SBI Securities’ trading revenue surged 19.2% in 2019, largely due to the inclusion of the company’s crypto investment wing, which turned a $7.1 million loss into a $30 million profit over the year. Japanese financial services giant SBI Holdings released its new financial report on Oct. 30. The report analyzed results for the six-month period ended Sept. 30, 2019 and witnessed major growth of SBI’s crypto-heavy venture capital arm in 2019 amid a general decline in SBI’s revenue. SBI VC Trade profits grow over $30 million over a year According to the report, SBI VC Trade’s profit before income tax …

The number of Americans who own cryptocurrencies has almost doubled in 2019, from 7.95% in 2018 to 14.4%, according to a new survey by Finder. 36.5 million Americans own crypto Finder, an Australia-based financial services firm, has surveyed 2,068 Americans to figure out that 36.5 million people in the United States own some form of crypto to date. Titled “A rising number of Americans own crypto,” the survey was released on Oct. 14, as Finder tweeted. Average $5,447 holdings versus $360 median amount According to the survey, the average amount out of the totally owned crypto by Americans accounts for …

A Singaporean banking branch of CIMB Group, one of the largest Asian investment banks, has completed its first blockchain-based trade financing transaction. The transaction was processed using a blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) platform developed by local trade financing firm iTrust Trading, Yahoo Singapore reports Oct. 17. By applying iTrust’s blockchain-based IoT, CIMB intends to minimize the risks associated with commodity trade financing and facilitate credit extension for its customers by gaining access to real-time monitoring of the cargo data in transit and in the warehouse. The technology reportedly provides all stakeholders with secured accessibility and data integrity of …

Security token offerings, or STOs, have more or less taken the mantle from their semi-defunct counterpart, the initial coin offering (ICO). Still, the extreme rise and subsequent fall of the ICO has left quite an impression on the cryptocurrency industry. At its peak prevalence in 2017, this novel fundraising prototype accumulated a total of $6.2 billion — but it wasn’t set to last. Come December of the same year, ICOs had become a shadow of their former selves, plummeting in demand. So far, a mere $366 million has been raised via ICOs in 2019, a retrace of 94% from their …

United Kingdom-based financial software firm Finastra has partnered with Ripple to join RippleNet, a global blockchain payments network with over 200 members. Faster integration with partners As officially announced by Ripple on Oct. 9, the new partnership will allow hundreds of Finastra’s customers to connect and transact with RippleNet to provide faster and cheaper cross-border payments. In turn, over 200 financial institutions on RippleNet will have access to Finastra’s network of banks, allowing mutual customers to access and partner with each other. Users will be able to send international payments with end-to-end tracking and monitoring of the fees, transaction time …

What is the Crypto Finance Conference? The CFC bills itself as “the most exclusive blockchain investors’ confidence in the industry.” Held on an invitation-only basis, just 200 attendees will be at the Crypto Finance Conference in St. Moritz from Jan. 15–17, 2020. According to the organizers, the rationale behind limiting the event’s size is ensuring that those present have the opportunity to establish meaningful connections. Countless experts are on hand as keynote speakers — addressing topics that explore the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for decentralized finance. Talks will explore the critical role for stablecoins in financial inclusion, an insight into …

The credit rating arm of financial services giant Morningstar is developing a blockchain platform for the $117 trillion debt securities industry. Morningstar Credit Ratings is building an evaluation system for debt securities issued as tokens on a blockchain, Forbes reports on Oct. 2. Michael Brawer, COO at Morningstar Credit Ratings, stated that the firm is working with a number of blockchain-oriented firms who are seeking to issue debt instruments on a blockchain. According to Forbes, Morningstar rates a wide range of assets based on their past returns to investors on a scale of one to five. The company reportedly started …

Blockchain company Spring Labs will be developing a national property lien registry for four financing providers in the United States. Combat fraud and enhance identity validation In an Oct. 1 press release, Spring Labs announced that it was selected by the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing providers to create a registry to track property liens in the $5.6 billion energy-efficient loan market. The Spring Protocol, which is being developed by Spring Labs, will reportedly make it possible for financial institutions to exchange identity, fraud and risk information among themselves, without revealing additional consumer data in order to provide loans …

Lloyds Bank is partnering with blockchain platform Komgo to streamline its commercial banking division. Blockchain to streamline international trade process On Sept. 25, United Kingdom financial news outlet FStech reported that Lloyds Bank, one of the “Big Four” clearing banks in the U.K., said that it would use Komgo’s platform “to enable quicker international commodity trade finance,” adding: “Komgo’s DLT platform digitises and streamlines the commodity trade finance process, enabling businesses to quickly and automatically exchange data and associated documents across a wide range of solutions – from letters of credit and KYC management to receivables discounting – in a …

As the world of finance continues adapting to contemporary innovations, it almost cannot help but drag other industries along for the ride — willingly or otherwise. Film is one such sector currently undergoing a quiet revolt, concocting a radical subversion to traditional models of financing. This is partly due to the emergence of distributed technologies such as blockchain, and it has led to a new concept: the tokenization of everything. In its purest form, tokenization is the act of adding liquidity to real-world assets. A good — if not exact — comparison is depicted in stocks and shares, which represent …

Tech Mahindra, the IT subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Mahindra Group, partnered with American distributed ledger technology (DLT) firm Adjoint to launch a blockchain financial management and insurance solution. Telecommunications industry news outlet CommsMEA reported on Sept. 2 that the solution is the first of its kind. With this service, clients will reportedly be able to save $4 million for every $1 billion of financial risk management and banking relationships. Auditable data recording Per the report, users of the new system will be able to validate the business case with their own data in their own secure environment and help eliminate …

Banking and financial services giant HSBC has completed the first yuan-denominated letter of credit transaction on a blockchain using the Voltron trade finance platform. As Reuters reported on Sept. 2, HSBC conducted the first blockchain-based yuan-denominated letter of credit transaction deploying R3’s Corda-powered Voltron platform. In the cross-border transaction, Hong Kong-based electronics manufacturer MTC Electronics exported a shipment of LCD products to its parent firm Shenzhen MTC. 24 hours instead of ten days The blockchain platform ostensibly enabled the parties to exchange electronic documents in 24 hours instead of the regular five to 10 days required for traditional document exchanges. …