The Board of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) believes the regulators on both national and international levels need more power to address increasing risks and challenges from the “digitalization of retail marketing and distribution.” In its report, published on Oct. 12, IOSCO proposes measures for the member countries to consider when determining their policy and enforcement approaches to retail online offerings and marketing, given the new challenges that rise with the proliferation of crypto assets. Talking about these risks, the report focuses on the use of behavioral and gamification techniques and pays special attention to influencers who participate …

The Bank for International Settlements, or BIS, has reported it will be partnering with the central banks of Israel, Norway and Sweden to explore international retail and remittance payments use cases for central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs. In a Sept. 28 announcement, the BIS said the collaboration — named Project Icebreaker — will involve the bank’s Innovation Hub Nordic Centre testing key functions and the technological feasibility of interlinking domestic CBDC systems. The central banks will develop a new hub in which the Central Bank of Norway, Bank of Israel, and Sveriges Riksbank can connect their proof-of-concept CBDC systems. …

A multi-jurisdictional Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot has been marked “successful” by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) after a month-long test phase that facilitated $22 million worth of real-value cross-border transactions. The central banks of Hong Kong, Thailand, China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) took part in the pilot program along with 20 commercial banks from those regions. More than $12 million worth of value was issued onto the test platform, which facilitated 164 foreign exchange transactions and cross-border payments between the participating firms totaling over $22 million worth of value according to a Tuesday LinkedIn post …

Governments across the globe see central bank digital currencies (CBDC) as a means to improve the existing fiat ecosystem. Cryptocurrency’s technical prowess supported by the central bank’s underlying trust is key to enabling a rich monetary ecosystem, suggests an International Monetary Fund (IMF) publication. “Digital technologies promise a bright future for the monetary system,” reads the publication attributed to IMF deputy managing director Agustín Carstens and BIS executives Jon Frost and Hyun Song Shin. A BIS study from June revealed that cryptocurrencies outdo fiat ecosystems when it comes to achieving the high-level goals of a future monetary system. Some of …

The principle of “same risk, same regulation” for crypto received further confirmation with the release Wednesday of new guidance on stablecoin arrangements (SAs). The guidance, issued by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), applies the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures (PFMI) for payment, clearing and settlement systems to systemically important SAs that transfer stablecoins. The document is intended for use by SA designers and operators and extends the PFMI standards to SAs without establishing new standards. It notes: “An SA may need to make changes to …

The Financial Stability Board (FSB), a global financial regulator including all G20 countries, is preparing to propose international regulations for cryptocurrencies and stablecoins in October. The FSB on Monday issued a statement on the international regulation and supervision of crypto asset activities, announcing a major crypto regulation effort. The watchdog is planning to report to the G20 finance minister and central bank governors in October 2022 on regulatory and supervisory approaches to stablecoins and other crypto assets. By that time, the FSB targets a public consultation report on the review of recommendations, including “how existing frameworks may be extended to …

Due to Celsius Network’s withdrawal suspension in mid-June, the very topic of crypto lending made its entryway to the acute issues list for the regulators. Last week, lawmakers and officials continued to raise the question of necessary action, with significant utterance belonging to one of the key European crypto skeptics, Christine Lagard. European Central Bank president got so impressed with the Celsius crisis that she coined the term "MiCa II," referring to the main regulatory package for crypto in the European Union. Lagarde believes the new MiCa should include separate crypto-asset staking and lending guidelines. It’s not necessary to be …

In its continued efforts to identify the ideal future monetary system, The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) revealed the edge of the crypto ecosystem over the present-day fiat economy when it comes to fulfilling the policy goals. While sharing its vision for the future monetary system, the BIS outlined eight high-level goals it hopes to achieve — safety and stability, accountability, efficiency, inclusion, user control over data, integrity, adaptability and openness. In its study, BIS found the crypto ecosystem outweighs the traditional finance when it came to broadly fulfilling the policy goals. The above table shared by the BIS shows …

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub announced the launch of a new set of projects targeting various aspects of traditional and crypto payments — including a cryptocurrency market intelligence platform and security for retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). BIS’s cryptocurrency market intelligence platform will be launched under the Eurosystem Centre initiative, which aims to provide vetted data about crypto projects. One of the key drivers for the project’s commencement is the collapse of numerous stablecoins projects and decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platforms such as Terra and USDD. As explained in the official announcement: “The project’s goal is …

Since 2020, miners on the Ethereum blockchain have extracted around $600 million from other investors by miners, according to a new report by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) focusing on common malpractice in the crypto mining industry. The June 16 bulletin, “Miners as intermediaries: extractable value and market manipulation in crypto and DeFi,” suggests three key takeaways from the BIS' research on the functioning of the Ethereum protocol. The first is hardly surprising, which observed that Ether (ETH) and the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols built on it “rely on validators or "miners" as intermediaries to verify transactions and update …

A survey conducted by the Bank for International Settlements, or BIS, suggested that many central banks around the world are looking into rolling out a central bank digital currency, or CBDC. In a paper released on Friday, the BIS Monetary and Economic Department said 90% of 81 central banks surveyed from October to December 2021 were “engaged in some form of CBDC work,” with 26% running pilots on CBDCs and more than 60% doing experiments or proofs-of-concept related to a digital currency. According to the BIS, the increase in interest around CBDCs — up from roughly 83% in 2020 — …

The Bank for International Settlements, or BIS, released a paper Tuesday on central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, and how they can be used to meet policy goals for financial inclusion. The paper drew on interviews conducted in the second half of last year at nine central banks that are currently exploring retail CBDCs. It looked common goals across a range of economic development levels and challenges to inclusion. The paper identified two distinct approaches to CBDC. Some central banks saw digital currency as a catalyst for innovation and development, while others expected it to serve as a complement to …