What's New in Payments

Visa seeks product manager for cryptocurrency team

Technical Product Manager, Visa Fintech — Visa — “As a product manager on the Visa Crypto team, this person will have responsibility for executing Visa’s product strategy within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. This highly motivated individual will be responsible for managing a product roadmap and collaborating with key stakeholders across the strategy, risk, research and engineering organisations.”



What's New in Payments

JP Morgan to launch its own cryptocurrency

JP Morgan is rolling out the first US bank-backed cryptocurrency to transform payments business — CNBC — “Each JPM Coin is redeemable for a single US dollar, so its value shouldn’t fluctuate, similar in concept to so-called stablecoins. Clients will be issued the coins after depositing dollars at the bank; after using the tokens for a payment or security purchase on the blockchain, the bank destroys the coins and gives clients back a commensurate number of dollars.”


Samsung to include a cryptocurrency key store in the Galaxy S10?

Samsung Blockchain KeyStore confirmed by Galaxy S10 leaked images — SamMobile — “The images show the Samsung Blockchain Keystore app running on the Galaxy S10. The splash page mentions that this app is a ‘secure and convenient place for your cryptocurrency’… There’s also going to be a relevant menu item for Blockchain KeyStore in the Settings app under the Biometrics and Security section. It mentions that the service lets users secure and manage their blockchain private key.”



Rambus launches bank-grade blockchain and cryptocurrency security platform

Vaultify by Rambus

PARTNER NEWS: Rambus has launched Vaultify Trade, a blockchain and cryptocurrency security platform that leverages the company’s expertise in tokenization and encryption to let banks safely offer their clients a range of value-added digital asset services from within their existing mobile banking apps — with bank-grade security... More


What's New in Payments

Digital currency pioneer David Chaum launches high speed blockchain for payments

Announcing David Chaum’s Elixxir: First blockchain capable of meeting the needs of consumer-scale messaging and payments — Elixxir — “The Elixxir blockchain can scale to hundreds of thousands of transactions each second, each message or payment delivered or confirmed within seconds, efficiently enabling use as a smartphone app.”


What's New in Payments

French football club to launch its own cryptocurrency

Paris Saint-Germain becomes first football club in the world to announce long term cryptocurrency strategy — Paris Saint-Germain — “Socios.com will work alongside the club to develop the world’s first Fan Token Offering (FTO) for the Paris Saint-Germain fanbase. The Paris Saint-Germain fan token will be listed on the Socios.com platform and will allow fans to engage with the club through mobile voting and polling platforms. Token owners will also be granted access to exclusive fan rewards, content and experiences.”



Barclays files blockchain funds transfer and KYC patents

Barclays seeks twin blockchain patents for banking services — Coindesk — “The US Patent and Trademark Office published two applications by the UK’s second-largest bank Thursday, both of which revolve around account security. Perhaps most notably, however, was an application for a patent which outlined a blockchain platform which could facilitate cryptocurrency transfers. The bank also proposed streamlining know-your-customer processes by storing identifying information on a private blockchain.”


What's New in Payments

Mastercard patent proposes combining blockchain with existing payments systems

Method and system for linkage of blockchain-based assets to fiat currency accounts — USPTO — “The use of traditional payment networks and payment systems technologies in combination with blockchain currencies may provide consumers and merchants the benefits of the decentralized blockchain while still maintaining security of account information and provide a strong defense against fraud and theft.”


What's New in Payments

BIS: Digital currencies don’t yet offer a solution to any specific economic problems

Cryptocurrencies: looking beyond the hype — Bank for International Settlements — “Cryptocurrencies promise to replace trusted institutions with distributed ledger technology. Yet, looking beyond the hype, it is hard to identify a specific economic problem which they currently solve. Transactions are slow and costly, prone to congestion, and cannot scale with demand. The decentralised consensus behind the technology is also fragile and consumes vast amounts of energy. Still, distributed ledger technology could have promise in other applications.”


What's New in Payments

Central bank patents point to plans for a hybrid digital currency in China

PBOC filings reveal big picture for planned digital currency — Coindesk — “The ultimate goal, according to PBOC’s patents, is to ‘break the silo between blockchain-based cryptocurrency and the existing monetary system’ so that the digital currency can sport cryptocurrency-like features, while being widely used in the existing financial structure.”



What's New in Payments

Marshall Islands to issue official digital currency

Marshall Islands to issue own sovereign cryptocurrency — Reuters — “The Marshall Islands will issue its own cryptocurrency that will be circulated as legal tender along with the US dollar… SOV is based on what the Marshall Islands government calls the ‘Yakwe framework’, which requires users to identify themselves on the blockchain, solving the anonymity problem that has plagued bitcoin and precluded its mainstream adoption.”



NFC World

Bitcoin owners turn to NFC implants to keep their cryptocurrency safe

Bitcoin under the skin – Why people are using subdermal microchip wallets — CCN — “Dutchman Martijn Wismeijer is very cautious when it comes to storing Bitcoin so much so that in 2014, he had two NFC (near field communication) chips surgically implanted into each hand to store his encrypted Bitcoin keys. Wismeijer stated a number of reasons for the drastic method of storing crypto, saying he had lost the majority of his Bitcoin over the years to exchange failure, hacking, and theft… Wismeijer says he uses his chips every day to make purchases — the process involves scanning the chips with his smartphone to receive and then decrypt the keys in order to make a transaction.”


What's New in Payments

Korea’s capital city plans its own payments cryptocurrency

Mayor Park Won-soon unveils Seoul cryptocurrency ‘S-Coin’ — Coindesk Korea (translation) — “Park Won-soon, mayor of Seoul, said he will create a coin currency called S-coin that can be used in Seoul… He thinks that ‘blockchains can be applied to all administrations in Seoul such as the public transport system operated by Seoul City and the provision of youth allowance.'”


What's New in Payments

Rakuten to use blockchain for global loyalty and payments program

Rakuten will roll its $9bn loyalty program into a new blockchain-based cryptocurrency, Rakuten Coin — Techcrunch — “The company is planning a new cryptocurrency called Rakuten Coin — built on blockchain technology and the company’s existing loyalty program, Rakuten Super Points — which it plans to use to encourage loyalty services globally and to help customers to buy goods across different Rakuten services and markets… The news was announced by Rakuten’s CEO Hiroshi “Mickey” Mikitani on stage at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where he described Rakuten Coin as a ‘borderless’ currency.”


What's New in Payments

PayPal patents faster cryptocurrency payments system

Expedited virtual currency transaction system — USPTO — “The systems and methods of the present disclosure practically eliminate the amount of time the payee must wait to be sure they will receive a virtual currency payment in a virtual currency transaction by transferring to the payee private keys that are included in virtual currency wallets that are associated with predefined amounts of virtual currency that equal a payment amount identified in the virtual currency transaction.”