This is all hypothetical - HMT itself admits it can find no GBP stablecoins in use. On coinmarketcap.com you can find poundtoken with a marketcap of £106k and a rather alarming price of 97p and Upper Pound which looks defunct with a price of just 16p.
In contrast, there are several USD stablecoins, the largest being USDT with a market cap of $104bn and USDC at $32bn. UK stablecoin regulation can be based only on the experience of these USD stablecoins and also it seems on risks associated with unrelated crypto-currencies such as FTX which are very different to fiat-backed stablecoins.
It is a case of putting the cart before the horse.
23 Mar 2024 14:01 Read comment
It would help if reports like these define a digital wallet, presumably a mobile app or browser extension, but there are many payment method that could be deployed in a digital wallet:
- cards
- bank account
- e-money account
- third-party bank account orchestration (open banking)
- non-fiat crypto-currency self-custody account
- non-fiat crypto-currency custodial account
- fiat stablecoin custodial account
- fiat stablecoin self-custody account
All these are very different, all are capable of initiating payments, only some can receive payments.
23 Mar 2024 13:29 Read comment
e-money intistutions hold about 35bn EUR in customer depoits in Europe compared to about 17trn EUR in commercial bank deposits. That's 0.2% - difficult to see how EMIs and by extension stablecoins pose a threat to banks.
21 Feb 2024 09:22 Read comment
I think you will find it difficult to charge a fixed fee of £3 for transfers into/out of Japanese Yen - you can find little information about it, but the banks there have a tight control over FX flows and fees. Same for Taiwan.
10 Feb 2024 22:53 Read comment
'Access to Cash' looks like a ploy to give the impression the government is doing its best to preserve its use.
Whereas in fact the intention seems to be to let cash wither on the vine, even accelerate its decline. Unless there is a 'Cash Acceptance' initiative and policy to preseve acceptance, 'Access to Cash' is an impotent initiative.
08 Feb 2024 11:56 Read comment
This article omits to mention that there were 51,529 responses to the consultation of which 555 were from organisations through the online questionnaire. 40,330 were from individuals also through the online questionnaire. Presumably the remaining 10,644 responses by email and letter (41) were from individuals as well.
These numbers are huge/off-the-scale for a government financial sector consultation - as a comparison the recent Garner Future of Payments Review attracted around 60 responses, mainly from organisations.
Given the extraordinary number of responses from members of the public this looks as much a public petition as it is a consultation.
Unfortunately, there is no breakdown of the responses to each question so it is impossible to know the weight of feedback nor the contrast between the views of Fintechs, academia etc on what they believe the public want versus the actual views expressed by the public in the individual responses.
However, it clearly shows public concern on the 'digital pound' is running very high.
25 Jan 2024 23:35 Read comment
Interesting inititiative - browser extensions seem to be used increasingly by consumers, sufficiently so for Citi to launch this product. Good move.
24 Jan 2024 09:17 Read comment
Good points - the triumvirate to be wary of is the unhealthy connection between Big Tech, Big Government and Big Banking
11 Jan 2024 19:25 Read comment
"consumer feedback seems to point towards a general satisfaction with payment services, which suggests the absence of a market failure in the sector." This is certainly not the case in the UK where 80% of the billowing authorised push payment fraud originates in Big Tech apps. Big Tech wants unfettered access to granular consumer payment data to combine with its other sources of data, posing a major risk to consumer privacy and freedoms.
This is clearly an area where Big Tech needs to be reined in.
09 Jan 2024 15:38 Read comment
I regularly use USDC to send USD payments across border to pay suppliers. I get spot rate, instant settlement and low fees - far superior to anything a bank can offer. The only issue is my bank recently is making it very difficult to send GBP to an exchange to buy USDC. This seems to be the case with other banks too - I sense the FCA must be behind this (so much for the government's pleadge to make the UK a leader in crypto/Fintech).
Banks typically lump stablecoins with crypto and talk about the 'investment' risks. They seem oblivious to the merits of stablecoins as a payment mechanism - if I were them I would follow PayPal's lead and offer USD stablecoins as a payment service and expand to EUR, GBP and other major currencies. First movers will clean up.
09 Jan 2024 13:26 Read comment
EBAday
Tatiana RozoumCo-founder at Fintecture
Povilas RuzgailaCo-Founder at Gurupay
Igor KostyuchenokCo-Founder at Mbanq
Richard LeaderCo-founder at FastFin
Dmitri GmyzaCo-Founder at Ultra Stellar
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