British Constitution.
The UK Chief Scientific Adviser proposed that the UK government appoint a minister to guide the implementation of the blockchain throughout the administration. It is also revealed the UK forms part of the Digital 5 group of countries with Estonia, South Korea, Israel and New Zealand to work and learn from each other. There are some useful initiatives, but I would point out three noteworthy applications of the blockchain.
Before I proceed further, it is useful that blockchain is an electronically distributed ledger system that is designed to be immutable. Once the record has been entered, it cannot be changed at least for the open source unpermissioned network. The UK government is championing the permissioned blockchain network where it can be controlled by trusted actors such as governments and banks.
Unlike traditional paper-based ledger, whenever a trusted actor made changes, the process would generate a digital signature that can be seen by other users in the system. The reconciliation process easy because when one party’s record is corrupted, other parties can authenticate the document.
Taking it a step further, the UK government wants to apply blockchain to smart contracts for industries as wide as food, financial services, health, and utilities. These contracts will restrict access to sensitive information using computer code instead of access being granted by an administrator.
Legal codes are the laws of the land while technical codes are the programming structure that allows systems to run. Legal codes are described as ‘extrinsic’ where the rules can be broken and punishment would follow later. Technical codes are ‘instrinsic’ where the rules cannot be broken as the system will simply stop if illegal activities are detected. This assumes no hacking or security breaches.
The UK government wants the rule of law to govern the operations of technical codes. The private sector such as Visa had already demonstrated that they can use technical codes to enforce their set of rules. For the UK government, they want the best of both worlds.
They want blockchain technical codes to be regulated by laws and they also want technical codes to help them enforce the laws. It was recommended that the government understand how existing technical codes regulate industries such as finance and incorporate them into laws. Web developers can use blockchain to create a more robust internal governance process at lower compliance cost for the general public.
The immutable and distributed nature of blockchain would make it harder for documents to be forged. Forged documents are instrumental to the smuggling of diamonds which allows them to be converted to cash. Diamonds are small and easy to carry which is the preferred hard currencies for criminal and terrorist financing.
The diamond industry combats this issue by introducing blockchain #technology system Everledger which provides a digital passport for each diamond. Every time the diamond is bought or sold, the passport will record this transaction and the system would prevent forgery and the money laundering that goes along with it.
The UK government also warned against the unpermissioned blockchain that allowed criminal activities to occur such as the ‘Silk Road’ marketplace. They preferred the permissioned blockchain structure which allowed the authorities to control financial flows with ‘off-ramps’.
Conclusion
The UK Government is serious about blockchain, and it wants to compete effectively with other technologically advanced countries such as the Unites States and Singapore. Blockchain is no longer the novel technology, and the establishment has accepted it. The only question is how can governments apply blockchain effectively to the governance process and also to improve the productivity of their industries.
The post How The UK Government Applies Blockchain in 2016 appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.
  Last #week we crossed the 10,000 subscribers milestone. We are taking a moment in this weekly #wrap to celebrate with our community. Bring a colleague to join the&160;community and enrich our open-source research. Coverage last week was global; The West, with a German, French, and Canadian focus. The East with Australia. Enjoy. Is a…Read more Wrap of Week #23: #Crowdfunding, #Digital #wallets & POS, #Marketplace&160;#lending
Bank Innovation
South East Asian capital #Singapore is busy building a infrastructure, but Hong Kong rather serving as a base for Chinese #fintech companies, according to law firms.
Singapore is likely to be the top choice for fintech companies to start their businesses thanks to regulations, government support and funding access, said Astrid Raetze, a partner in Baker & McKenzie’s Sydney office who is leading the firm’s fintech group. A second option would be Australia and Hong Kong would be third, she said.
“Singapore is putting their money where the mouth is,” by making regulatory changes, setting up fintech bridges and encouraging talent to live there. “Other regulators in the region are not responding in the same fashion.”
The Singapore government has adopted the “regulatory sandbox”, which allows start-ups to operate businesses without having a full license, while Australia is considering it, she noted. The former has also set up a fintech bridge with UK last month. She also observed that no Asian #banks are participating in the #blockchain experiment at the moment, as compared to active development by US and European peers. Blockchain is a public ledger of all financial transactions that have been executed, which can be shared across networks.
B2B fintech
In Australia, high costs to acquire new customers online are shifting development of #robo-advisers from a business-to-customer approach to business-to-business.
The focus on the B2B side is also likely to be the trend in Hong Kong. “There is more feasibility and potential on the institutional platform in Hong Kong than on the retail side. China has a good shadow over Hong Kong and there are more opportunities there,” said Gavin Raftery, another partner based in Tokyo.
“In the SAR we are seeing fintech working together with financial institutions, as opposed to the disruptive type of fintech,” as banks are already quite easily accessible in Hong Kong compared to the mainland, said Karen Man, a Hong Kong-based partner. Hong Kong can also serve as a base, or a “launching pad” for Chinese domestic fintech players to expand overseas.
Huge domestic Chinese fintech firms try to go offshore and expand into international markets – both the developed and emerging markets. They include some peer-to-peer lending companies, but some are trying to bring the whole online platform, which includes payment, banking or wealth management, to overseas markets as well.
For further regulatory information please refer to:
[linkedinbadge URL=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-bursak-18360137″ connections=”off” mode=”icon” liname=”Alex Bursak”] is ASEAN Head of Risk Information and Grading at Euler Hermes Singapore (Allianz Group) and this article was originally published on linkedin.
In this opinion piece, Freemit CEO John Biggs casts a critical eye on the current state of the #FinTech industry today.
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Bank Innovation
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