2018 – Page 8 – FinTech and Blockchain Law Watch

6 ways for FinTechs to build trust: a regulator’s view

Apr 17 2018

In a recent speech on building trust, Australian Securities and Investments Commission Chair, James Shipton, identified 6 key characteristics that financial service providers, including FinTech companies, should have to ensure that the Australian financial system is efficient, resilient and fair. Those characteristics are:

Financial products that the FinTech company provides do what they say they will and don’t take advantage of consumer biases or lack of knowledge about the product.
Consumers’ interests are prioritised and put before the FinTech company’s.
The FinTech company acts with integrity and fairness, not just in compliance with the law but also taking into account community expectations and standards.
Mistakes and misconduct are quickly identified, reported and rectified.
Open engagement and cooperation with regulators not only about problems but also in relation to business challenges and risks.
Being innovative and using technology to improve products and services to deliver better outcomes for consumers. Although by their very nature FinTech companies are innovative and use technology, an effort should be made to constantly improve outcomes for consumers and not adopt a ‘set and forget’ mindset.

How many of these characteristics do you demonstrate?

Beneficial Owner New Account Rules: What FinTech AML Program Managers and Their Financial Institutions Need to Know

Apr 17 2018

By Dan Cohen and John ReVeal

FinCEN’s new beneficial owner rules take effect May 11, impacting banks and the program managers and similar companies that help banks comply with the Bank Secrecy Act, including FinTech companies that provide AML on-boarding and monitoring services. Under the new rules, banks and other covered financial institutions will be required to identify and verify the identity of the beneficial owners of their legal entity customers. These rules will add to your regulatory burdens, particularly over the next several weeks.

Bank of England Blockchain Settlement Project

Apr 17 2018

By Jonathan Lawrence

The Bank of England, the UK’s central bank, is undertaking a Proof of Concept (PoC) to understand how a renewed Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) service could be capable of supporting settlement in systems operating on innovative payment technologies, such as those built on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). It is hoped that the service will deliver a stronger, more resilient, flexible and innovative sterling settlement system for the United Kingdom to respond to the changing payments landscape. The RTGS blueprint, published in May 2017, stated that the renewed service will offer a diverse and flexible range of settlement models, to enable existing and emerging payment infrastructures to access central bank money.

IOT Group to set up blockchain centre in the Australian energy sphere

Apr 12 2018

By Cameron Abbott and Sarah Goegan

Technology company IOT Group announced this week that it has signed an Australian first energy and blockchain deal. In the agreement with Hunter Energy, IOT Blockchain will build a blockchain centre at the Redbank coal-fired power station in the Hunter Valley, two hours north of Sydney.

Senior English Judge Comments on FinTech

Apr 11 2018

By Jonathan Lawrence

In a recent speech, one of England’s most senior judges explored, in the context of the digital revolution, the culture of and relationship between the UK financial services sector, the UK legal profession, and the judiciary in a changing technological environment. Sir Geoffrey Vos, Chancellor of the High Court, gave the Banking Standards Board Lecture on 20 March.

Australia’s New AML Rules: Reducing the Anonymity of Digital Currencies

Apr 05 2018

By Jim Bulling and Edwin Tan

The Australian Government has recently decided to regulate Digital Currency Exchange (DCE) providers, as they have inherent money-laundering and terrorism financing risks stemming from their high degree of anonymity and ease of cross-border transactions. As part of this regulation, DCE providers must provide regular reports to the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC). These reports must include, if known, the social media identifiers, unique device identifiers and digital wallet addresses of the relevant customer.

Many digital currencies operate on public blockchains that contain records of all transactions ever made, which is essential to their transaction validation and anti-tampering features. This public nature enables every client on the blockchain network to verify that any currency used in relation to a transaction actually exists, by looking through the transaction history of a particular digital wallet address. As such, being able to link digital wallet addresses to particular individuals will, over time, give AUSTRAC the power to trace suspicious transactions up the chain back to an individual. It may also be possible for the Australian Taxation Office to use this information in the future to ensure that individuals correctly report any capital gains resulting from the trading of digital currency for taxation purposes.

Hope for Regulatory Relief on the Horizon? State Regulators to Standardize Licensing Process for Money Transmitters

Mar 27 2018

By Eric A. Love and Judith Rinearson

The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) recently announced that seven states, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas and Washington, have agreed to a multi-state compact (the Compact) that will standardize certain aspects of the licensing process for money services businesses (MSBs).

Increasing FinTech regulatory ties between Australia and the UK

Mar 27 2018

By Jim Bulling and Michelle Chasser

Australia and the UK have strengthened their joint support of the FinTech industry by entering into two new arrangements which build on the original FinTech cooperation agreement entered into by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in March 2016.

The Australian and UK Governments have entered into the UK-Australia FinTech Bridge which establishes a framework for individual arrangements involving governments, regulators, trade and investment, and business. A number of understandings were agreed to including:

investigating options for developing complementarity between the UK and Australian open banking regimes;
continuing to develop a set of international standards for blockchain applications; and
exploring opportunities to enable quicker processing of licences for firms already licensed in the other jurisdiction.

UK FCA Lead on Global Sandbox

Mar 20 2018

By Jonathan Lawrence

In a speech to Innovate Finance 2018 on 19 March, Christopher Woolard, Executive Director of Strategy and Competition at the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) talked about the demand from FinTech firms to operate internationally and the FCA working with partners from around the world to consider options for a global sandbox. He said that the potential of such a project is huge – from solving global problems like money laundering to reducing the regulatory burden of compliance. Currently there is no joint sandbox programme with other regulators for firms to participate in. Such a project represents new territory.

Archive:2018